Elie Mystal Had An Excellent Reason For Why Individual 1 Can Be Indicted

[Me.]

even if he is a 'sitting president'. He says because 1 committed a felony to assume the office that should immediately be cause for indictment as one of the tenets of the law is that you can't profit from your crime, which has obviously been done over and over by those grifters in the WH.

[ProudLib72]

1. I agree, but it calls into question the line of succession doesn't it?

Didn't Pence benefit as well?

[TexasBushwhacker]

3. Yes, and that's they need to go down simultaneously n/t

[Bernardo de La Paz]

14. Would be great, but RepubliCON Senate would never sit still for that.

The thought of President Pelosi gives them hives.

[Me.]

4. My Guess Is Yes But Needs To Be Proven

We can't lose sight of the fact that Individual 1 was tricked into picking Pence by Manafort.

[UpInArms]

6. Not tricked

In on the trick

[mgardener]

8. I'm not sure he was tricked into picking Pence

I always thought that Evangelicals demanded that he pick Pence in exchange for their vote.

[Me.]

11. THe Way I UNderstand It

and I'm a little vague on details, Manafort & Individual 1 were in Indiana and were supposed to leave but Manafort told him there was a problem with there was a problem with the weather (there wasn't) and couldn't fly out so hey how about we visit with Pence the gov. They apparently spent most of the evening sitting and talking with Pence and next thing you know, Christie is pushed to the side and Pence is in.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

15. That's what I read, but as a problem with the plane. . . . nt

[robertpaulsen]

23. I read about the problem with the plane too.

I can picture Manafort acting just like Don Rickles in this scene from Casino:

[Me.]

25. Both Of You Are Correct

[thesquanderer]

10. Pence may have benefited, but he did not commit the crime in question

so he could not be indicted for committing this crime.

[TrogL]

13. Pence is poison fruit of the crime

[Perseus]

17. If he benefited knowning where the benefit came from then he is guilty

He is an accomplice.

[thesquanderer]

18. Is there any evidence that Pence knew Trump was paying off women?

Or that Trump had an "arrangement" with the publishers of he Enquirer?

If not, he cannot be considered an accomplice to these particular crimes.

[Me.]

26. Manafort Wasn't Involved With That Either

But here he is facing a jail term

[thesquanderer]

27. Manafort is facing time for something else.

I'm not saying Pence might not be vulnerable, but I don't see a reason to believe he's vulnerable within the premise of this thread.

[Me.]

28. But This Thread Didn't Focus On Any Of The Crimes In Particular

Just that there are/werecrimes

[thesquanderer]

29. Premise of thread is Individual 1 can be indicted because he committed a felony to assume the office

...and then someone tried to extend the logic to covering Pence, but Pence did not commit that felony (the one that Cohen implicated Individual #1 in). Then the question went to, was Pence an accomplice? But that would only be if he knew about it.

[Me.]

31. But You Don't Know What You Don't Know

and you keep harkening back to Cohen and completely ignoring the Russian angle and Manafort. And really, none of us know the complete story.

[thesquanderer]

34. I was replying to ProudLib72's premise, and the followup discussion to that premise.

I was not commenting on every other possibility.

[Me.]

35. Aah, Looks Like We Have Crossed Wires

as it looked like you were replying to me

[erronis]

2. As soon as #1 (but he's more like a number 2) committed the crime, he couldn't become a president.

It is not at the point that he is convicted of the crime, it is when he committed it.

(Edited to say: "a real and legitimate president.&quot

Maybe he got away with it for awhile, just like Hitler and cronies did. But they were guilty when the started their crimes against humanity.

[Me.]

5. Quite

perhaps I wasn't clear about that point

[erronis]

7. You were clear and I wasn't disagreeing. I hope we will all learn some lessons

from this travesty.

Law schools and many civic studies will have the dump family as a case study for decades.

[OneBro]

9. I'm going with Professor Tribe on this one.

I think Professor Lawrence Tribe not only put a nail in the coffin, he glued it shut from the inside then welded from the outside. His opt-ed in the Boston Globe: https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2018/12/10/constitution-rules-out-sitting-president-immunity-from-criminal-prosecution/6Byq7Qw6TeJlPVUhlgABPM/story.html

"Our Constitution’s framers were openly concerned with the possibility that a corrupt politician might contrive to win the presidency by treason, bribery, fraud, or other criminal means. They said so. And they were explicit about creating the impeachment power as the one and only means of removing such a criminal president. They opposed the imposition of criminal punishment through legislative trials, which accounts for the ban on bills of attainder at either the state or federal level. It also accounts for the specific language limiting the Senate’s power upon convicting an impeached officer to “removal from office” and “disqualification” to hold any future federal office — while leaving any such removed official “liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law [and] those who say this set-up presupposes delaying any indictment of a president for crimes committed in winning the presidency are wrong. Worse than that, they’ve gotten things upside-down."

Live and in color on The Last Word:

[Me.]

12. My Problem With This Is

if they can't get the vote in the Senate, the statute of limitations could run out while he's in office and nothing would hold him accountable.

[OneBro]

30. Professor Tribe agrees.

Tribe is saying a sitting president can and should be indicted if he has broken the law.

[Me.]

32. Aaaah, Then That Would Be A Misunderstanding On My Part

[Perseus]

16. Sitting president cannot be indicted is just an opinion, not the law

A sitting president CAN be indicted, just because some justices had an opinion at some time it did not make it into law. It is such an idiotic thing to say that a criminal, just because he/she has a title, in this case of president, that he/she cannot be indicted. As someone said, I think it was Adam Schiff, that would mean that he can shoot and kill someone and not be indicted because he/she is the president of the USA? That is stupid and ludicrous, it doesn't make sense and the only people who can support that are people only interested in protecting a criminal which by law should make them conspirators.

[Me.]

20. And As Someone Else Said

that would make him a king. Plus that cannot be indicted opinion has only been cited twice

[dalton99a]

33. +1

[Vinca]

19. And Trump has not only profited from his crime, he's now using it as a shield.

[Me.]

21. Precisely

[elocs]

22. The question of whether a sitting president can be indicted would go to the Supreme Court.

How do you think this court will decide that question?

[Me.]

24. Convetional Wisdom Would Say They'd Side With Individual 1

But I wonder about Roberts, he's been rogue a couple of times now.

[elocs]

36. This issue would ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court, this Supreme Court.

Now how might it decide?
Reality sucks, doesn't it?