And I’m not even counting stuff that doesn’t belong there. 
12 Likes
Good point.
15 Likes
Careful! I remember Jon Stewart begging Trump to get back into the 2012 race so he’d have more comedy fodder. Four years later, we were crying. We’re arguably still crying.
13 Likes
Problem is, I don’t know if DeSantis would be any better. Maybe a little chaos in the primary would be the final rending of the fissure running through the GQP. trump sure did a whole hell of a lot of damage to the GQP in 2020 and gave the Dems the Senate. And if Liz Cheney is there reminding voters what the GQP used to be (ie, their fantasy that it wasn’t always a white supremacist insurance policy), it could be a bloodbath!
A boy can dream, can’t he?
7 Likes
7 Likes
DOJ.
The gift that keeps on giving.
Keep it up, you delicious bastards.
6 Likes
That’s what keeps being overlooked in this whole fiasco.
He’s not supposed to have any documents that belong to the National Archives, classified or not.
By not vigorously retrieving all the documents, this would seem to set a precedent that the only ones that matter are classified. Sure, let the classified docs rightfully take priority, but they all belong to the Archives.
And Lord Dampnut’s lackey ‘judge’ needs to be removed from this case & disbarred.
ETA:
This needs to be on billboards everywhere.
8 Likes
You can in fact run for president from jail. Famously Eugene Debbs had a relatively successful campaign. Less well known and less successful was Larouche. None of the duties of the presidency require being in a specific place.
4 Likes
They need to start off by actually getting him to swear that he has (or not) returned all the documents - he’s avoided it so far by having his lawyers do it for him, but they, in turn, passed off legal responsibility. If he has to do it, he’ll be in legal trouble when he lies. But the thing is, he likely doesn’t have all the documents he took out, and disturbingly he probably doesn’t even know what happened to them all. But missing documents means illegally handled/destroyed documents, so that’s another crime…
Ironically the DOJ has a better handle on this than he does - they know what he checked out and didn’t return, and as you say, he’s been so sloppy he’s lost track. He almost certainly destroyed some, and likely lost some to nefarious entities without even knowing. Gods, a true accounting will probably take years…
I’m convinced he didn’t sell any - outright, anyways. He kept some because he saw them as being valuable - as blackmail, as information that he could trade on - but I suspect he’s not competent enough to figure out how to sell them directly, even if he thought of it (and he is quite a bad salesman). It might have been a level of criminality that would have registered as dangerously illegal with him, too - whereas using the information in them was just “politics” to him. Although I’m sure the Russians (etc.) managed to steal/copy some documents without him knowing.
Although the classified documents are only part of it - he shouldn’t be retaining any of the presidential records.
Hell, and being delighted by Trump getting into the race in 2015, just before he left the show…
5 Likes
Hence why he should be charged, tried, convicted and hung for treason.
Yesterday.
8 Likes
12 Likes
The best Republican nominee we could hope for would probably be Mitt Romney again 
and that’s not going to happen
It will be one flavor of awful or another
6 Likes
Though it’s worth remembering that the Espionage Act, which he seems to have violated dozens of counts, includes the option of disqualifying violators from public office.
5 Likes
Could you imagine? Strapping his dog to the roof of his car wouldn’t be enough to make an impact anymore. He’d have to shoot his dog in the middle of Fifth Avenue!
2 Likes
I’m not aware of the Espionage act having that (I’m far from an expert), but the Presidential Records act does. The thing is that clause hasn’t been tested and given that the constitution explicitly sets the bar for president, it could probably be challenged. I don’t think it is a huge concern either way. If he was convicted, even if legally possible it would be a remarkably unlikely campaign.
2 Likes
The Constitution sets the minimum requirements; it’s clearly not a limitation on requirements. IANAL, but it’s pretty clear from the writing.
1 Like
I find the idea of allowing standard legislation to restrict who can run for a constitutionally defined office substantially scarier than the benefits such restrictions would provide.
And I’m pretty sure that it’s perfectly OK to restrict people who’ve knowingly violated serious federal laws from serving in government. There are a lot of people who can do the job well. There are also a lot of people who cannot, and yet are eligible. Drawing a line that says, people who have been convicted of these crimes are not eligible.
The framers intended for the President to be held to a higher standard of behavior than the general public, not lower.
3 Likes
They did intend them to be held to a higher standard, and I believe the place to enforce that is at the ballot box. If the crime is severe enough that we should limit a constitutionally defined office, either the practical nature of incarceration or the voters’ distaste should do the trick. On the other hand allowing congress to set that limit means they pick which crimes are so severe and I frankly don’t trust them with that role.
How’s that workin’?
4 Likes
