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Yes; the president in the US is in charge of the federal prosecuting agency, and has, in practice*, unlimited power to direct non-prosecution. (And, separately

Yes; the president in the US is in charge of the federal prosecuting agency, and has, in practice*, unlimited power to direct non-prosecution. (And, separately, also has plenary power to pardon federal crimes). *Late edit: there was an historic case study of this power balance, just a few weeks ago. When Trump directed the DoJ to suspend the criminal prosecution of NYC mayor Eric Adams, in order to corruptly use the continuing threat of prosecution as a cudgel to extort policy concessions from his office, no federal prosecutor had any ability to resist that order. At least seven resigned[0] rather than obey it. The illustration being: whatever laws might say and whatever ethical norms exist—a federal prosecutor, as an employee of the executive branch under the POTUS, has no practical ability to contradict what the POTUS directs them to do. [0] https://www.npr.org/2025/02/14/nx-s1-5298040/justice-department-eric-adams-fallout https://www.npr.org/2025/02/14/nx-s1-5298040/justice-departm... ("Fallout from Eric Adams case continues at the Justice Department")

empath75 2y ago
The check on everything that Trump is doing is _impeachment_, and congress can't get it's shit together to protect its own power. The whole design of the federal government was that ambitious assholes in Congress would keep ambitious assholes in the White House in check, and it doesn't work if Congress is full of lickspittles and cowards.
- mandevil 2y ago
  For the longest time, it worked in the US because we had overlapping political parties. For reasons (mostly having to do with race) you had conservative and liberal Democrats and Republicans, and they overlapped a lot ideologically, so bills would pass mostly in a bipartisan way (even something like the creation of Medicare and Medicaid got about half the minority party to support it- https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/h35 https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/h35 and https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/s151 https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/s151). Over the past 30 years that has gone away and parties are strictly sorted ideologically. My personal theory for that is the decline of local news. With Facebook and Craigslist killing the local advertising business all that's left is national news sources, and so all people know about their local Rep or Senator is the letter after their name, and their opinion on the President, there is no room for looking at someone as an individual. And so the people who could be an individual have largely left, and replaced by a great mass of indistinguishable nonentities.
  - empath75 2y ago
    I think counter-intuitively, a lot of the anti-corruption reforms in congress basically destroyed the ability of congress to write compromise bills, because you could no longer buy people off by building a highway in their district or whatever. It would probably be a good thing to bring back horse trading and earmarks again, somewhat.

empath75 2y ago

The check on everything that Trump is doing is _impeachment_, and congress can't get it's shit together to protect its own power. The whole design of the federal government was that ambitious assholes in Congress would keep ambitious assholes in the White House in check, and it doesn't work if Congress is full of lickspittles and cowards.

mandevil 2y ago
For the longest time, it worked in the US because we had overlapping political parties. For reasons (mostly having to do with race) you had conservative and liberal Democrats and Republicans, and they overlapped a lot ideologically, so bills would pass mostly in a bipartisan way (even something like the creation of Medicare and Medicaid got about half the minority party to support it- https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/h35 https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/h35 and https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/s151 https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/s151). Over the past 30 years that has gone away and parties are strictly sorted ideologically. My personal theory for that is the decline of local news. With Facebook and Craigslist killing the local advertising business all that's left is national news sources, and so all people know about their local Rep or Senator is the letter after their name, and their opinion on the President, there is no room for looking at someone as an individual. And so the people who could be an individual have largely left, and replaced by a great mass of indistinguishable nonentities.
- empath75 2y ago
  I think counter-intuitively, a lot of the anti-corruption reforms in congress basically destroyed the ability of congress to write compromise bills, because you could no longer buy people off by building a highway in their district or whatever. It would probably be a good thing to bring back horse trading and earmarks again, somewhat.