Will Trump end up as a 'secondary' president to the GOP?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Also, assuming I'm interpreting that right, it only covers "offences against the United States" not, say, New York.

[Elheru Aran]

Also, assuming I'm interpreting that right, it only covers "offences against the United States" not, say, New York.

Correct; the conventional interpretation of Presidential pardon powers has always been that it's only valid for Federal crimes, anything you might be tried for in a Federal court. So that means Presidents cannot pardon charges being brought forth by states, unless there happens to be overlap somehow into Federal jurisdiction... but the flip side of that is you can be damn sure that when a case gets to the point where Presidential pardons are being discussed, the prosecutorial authority is really certain about who has jurisdiction.

[Captain Seafort]

the conventional interpretation of Presidential pardon powers has always been that it's only valid for Federal crimes

The list of words that have been used to describe Donald Trump is very, very long. I don't think "conventional" is one that's ever made that list. Is there any explicit statement in US law that says the Present can't pardon offences under state law? If not, I suspect you'll find him arguing that a presidential pardon applies across all jurisdictions.

[Rogue 9]

Yes. The Article II pardon power is quite explicit that it applies only to "offenses against the United States."

...he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.

[Ralin]

New York et al are part of the United States. It's right there in the name.

[TimothyC]

New York et al are part of the United States. It's right there in the name.

In this particular case, United States means the federal government singular, not states plural.

[Ralin]

In this particular case, United States means the federal government singular, not states plural.

Trump's never needed more than a fig leaf at most. And given that state governments are beneath the federal government it seems like a strange distinction to draw.

[Bedlam]

In this particular case, United States means the federal government singular, not states plural.

Trump's never needed more than a fig leaf at most. And given that state governments are beneath the federal government it seems like a strange distinction to draw.

In the US the distinction between the federal government and the state government is a lot stronger than in many other countries.

In any case if this situation does occur it will by the Supreme courts job to interpret the constitution to decide how far a presidential pardon can go.

[Zwinmar]

It would be better to say that each State is really it's own country united with the others under a federal banner. This was entirely accurate up until the end of the Civil War. One could even argue that each county in each state act as their own country to a limited degree.

[Nicholas]

I have a few thoughts on this question.

The first is that I do not think Trump's legal problems will end up being significant. I might be surprised but right now the charges against Trump remind me of the charges against Hillary Clinton. There is a lot of public conviction that Trump is engaged in criminal activity, driven mostly by political and personal hatred for him. There are enough questions about his conduct and enough investigations have been conducted to make it probable that there was some illegal conduct going on. However, the consistent inability of those investigations to produce convincing evidence of substantial criminal conduct makes me suspect that whatever is going on can be explained away or covered up by spending several hundred thousand dollars in very good lawyers. Like with Hillary I expect the charges against Trump to evaporate once he is out of office.

As for Trump continuing to be the head of the GOP that is harder to tell. The key question that I would ask is what opposition is he going to face to his efforts to run the GOP? Much of the professional elite of the GOP endorsed Biden, my sense is that they will mostly follow the upper class into the Democratic party and are not going to be capable of or interested in opposing Trump for control of the GOP. I see two likely sources of opposition.

The first is other politicians who are following Trump's lead. They will likely be aiming to succeed him, I doubt they will publicly oppose him but instead will try and sideline him and manage him. Given Trump's age and impulsiveness I expect a competent politician that can touch the class and racial issues that Trump used will be able to overcome his influence. I expect this fight to play out mostly in the 2024 Republican primary.

The second is people trying to take Trump's GOP in directions that Trump did not consider. I have already seen arguments that Republicans should stop pushing tax cuts for the wealthy and instead focus strongly on pro-natalist policies for the working class (the idea I found most interesting was substantial tax credits for people who educated their children outside the public schools). I'm sure there will be a number of other ideas floated in the next couple of years for how the GOP should build on Trump. Not knowing who they will be or what they will be pushing it is hard to guess how this will go. The libertarian wing of the GOP will probably try and recover from Trump but much of their backing seems to be leaving the party so I'm not sure how much traction they will be able to get.

Nicholas

[Rogue 9]

Robert Mueller had him dead to rights on obstruction of justice but couldn't charge because of the DoJ memo about not charging sitting Presidents.

[Ziggy Stardust]

The first is that I do not think Trump's legal problems will end up being significant. I might be surprised but right now the charges against Trump remind me of the charges against Hillary Clinton. There is a lot of public conviction that Trump is engaged in criminal activity, driven mostly by political and personal hatred for him. There are enough questions about his conduct and enough investigations have been conducted to make it probable that there was some illegal conduct going on. However, the consistent inability of those investigations to produce convincing evidence of substantial criminal conduct makes me suspect that whatever is going on can be explained away or covered up by spending several hundred thousand dollars in very good lawyers. Like with Hillary I expect the charges against Trump to evaporate once he is out of office.

I agree with you here. Fact is Trump is still a rich white man, which in this country makes it more likely than not that he will end up going unpunished. Not to mention America's long-standing cultural tradition of "moving on" and not relitigating the crimes of previous administrations, and Biden in particular being a moderate who has a state goal of mending relations between the two parties. At worst I expect some out-of-court settlements or back taxes that he has to foot the bill for. I know people are really excited about this theoretical crusade of charges against Trump, but realistically it's wishful thinking.

Much of the professional elite of the GOP endorsed Biden, my sense is that they will mostly follow the upper class into the Democratic party and are not going to be capable of or interested in opposing Trump for control of the GOP.

What professional elite are you talking about? There have been a handful of Republicans endorsing Biden, but the vast majority of the party is still in lock-step with Trump, including its leadership. Like it or not, Trumpism is here to stay.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Not to raise a dead thread... But I thought that, given the events of the last two weeks, it is worth bring back up my concers directly following the election...

Well, once Trump is [eventually] out of office… These “powers” don’t go away. He can still tweet, still yell, still throw tantrums and still spread poison to everyone that follows him.
The question is, in the next year and through Biden’s presidency, exactly how much will the GOP be running things? Or will it be Trump? Even as a private citizen, if Trump sets off a tweet storm that some GOP candidate seemed to displease him, will they be doomed? Will candidates still have to kiss his ring to get elected? Can he do the same to bills? If there is the RARE moment were a bill has GOP support, will it evaporate if Trump wags his finger?

Well, here we are in "the future" and all I have to say, Is I never thought certain things would have happened how they did.

Trump has been stripped of his media platform and banned from almost all online forums.
His Presence has become Toxic and the GOP [for the most part] have finally turned on him
And even his die hard rapid fanatics, after the 'humiliation' of the failed coup, are starting to evaporate, calling him a 'failure' and a 'false profit.'

So, the question now it seems, is there anything that Trump will even have left in terms of "Power" outside of making a 3rd party?

[LadyTevar]

Not to raise a dead thread... But I thought that, given the events of the last two weeks, it is worth bring back up my concers directly following the election...

Well, once Trump is [eventually] out of office… These “powers” don’t go away. He can still tweet, still yell, still throw tantrums and still spread poison to everyone that follows him.
The question is, in the next year and through Biden’s presidency, exactly how much will the GOP be running things? Or will it be Trump? Even as a private citizen, if Trump sets off a tweet storm that some GOP candidate seemed to displease him, will they be doomed? Will candidates still have to kiss his ring to get elected? Can he do the same to bills? If there is the RARE moment were a bill has GOP support, will it evaporate if Trump wags his finger?

Well, here we are in "the future" and all I have to say, Is I never thought certain things would have happened how they did.

Trump has been stripped of his media platform and banned from almost all online forums.
His Presence has become Toxic and the GOP [for the most part] have finally turned on him
And even his die hard rapid fanatics, after the 'humiliation' of the failed coup, are starting to evaporate, calling him a 'failure' and a 'false profit.'

So, the question now it seems, is there anything that Trump will even have left in terms of "Power" outside of making a 3rd party?

Dude, are they seriously saying "False Profit", and not prophet?
And yes, Trump's lost his media presence, lost a lot of his base, and while there are rumors he'll try for his own media network, we can look at all his past endeavors and see how THAT will end. Even if the Senate doesn't try him, there's multiple suits filed, and may be more before the year's out. I can't call him completely out of the picture, but he's burnt his bridges.

[Crossroads Inc.]

oh no.. that was just standard bad spelling on my part...
Although it does make a delicious sort of irony to decry a false "Profit" instead of "Prophet"

But yes, less than three months after worrying if "Trump will be around forever" It now seems he is already on the final path to insignificance and obscurity.

[Lord Revan]

oh no.. that was just standard bad spelling on my part...
Although it does make a delicious sort of irony to decry a false "Profit" instead of "Prophet"

But yes, less than three months after worrying if "Trump will be around forever" It now seems he is already on the final path to insignificance and obscurity.

Well I'd say "profit" isn't that far either, seeing as most of Trump's minions followed him due to their own profit rather then some grand ideology.

[LadyTevar]

Well, Trump's still got followers who BELIEVE.

I saw a post making the rounds of FB where a very deluded woman explains that "Oh, they couldn't arrest Biden and Harris, it would have caused a Civil War, so they let them get Inaugurated, but TRUMP is really in charge behind the scenes!"

I really hoped it was a parody, but... *SIGH*.

[Batman]

Nope. There's apparently people really deluded enough to 'believe' that.

[Zaune]

There was a time when I was vaguely in favour of offering Trump immunity from prosecution on the condition that he went into tax exile, deactivated his social media accounts and promised to abstain from causing any more trouble, on the grounds that giving him his just desserts would come at a cost of far too much blood and treasure suppressing the ensuing revolt... and the CIA could always shut him up with a drone strike if he failed to keep his end of the bargain.

Now I'm wondering if that would have even affected the scale of the shitshow the next eight years are going to be.

[Jub]

Anybody who's likely to have believed the Q crap in the first place is unlikely to change their view in light of new evidence because if they valued evidence they'd never have fallen for it at all.

[Lord Revan]

Anybody who's likely to have believed the Q crap in the first place is unlikely to change their view in light of new evidence because if they valued evidence they'd never have fallen for it at all.

indeed those people only believe what they want no matter how irrational or counter to reality it is and reject everything else. It's like those people who were dead certain the world is gonna end in 2012 because the Mayan calendar ended that year.

[Lord Revan]

Anybody who's likely to have believed the Q crap in the first place is unlikely to change their view in light of new evidence because if they valued evidence they'd never have fallen for it at all.

indeed those people only believe what they want no matter how irrational or counter to reality it is and reject everything else. It's like those people who were dead certain the world is gonna end in 2012 because the Mayan calendar ended that year.

EDIT:To put this in this perspective if one those people got it into their head that it would be impossible for me to have sausages and spagetti for lunch today, then they'd reject any argument (including from me) that said otherwise.

this was my lunch today.

[Tribble]

Anybody who's likely to have believed the Q crap in the first place is unlikely to change their view in light of new evidence because if they valued evidence they'd never have fallen for it at all.

indeed those people only believe what they want no matter how irrational or counter to reality it is and reject everything else. It's like those people who were dead certain the world is gonna end in 2012 because the Mayan calendar ended that year.

EDIT:To put this in this perspective if one those people got it into their head that it would be impossible for me to have sausages and spagetti for lunch today, then they'd reject any argument (including from me) that said otherwise.

this was my lunch today.

Proof right there your lying bud. That’s clearly cereal and toast your eating, just badly edited to look like sausages and spaghetti. Too bad for you that with God and Q on my side I can see through your evil deception

[Khaat]

[Qanon]Six sausages, thirty-two strands of spaghetti...
John 6:32, NIV: "Jesus said to them, 'Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven."
So CLEARLY this means Trump (our father), Biden (Moses) something something... SAN DIMAS HIGH FOOTBALL RULES![/Qanon]
... Yeah, EXACTLY like that.

[RogueIce]

Well, Trump's still got followers who BELIEVE.

I saw a post making the rounds of FB where a very deluded woman explains that "Oh, they couldn't arrest Biden and Harris, it would have caused a Civil War, so they let them get Inaugurated, but TRUMP is really in charge behind the scenes!"

I really hoped it was a parody, but... *SIGH*.

In a (somewhat) more substantive example than random crazies on Facebook, we have this from the Arizona GOP:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/23/politics ... index.html

The Arizona Republican Party sent a clear signal Saturday that its leadership remains loyal to former President Donald Trump when it voted to publicly punish Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, former Sen. Jeff Flake and Cindy McCain, all of whom opposed Trump's efforts to overturn President Joe Biden's victory, or in the case of Flake and McCain, endorsed the Democrat before the election.

...

Kirk Adams, a former state representative and adviser to Ducey, called the actions akin to going down "the rabbit hole of loyalty."
"What we're getting is a purity test, and that purity test is simple: are you loyal to Donald Trump no matter what? If you're not, we'll censure you."
Ward appeared publicly unconcerned about any warnings from moderates, as she spoke to the assembled Arizona Republicans at the Dream City Church in Phoenix. The venue was closed to nearly all reporters, except for a few hand-selected outlets.
Ward ended her speech ahead of the member vote for party chairwoman with, "Make America Great Again!" She then introduced a recorded audio message from Trump, where the former President told members, "I give her my complete and total endorsement."
Ward defeated her challenger by 3 points in two rounds of voting.

Sadly, there's still a lot of "Trump Loyalty Policing" going on. And while some of the fringers turned on him for not pushing the coup hard enough as Crossroads said, he still has a distressing hold on segments of the GOP itself. And a still not-unsubstantial amount of die-hards out there; I saw a Trump Parade just last week going down the Interstate around here.

His influence, toxic as it is, will still be quite some time lingering around the Republican Party. Maybe if McConnell and others vote to convict they can start trying to shuck some of it off. But what's really gong to tell the tale is how the 2018 GOP Primaries go down.