The Constitution has a bit that says if Trump gets ousted, the presidency goes to Mike Pence, and if he somehow gets ousted too then it passes on to Paul Ryan. If you manage to keep going far enough down the line of succession you eventually get to Betsy DeVos in charge of the country. Keep going and close to 20 layers down you get someone from the Department of Homeland Security. Doesn’t seem likely that we’d get much of a reset that way.
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Usually, but not always.
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I’d like to see him inside of a wall.
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Liberté, égalité, five o’clock tea!
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Well that is biz as usual, not a RESET.
If the outcome is that Trump participated in efforts to alter the outcome of the election made by Russia, then I think calling a new election is fair game. And if so, the assumption that Pence and Devos and the cast of characters constitutionally inherit trumps power goes out the window.
Plus I think the GOP needs to be barred from participating for a few rounds because of complicity. They need to sit in the corner and think about what they’ve done.
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I think that would be awesome, but I have my doubts if that would come about. Part of the reason he still has GOP support is because in their mind he’s delivering on at least some of his campaign promises, especially with regards to reproductive rights (curbs on) and immigration issues.
I think it’s probably far more likely that the midterms give us a Democratic congress who will ride out the term until 2020, with literally nothing happening, and then we get a democratic president. Back to middle of the road, incremental changes that just prolong the slow burning crisis that existed prior to 2016.
I wish I didn’t feel so pessimistic about that, but I do.
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I wanna say that federal judicial appointments have to go through an impeachment process, too. I don’t know if there is any precedent on removal from office by voiding an appointment, too. I don’t even know if that would be constitutional at all?
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The founders did not anticipate the possibility of appointments being made by a president later revealed to be criminal? If they did not the door is open to make law. Its compounded by the fact that the crimes were to aid him in becoming president. Seems to me to call for a voiding of authority.
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I’m not a constitutional scholar, so I can’t be sure, but I don’t think that’s the case, no. For judicial appointments, I think they’d need an impeachment process.
Have you met our congress? 
It would have to be constitutional, too, which is even harder to get done.
True. Grounds for impeachment against him. but if there isn’t a mechanism for voiding his appointments, then each one will likely have to get their own process.
I do agree, but I just don’t know if there is a constitutional process for that.
I don’t see why - what is the basis of that?
No, once the congress and senate flips, then they make law.
Are you American? I can’t remember.
There are certain aspects of how the government operates that are covered strictly by the constitution and congress can’t just pass a law to change that. It requires a change to the constitution itself, which includes having to get 3/4 of state legislatures to sign off on it after it passes congress. There are plenty of cases where the congress passes a law and it gets challenged on constitutional grounds. Just passing a law, especially if it deals with stuff around separation of powers, such as a law like this most certainly would, wouldn’t cut it. It could easily be found unconstitutional, depending on what it says and does.
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Yes I am American, and I am aware of how the Constitution works.
I am saying that lawmakers and lawyers expert in the constitution can navigate this, to make rules that address the fall out of appointments and actions taken by a president who committed crimes before and while in office.
Its a little premature to throw up ones arms and lament it will be unconstitutional.
Ousting Trump would still put Pence in a weaker position than his predecessor. And if we find proof of him (or Ryan or anybody else) committing similar misdeeds we can do the same to them.
“The new guy would be a terrible President too” is not a justification for inaction.
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Well I think that mechanism has to be made by lawmakers.
For instance, suppose Trump is impeached and convicted of crimes, including those that potentially altered the outcome of the election. If a supreme court justice must be impeached to be removed, then in this case the impeachment is on the basis that he was appointed by a criminal and illegitimately elected president. This is not an impeachment of the Justice, but is in fact a re-impeachment of Trump. Its round about and in many ways redundant to why the Justice must be removed. You are asking it to be proved what has already been proved.
Rather the impeachment and conviction of the president under these circumstances should by definition void and invalidate appointments and executive actions taken under the term in office. We are not removing the Justice per say, but rather determining their appointment invalid.
That must be federal law, and I don’t believe it requires any constitutional amendment, nor does it contradict anything in the constitution.
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No need to get snippy. We have lots of non-Americans here who regularly weigh in on our political processes, so just making sure.
And sure, it’s not out of the bounds of possiblity. But it’s also a more complicated problem then “let’s just pass a law.” I still suspect that it would need a constitutional amendment, which could take years. Many of them took more than 2 years:
And we still are in the midst of an incredibly contentious political landscape, especially at the state level. I doubt any major changes to the constitution will be forth coming when so many state houses are controlled by an incredibly partisan GOP.
At this point, it still seems like the primary means of getting his appointees out of judicial appointments will probably be impeachment proceedings. But again, I’m not a constitutional scholar, so I’m guessing here. You might be right that we can just void them all, or that they can pass a law to that effect. But even if he’s out of office by the end of the year, I don’t think our current political landscape goes away.
Again, I’m not trying to piss in your cornflakes here, but there are quite a few things to consider here, since this is about the separation of powers. It’s one of the primary things that the constitution governs.
I’m saying I’m not sure that it does. You might well be right, but we’d have to see if we can find an example of this in the past and see what happened. We’ve only had to impeachment preceedings against presidents, and both failed (Johnson because of a last minute deal he made with the radical republicans, and Clinton because it all came down to a partyline vote). We seem to be in uncharted waters here and whatever happens will set precedent. None the less, I’d still argue that this is a clear constitutional issue, because it’s the constitution that gives us the process for impeachment to begin with.
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No snip was intended - you are reading into it, not what I am feeling.
And again, I don’t agree that this requires constitutional amendment. This is not in contradiction or modifying any precepts of the constitution. Its addressing an issue which was not framed there, and in comparison the question of criminality and the upholding of actions taken by criminal actors is not new precedent. We have seen situations where judges found to be under the influence of others are removed, and their case decisions invalidated. This is the same kind of law. This action associated with a president is unprecedented - how to deal with it is not.
I’m not convinced that Pence, or even Ryan may not get caught up in this. We have already seen a tape of Ryan at the GOP convention discussing Trumps relation to Russia. I think its telling that he elected to step down while the GP is at the height of recent power.
Fair enough then! Glad to hear that.
It may not, but it’s a clear constitutional issue, though.
Impeachment is indeed a constitutional issue, though, as I noted above.
Sure, but they aren’t the president and we’ve never removed a president from office. But I suppose that’s true that judges sometimes have their cases invalidated. Do you know of any supreme court justice whose cases were invalidated. Honestly, I’m not fully convinced it’s the same thing.
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This is what I am saying. This criminal behavior from a president, and fallout to institutions like SCOTUS is new. But the nature of the crime, and the nature of the solution is not new, nor is it constitutional.
Impeachment is constitutional. We are not changing impeachment. Impeachment of a judge is not being changed either. Rather we are saying the appointment of that judge is invalid. Appointments by criminals are invalid. Retroactively.
We are don’t have to impeach a judge. Rather, they are not in fact a judge. Pack your things, escort from the building.
We’ve never had to say it before. Suddenly we do.
