The former president — who is facing a mountain of legal woes — is trying to win back the White House on the idea that he should be above the law

Donald Trump isn’t happy that judges on a Washington, D.C., appeals court ruled that he’s not protected from prosecution in the Justice Department’s election interference case against him. The former president has long been claiming he should be immune from criminal repercussions for anything he did while in office — including conspiring to overturn the democratic process — and on Wednesday he posted to Truth Social that a president’s job is so contingent on their ability to commit crimes that it would mark the “end” of “our Country, as we know it,” if they are not afforded that right.

“If a President does not have Immunity, the Opposing Party, during his/her term in Office, can extort and blackmail the President by saying that, ‘if you don’t give us everything we want, we will Indict you for things you did while in Office,’ even if everything done was totally Legal and Appropriate,” Trump wrote, adding that “Obama, Bush, and soon, Crooked Joe Biden, would all be in PRISON. Protect Presidential Immunity. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

There’s no evidence that Bush, Obama, or Biden committed crimes while in office, but Trump is under heavy legal scrutiny for an array of potential crimes — most of them tied to his effort to remain in office despite losing to Biden. Trump tried to get the Justice Department’s case against him thrown out last year, alleging he could do no wrong because he was the president. Judge Tanya Chutkan shot down the bid, and Trump appealed, sending the case to the D.C. appeals court. In a hearing last month, Trump’s lawyers argued that immunity should go so far as to protect a president from prosecution even if they were to order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival.

  • dhork@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    In Donald Trump’s America, a President simply can’t do his job properly without breaking the law. Think about that! What did he do during his term that we simply don’t know about?

    For all of Joe Biden’s flaws, I am pretty confident that he is not doing illegal things on a daily basis, and doesn’t need this blanket immunity.

    • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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      We need to investigate his son Hunter getting a security clearance when he should not have been eligible, and also 2 billion dollars from Saudi Arabia.

      Wait that was Jared kushner? Nevermind nothing to see here.

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          Yeah, haha - but seriously though, we have to look at Hunter using his proximity to the president to get China to approve his side business trademarks in exchange for-

          Wait, sorry, that’s Ivanka. Nevermind.

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        Yeah it’s a known perk of being POTUS that your offspring get cushy job offers… Not saying it’s right, but it’s not illegal as far as I know.

      • Neato@ttrpg.network
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        Didn’t his kids receive like a billions bucks from Saudi Arabia right after he left office? I thought the assumption was they just sold boxes of classified documents.

        • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
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          You’re conflating two of the many horrible things that happened in the Trump years. First was Kushner getting $2 billion dollars for selling Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman the “names of Saudis disloyal to the crown prince.” Those people were of course all subsequently arrested by the prince.

          The second was that, after Trumps reckless handling of top secret information, the CIA sent out a cable to all their offices informing them of the loss of an unusually high number of human assets. While there is no proof Trump and co. sold or leaked classified information, I personally am confident that even if he didn’t sell the information, his carelessness is almost certainly the cause of at least some portion of those deaths. The following are some excerpts from the Cornell Policy Review - The Executive Records Recovered from Mar-a-Lago and the C.I.A.’s Missing Informants(PDF). The whole thing is worth a read if you’re interested.

          In October 2021, almost a year prior to the Mar-a-Lago search, The New York Times reported that the C.I.A. had disclosed, within a top-secret C.I.A. cable, that an unusually high number of foreign citizens serving as U.S. government informants had been killed, arrested, or compromised by rival intelligence agencies. The C.I.A. admitted it had no concrete evidence as to why this was happening, and could only point to internal measures like “poor tradecraft; being too trusting of sources; underestimating foreign intelligence agencies and moving too quickly to recruit informants.” There may be more information about why this was occurring, and the F.B.I. document seizure at Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 suggests a possible explanation.

          The New York Times reported that the D.O.J. search of Mar-a-Lago was instigated by the discovery of highly classified material related to “clandestine human sources.” This was confirmed by the F.B.I. affidavit from Mar-a-Lago, alluding that the documents contained information on the C.I.A.’s Human Intelligence Control System (HCS), a system designed to protect intelligence information derived from clandestine human sources. The HCS intelligence documents contain details about the sources of the information–informants themselves. In some cases these details are general, such as if an unidentified clandestine source has direct or secondary intelligence knowledge. In others, these details are more descriptive and could provide identifiable information. The New York Times states the documents retrieved from Mar-a-Lago in January 2021 included some files demarcated as HCS information which could possibly identify C.I.A. informants. Protection of these informants’ information is why the C.I.A. and the intelligence community may have originally sought control over the HCS intelligence documents as soon as Donald Trump left office, then had the N.A.R.A. refer the DOJ to recoup this top-secret, national information.

          Though it is uncertain if foreign intelligence ever accessed these documents, media reports indicate one possible occurrence in Inna Yashchyshyn. In May 2021, Yashchyshyn successfully posed as a member of the Rothschild family to gain access to Mar-a-Lago. At that time, the F.B.I. reported that Yashchyshyn hoped to make Trump family connections and raise money. Little is known about Inna Yashchyshyn other than that she is a Russian-speaking Ukrainian immigrant who used a fake identity to gain access to and build relationships with several U.S. politicians, including Donald Trump. Her link to any foreign government agency is unknown; however, two truths remain: (1) she is closely linked to a Moscow-raised businessman named Valeriy Tarasenko (who provided the F.B.I. with her motivations and actual identity during a deposition), and (2) she used a fake alias to gain special access into Mar-a-Lago.

          • Neato@ttrpg.network
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            9 months ago

            Thanks. That makes more sense. I think selling the Saudis info about dissidents was definitely espionage and am wondering why he isn’t in prison.

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              Rumor has it the information about the dissidents was straight from a Presidential Daily Briefing so yeah, he really should be in jail.

        • LocoOhNo@lemmus.org
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          $3 Billion, specifically. And I don’t remember the time frame in relation, but a bunch of American spies wound up dead as well.

          • Neato@ttrpg.network
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            Wow. So espionage as well. How did our government not find enough evidence to bury them? The trump kids are fucking morons.

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            Unless we’re talking about different things, it was $2 billion for Kushner and the spy thing was a separate issue. See my reply to the same poster for details.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      For all of Joe Biden’s flaws, I am pretty confident that he is not doing illegal things on a daily basis

      Or if he is, they’re “normal” presidential illegal things like ordering CIA black ops or whatever, not abusing the position to gain personal fortune and autocratic power like Trump does.

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      To be fair, and to paraphrase The Big Lebowski: He’s not wrong - he’s just an asshole.

      In most representative democracies the head of state and head of government are two distinct offices for precisely this reason.

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      I suspect Biden is doing illegal things most days.

      Big difference is Biden is under the umbrella of presidency, and probably under good advice from his advisors.

      Trump is out for himself, and believes America and the presidential powers are there to serve him

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        I suspect Biden is doing illegal things most days.

        Like what? You can’t just keep us all hanging like that!

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    Does he not realize that if that right is codified before he’s president again that Biden could just turn around and have him executed without any repercussions. I don’t believe Biden would do that but it just shows that he is not thinking beyond the tip of his nose.

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        See, that is EXACTLY how Democrats constantly fail…

        They think they’re Saturday morning cartoon Batman, unable to even kill one measly evildoer… How much faster would Gotham get better if there weren’t twenty evil masterminds allowed to run around and escape prison??

        Democrats are literally too ignorantly “good” to stand up to evil. They constantly do it on a legislative level, too. They CONSTANTLY let crooks set up traps for them instead of dealing with the crooks.

        Just like in any SANE world, Batman would be cheered for mercing terrorists like the Joker and the Riddler and Penguin et. al… In a sane world, Dems would be cheered for barring literel lifetime criminals from running for office…

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            Yep! They’re the sort of morons who think signing things in to law magically stops bad people from trying. They’d sit there and shout about the loss of decorum while a terrorist shot every Democrat instead of simply shooting the shooter.

            They’re the sort of people to think Batman is wise for not being rid of evil people in an environment that has proven to be incapable of controlling them…

            • steakmeout@lemmy.world
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              That process, the decorum you so richly despise is what keeps people from killing you for being such an ignorant loudmouth. People like you never think about the realities of a world where people kill without recourse and everything is an emotional knee jerk reaction with terminal consequences.

        • YaksDC@lemmy.world
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          I think we would bar him from running for office if it were up to us and not a corrupt Court.

          • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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            The Dems could’ve done a whole lot to expedite the judicial process. When a normal person commits a high crime, they sit IN HOLDING while evidence is collected… Instead, Democrats want to conserve the unjust and unwritten privilege of politicians to avoid justice.

            As a result, they are allowing a literal mallicous traitor who literally sold top secret documents free to continue insurection planning. For years. Which lends credibility and legitimacy to the Republicans, even as they literally violate their oaths of office.

            The Dems are not powerless. The legislative and executive branches do not have to just sit there and watch the judiciary. The “checks and balances” are not one-way.

    • cranakis@reddthat.com
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      I think he’s hoping the timing will work out so that he gets elected first, them SCOTUS grants him supreme immunity.

    • SinningStromgald@lemmy.world
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      Is this where we can debate who it would be okay and not okay for Biden to have wacked if this moronically does get codified? Or is that just an invitation to a lot of naughty lists that don’t have happy endings?

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        It opens us to purge lists under a less then scrupulous person. I think it would only be a decade before we reached Stalin levels.

  • Szymon@lemmy.ca
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    In a hearing last month, Trump’s lawyers argued that immunity should go so far as to protect a president from prosecution even if they were to order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival.

    10:1 odds there is a document outside of Trumps possession proving he asked SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival while he was president.

  • psychothumbs@lemmy.world
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    If accountability for the powerful means the end of America as we know it I’m excited for the new America that we’re about to meet.

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    I struggle to see how being held accountable is a bad thing. Even in public office.

    Nobody should be above the law.

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    Can’t help but notice that this oompa loompa cunt still hasn’t been executed, what’s up with that America?

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      That would make him a martyr for his cult following, only escalating matters.

      You need him to rot in jail instead. He’ll have his following, but they’ll start to get bored after a couple of years.

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        Be careful applying logic to his followers. He could shoot himself in the face and i guarantee people will still claim weird Q theories. Don’t treat these people like they’re intelectually consistent.

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    It’s upsetting to me that rich people posting in call caps about how they should be allowed to commit crimes resonates with me ANY Americans, never mind enough of your voting population that Donald Trump has a decent chance of winning the next election.

    I mean every country has morons, but Jesus what is going on in your country man?

    • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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      • The systemic and intentional erosion of public education
      • Decades of prioritizing little Johnny’s ability to play football over his ability to read
      • 24/7 propaganda news networks
      • The consequences of years of lead exposure becoming apparent
      • Stupidity somehow becoming something to be proud of.
      • Jenny McCarthy (hell, all the well-known McCarthy’s except Melissa)

      The list goes on, but take your pick or mix and match; there’s really no wrong answer. 🫠

      • 7u5k3n@lemmy.world
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        Man my dad a Vietnam vet… Told me that jan6 was a shame and that they killed “that poor woman” trying to get through a door.

        I was like… Dafuq? What about protecting elected officials lives? What about protecting the constitution? What about that whole “foreign and domestic” deal?

        I told him… I watched the live stream video of her being given a warning and a lawful order to stop and to remove herself from the area. She didn’t. She got shot.

        She wasn’t a patriot… she was a criminal who fucked around and found out.

        Anything telling you otherwise is propaganda.

        Crazy the spin they are trying to put on Jan6. :/

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        This is what a lot of people think, but the reality is it’s because a large portion of our society measures their own (and other’s) worth and happiness using money. This includes a big chunk of our educated class

        Those members of our society have no capacity to build deep and authentic bonds (especially the men). Creating a silent epidemic of loneliness with resent-fueled victims searching for someone to blame for their misery & miniscule self-worth.

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      Trump only has, perhaps, 20% of the population truly behind him. He gets 46% or so of voters in his favor through a combination of Republicans who hate Democrats more than they hate Trump, and Enlightened Centrists who vote for the GOP because they voted for Democrats last time. Those are rooted in the problem of a voting system that only makes room for two parties.

      Even that wouldn’t be enough, except for the criminally stupid electoral college system.

      In short, he doesn’t have real support, and he only gets in by exploiting flaws in American democracy that have always been there but nobody has abused to quite this scale. Incidentally, exploiting flaws in democracy is also how Hitler took over Germany. His true base of support was never very large, either.

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    Spoken like a truly innocent man, right? I mean. This alone is an admittance of guilt. Lock his fat ass in jail.

  • cultsuperstar@lemmy.world
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    His (and the GOP) philosophy is “if I did it, then the Dems have to be doing it too.” He and the GOP thinks nobody plays fair so why is he the only one being prosecuted. This is the whole witch hunt garbage he’s been spewing for years.

    I’m still waiting on the My Pillow guy and countless other GOPers to release all their evidence against Biden and the 2020 election having been rigged, though it’s kinda late for them to drop any of those bombshells at this point.

    E: words

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      This is also why he is so sure of “election fraud” in the 2020 election. There’s no way Trump and the GOP didn’t attempt cheating - and since the Democrats won in spite of it, they must have also cheated.

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      Who is Kate Firnthek and what is their involvement with dropping bombshells?! Do they have secret info no one else is privy to?

      /s

      I assume you meant “…late for them…”

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    His America. The America that lets him and those like him get away with whatever they want. The America that, so far, they have mostly built up in their collective imagination.

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      He has poor concept of things other than him (it’s not projection when he accused people it’s his poor imagination stunting possibilities so he assumes people would do what he does, least it’s my theory as a random person so don’t take it for much), in his speeches change out when he says US or America to Trump and it makes perfect sense. ‘I’m over as we know if I can’t do crimes while in office’. Okay I know the whole quote wasn’t him but it’s pretty much what he’s been saying. Like Judge Dredd, I am the law, to Trump he IS America.

      It’s truely baffling that he has support from anyone to me, like seeing someone slowly back into a car, they should be able to see it and you can see it, you yell to bring it to their attention but it still happens. Except in this case people only see a fantastic outcome when the car hits something like they all took shrooms and LSD.

  • ME5SENGER_24@lemmy.world
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    Why can’t he get it through his thick head that the president is the same as every other citizen. There are no rights or rules that he’s exempt from. We are all citizens of a nation. If he doesn’t want to abide by the same rules, there are plenty of small cement rooms that would happy to have him sleep over

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        I think they could pull it off. Say they want to get him to make lunch free for every person over the age of 70.

        Jesus: Mr. Trump, you are the greatest president of all time. You’re seriously comparable to me as a person, better really, everyone is saying that.

        Buddha: Absolutely, probably, no definitely, the greatest leader who has ever lived.

        Muhammad: A genius, I say. I mean, Jesus has seen all of space and time at this point and no one even comes close.

        Jesus: and your idea about feeding elderly people. My father says he’s going to commission a golden statue right in the center of heaven. All the woke ass soyboy liberal angels say that it’s a waste of money and you aren’t stable or smart enough to pull it off. Go figure.

        Buddha: It’s the best idea you’ve ever had. People are saying that, smart people. A lot of smart people. Loyal people. They’re all saying it really.