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If they are accused of crimes, then arresting people is not just a power but a mandate. If they just so happen to be his political enemies, that does not make t
by jfengel 10mo ago
If they are accused of crimes, then arresting people is not just a power but a mandate. If they just so happen to be his political enemies, that does not make them exempt.
If he happens to be dumb enough to say "Arrest Chuck Schumer without charge because I don't like him", then maybe the court might see that as outside his powers. But he has been accusing his political enemies of crimes for years; he'd only have to pick one of them and have them arrested for it.
We don't make Presidents justify their actions as core powers. If we believe that he ordered an unjustifiable arrest, the burden of proof would be on us.
- AnimalMuppet 10mo agoLet's say, hypothetically, that the president was taking tariff revenue and transferring it into a Trump-owned bank account rather than into the Treasury. Yeah, you'd have to prove it. But that would absolutely be outside the scope of his legitimate presidential power. In real life, it wouldn't be that simple. There would be a veil of plausibility, and so it would be harder to prove. But I claim that he can still be prosecuted. He has the presumption that what he does is within the scope of his office; the burden of proof is very much on the prosecution. But he does not have complete immunity.
- jfengel 10mo agoComplete, no. But the combination of the expansive powers given to him by the court, and the difficulties of burden of proof, means that it's hard to imagine him being successfully prosecuted for just about anything. I think that includes persecution of political opponents. Maybe not for a capital offense, though I wouldn't be so sure. Treason is poorly defined and has capital consequences.