2 ms·

The US president is _allowed_ a bit of light treason, as a treat. Or so it seems. I don't think _any_ of them have ever been prosecuted for stuff done while in

• krapp 10mo ago
  >I don't think _any_ of them have ever been prosecuted for stuff done while in office? I don't think so. Indicted and investigated, certainly, but never prosecuted. It is weird that this was always a possibility with other presidents but with Trump it became such an existential crisis that we decided to make it illegal to even try, rather than establish that even sitting presidents aren't above the law. Which to me seems like a no-brainer but judging from how many people claimed that either presidents had to be above the law or else the US would descend into a hell spiral of recrimination with every sitting president being arrested on fake charges by the opposition party, I must just be naive. I guess it's good that Nixon was right and nothing a president does is illegal. I guess that's what the founding fathers intended. But again, it's still weird that it was always possible for a sitting president to be prosecuting in office until the supreme court stepped in, yet the absolutely certain slippery slope and worst case scenario never happened. I guess we were just lucky.
  • rsynnott 10mo ago
    > I guess that's what the founding fathers intended. This... seems unlikely. It had already been established that _kings_ could be removed for doing crimes (see Charles I, who, ah, lost his head) by the time the US was founded; it seems unlikely that they'd have intended the US president be less accountable than a king.
• computerthings 10mo ago
  [dead]