2y ago

The president could "assassinate" political rivals and still enjoy total immunity, Trump lawyer says

www.salon.com The president could "assassinate" political rivals and still enjoy total immunity, Trump lawyer says | Salon.com

Award-winning news and culture, features breaking news, in-depth reporting and criticism on politics, science, food and entertainment.

53 comments

I wish Biden would make the following announcement:
It has come to my attention that Mr. Trump's lawyers are currently attempting to convince the Supreme Court that it would be legal for me, the President of the United States, to have Mr. Trump killed. I imagine that this is a source of concern for Mr. Trump and so I want to reassure him and the American public that I believe doing so would, in fact, be a crime.
- "I'll have Seal Team 6 waiting outside the Courtroom pending the outcome of the case. Choose wisely."

So theoretically the current president could fire up seal team 6 and clean house…
- Why just use one SEAL team? Much quicker if you use them all.
  
  Why use a team at all? As commander in chief doesn't Biden get touch any gun he wants?
  He could just set up an XM250 and blast all the Justices he doesn't like as they leave court.
  Mr. Biden, how did you restore legitimacy to the courts? Well I just started blasting...
  
  SEAL team 6 is not an actual SEAL team, they are a special counterterrorist group instead of naval special forces. Their name was to confuse the Soviets in 1980.
  
  Send in all the seals
  
  Hey now, this court case is about the presidential ability to assassinate rivals, not the presidential ability to use the armed forces against American citizens on American soil. We would need the national guard for that.

they wished the US was a bit more like Russia don't they?
- Even Putin has to use methods more subtle than sending a strike team after his political opponents. Nowadays there are a handful of monarchs that have full legal immunity on paper but I don't think any of them wants to highlight that they could just outright murder someone with impunity. Trump's team picking this example as a consequence of their deranged legal theory sounds completely bonkers to me.
  
  Eh, Putin does send the GRU after political enemies. I don't think Prigozhin was killed by harshly worded letters, and the London sightseeing brigade was also not just some random guys.
  
  The end goal of the right is to do away with all the subtlety they have to do now, so the general population will just follow all their commands without any talkbacks, like "a good chiild does it to the words of their parents". (Viktor Orbán allegedly said that the average voter is on the mentality of a 12 year old child.)
  
  lol yea, even in Russia the headlines are always “person falls mysteriously out of window” and not “Putin stabs opponent in face with knife, lets out evil laugh”

So let me get his straight. Trumps lawyers are trying to legalize Biden killing Trump? So even his own lawyers prefer him to die instead of becoming president again.
- Trump's lawyers are trying to delay his other trials. Create BS arguments that require a ruling before his other trials can proceed, elevate it to Supreme Court, run out the clock, hope he gets elected before other cases find him guilty.
  Edit: Spelling
  
  Once the election is over, there's no real incentive to pursue these cases, either. Good chance they all get dropped even if he loses.
- I saw a post elsewhere about this suggesting that Biden send SEAL teams to camp out on the steps of the courthouse where Trump is on trial in NYC, the steps of the Supreme Court, etc. Don’t give them any orders beyond them being stationed there.
  If SCOTUS says it’s ok then Biden just orders the SEALs to immediately take out Trump, the SCOTUS justices (well, we know which ones, specifically). Etc.
  
  It would be red meat for conservatives, to be sure. But also, consider the politics of your average Navy Seal...
  An army of Dan Crenshaws
- It would be a mistake to turn this con man into a martyr. There are already enough baffling conspiracies with him as the main character.
  
  Don't assign logic to a position that doesn't have any. Trump could shit his insides out on live TV and die live on air and the crayon eating removed would still turn him into a martyr. This talking point needs to die.
- See, that would be poetic justice

Please, Joe Biden, please just do this one thing and presidentially pardon yourself
- I mean, I hate the precedent it would set, but I feel like this situation almost calls for it, if only for the poetic justice of it all.
  
  It would cost us everything, but for a brief moment be ultimately satisfying.
- Do we really want Trump to be a martyr? We will end up with him being deified by his followers who already want to believe he's the second coming.

Betcha he's got a hit list set up already.
- Maybe he'll mix up the lists and end up getting the Federalist Society picks?
- There's no question that he has an enemies list.

Would make the debates a lot more interesting.
Biden: "Your lawyers successfully argued before the Supreme Court, that a President has immunity even from assassinating rivals." (places gun on podium) "Let's have a serious talk about that."

It's a brave stance to take for the lawyer of the president's political rival, but I can think of worse ways to get rid of a particularly problematic client.

so either Trump winds up dead or in prison, win/win

53 comments