Some men are born great. Some have greatness thrust upon them. And some men seek great positions to avoid legal consequences. According to sources close to Donald Trump, he’s the latter this time around.
If you haven’t been following the ex-President’s many, many legal entanglements, here’s a breakdown of what he’s currently facing:
- Prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia are investigating tampering in the 2020 election. Trump allegedly pressured Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the votes he needed in a phone call. Trump toadies Lindsey Graham and Rudy Giuliani have already been subpoenaed.
- Several lawsuits, including E. Jean Carroll‘s. She accused Trump of raping her back in the ’90s. It’s too long for the statute of limitations, but when he publicly declared she was “totally lying” he opened himself to a defamation suit.
- New York attorney general Letitia James is looking into whether the Trump Organization committed fraud by falsely reporting the value of their assets. (That case was on its way to deposition by the family before the untimely loss of Ivana at the last minute.)
- And of course the federal government is investigating January 6. Over 80 people have already been charged for the attack on the US Capitol Building. If it’s proven Trump had a reasonable expectation his followers would commit violence but stayed the course anyway, telling them to stop the certification of the election… well, that could be as serious a charge as sedition and seditious conspiracy.
Teflon Don has managed to avoid any actual convictions or prison time so far. Trump was able to delay the defamation lawsuit against him by Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos after denying her sexual assault allegation — so long that she eventually dropped it. When his lawyer Michael Cohen was convicted on campaign finance violations for making illegal hush money payments during the 2016 election, Trump himself skated — even though he was clearly the “Individual 1” who directed Cohen to do the crime. After the investigation into Russian election interference, special prosecutor Robert Mueller found there wasn’t enough evidence of collusion — and specifically said that was because of all the obstruction of justice that was committed.
But Trump had an ace in the hole all that time. As president, Trump had tons of legal protections. And he wants them back!
Over the weekend, news broke that Donald had already decided to run for president again in 2024. According to a bombshell report from Rolling Stone, he’s been clear with his inner circle how a big factor on that decision is slipping back into the comfort of his legal loophole. FOUR SOURCES corroborated it. One told the mag Trump has “spoken about how when you are the president of the United States, it is tough for politically motivated prosecutors to ‘get to you.’” The source says as recently as this summer, the former POTUS was still talking about being voted into criminal immunity:
“He says when he is president again, a new Republican administration will put a stop to the investigation that he views as the Biden administration working to hit him with criminal charges — or even put him and his people in prison.”
Another source recalled he “said something like, ‘ couldn’t get away with this while I was president”:
“It was during a larger discussion about the investigations, other possible 2024 candidates, and what people were saying about the Jan. 6 hearings … He went on for a couple minutes about how ‘some very corrupt’ people want to ‘put me in jail.’”
Right. It’s literally everyone else that’s corrupt. Back on that song. Sigh…
How protected will Trump be if he wins?
It’s the policy of the Department of Justice not to indict a sitting president. Instead of being charged with crimes at the federal level, he’s supposed to be impeached and tried by Congress. Which he was. Twice. But Congress isn’t an unbiased jury now, is it? So nothing came of it. It certainly didn’t prevent him from running again.
Ultimately there isn’t an actual legal precedent that officially protects the president from being charged for crimes at the state level. BUT if any legal question comes up, guess where it goes? The Supreme f**kin’ Court, that’s where.
Annoyingly just like there’s apparently no actual rule that forces you to reveal your tax returns, there’s no rule that says people under investigation for crimes are ineligible to run for president. And they can apparently commit crimes in order to win — because even if it’s proven they broke the law to get elected, they can’t be touched! Great system of government we have there.
And these four sources say Trump got comfortable with that level of power and wants it back. And if he thinks the presidency is the only thing standing between him and prison, what makes you think he’ll give it up?
What’ll stop him from declaring martial law and then getting backed up by the SCOTUS? Congress wouldn’t agree, but they also can’t get enough votes to pass anything so…
Sorry for the sense of doom here, but everyone needs to understand how serious this is. A fully corrupt president doesn’t just set a bad precedent — it could be the last one we get.
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