Headline at The Washington Post. I'd make that a free-access link, but I only have 4 left to give this month and it's only the 18th. And it's one of these 31-day months, too, so I've got to be extra stingy.
I'll cherry-pick the lawprof talk:
“They have little options here in terms of protecting their interests,” said Jonathan Shaub, who teaches law at the University of Kentucky and has advised previous White Houses on the use of executive privilege. “Some have claimed the Fifth Amendment, even though I don’t think they actually think that they have committed any crimes. But given the language that has been used and the insinuations, I can understand why their counsel would say, ‘Just don’t say anything, because we don’t know what they’re willing to do and what they’re willing to prosecute.’”
You don't think they actually think that they have committed any crimes. But what do they need to believe? Is it enough that they believe that the current administration will do anything to get revenge on political adversaries? Professor Shaub can understand why their counsel would say they should plead the Fifth, but would he advise his clients to plead the Fifth based on the idea of not knowing what the Trump administration is willing to do?
పోస్ట్లు
114 కామెంట్లు:
Why don't Republicans ever do this? The Democrats often refuse to appear before Republican Senate/House committees. They either outright refuse or they pled the 5th.
Why didn't Trump officials do that with the J6 hearings?
Pleading the 5th means you committed a crime. Otherwise, you'd testify.
They're D's, so they are quite familiar with the idea of process crimes. Process crimes are a prime weapon in the D arsenal. They can only assume their enemies will treat them the way they have been treating their enemies.
Say "that" in a hearing, then "which" in a deposition - perjurer!
No actual crime required.
Shoe, meet other foot.
RR
JSM
If ya have nothing to hide?
"But, but, we were protecting democracy!"
They are afraid of what they know they'd do if the roles were reversed
"They have little options..." mini options? Tiny options? Microscopic options?
We go to the learned expert for analysis and he selects those words?
I think just refusing to answer at all would be sufficient. Do people testifying really say, "I refuse to answer because it might incriminate me," like they do in television shows made in America, or isn't it really more like you see in British crime dramas where they refuse with "No comment" which is what I would do.
Of course, in the U.S. the next step would be to immunize them and recall them to answer such questions.
The former president’s allies are seeking legal protections amid fear that they have become the latest targets for political retribution."
“political retribution”? It’s really for actions afoul of the U.S. Constitution, putting our national security in jeopardy, potential sale of office with moronic numbers of pardons, a whole raft of wrongdoings.
These crybullies are unbelievable. How did we ever saddle ourselves with these dogshit people?!?!
Nice trick: to emphasize the aggressiveness of the prosecutor to take the focus off the possible crimes. But in this case what would be the crimes? More likely, or the easier case, is that whatever was done with the auto-pen without proper and regular authorization, would be ultra vires acts that are null and void?
All I want to know is whether Kentanji Brown Jackson's nomination paperwork was actually signed by brandon, because that flunky needs to go.
Let's dispose of pretense for as second. Joe Biden, even with normal cognitive capability, did not care and would have delegated presidential authority to various executive staff. He would have authorized them to pardon people broadly and done many other things, including use an autopen.
Now, that being dispensed of, the real question is:
- If the president is no longer of sound mind, and
- those serving him begin to take executive action on their own and under his name and not action seeking to replace the president, then
Did they commit a crime?
I think it's going to be impossible to prove that Biden DID NOT delegate such authority to them. But it's clear that they operated broadly and used Presidential power within their own discretion enabled by Biden's choices and deteriorated mental state and capacity.
She said autopen probe. Now that artificial intelligence is taking over, nobody thought long and hard about what to do with all the pens nobody wants. Did you know you can use an unwanted pen as a coffee stirrer?
Paddy O at 12:40
Not a crime to exercise presidential powers by a person not elected as president?
To plead the 5th you have to have something to keep silent about that COULD be misconstrued as incrimination. You can't just plead the 5th just cause you don't wanna talk.
Hence it really does make them look guilty.
I have no doubt the DOJ will force one of them to talk by giving them 100% immunity to speak.. thus the 5th will not apply to them.
Sooner or later one of 'em is gonna squeal.
That idea about what to do with unwanted pens was given to me prompting AI btw.
One Democrat’s political retribution is another Democrat’s brazen law breaking…
I didn’t say it wasn’t a crime. I asked what crime it would be.
If they were acting under an official capacity, what crime could they have committed? Didn't the Supreme Court just rule that had immunity from crimes if they were related to official acts? The crime would have be related to an official act. It should be easy to prove they acted in an official capacity. It is why you keep records.
Maybe not a crime. Maybe impossible to prove they weren't authorized.
But if nothing else by pursuing legal recourse, they'll be tried in the court of public opinion.
I don't think most Americans like the way Dems were doing things under Biden, playing fast and loose with the autopen is just one example of unknowns acting as President while concealing the actual Presidents mental incapacity with the full cooperation of the MSM. Even many Dem voters don't want to reward that or get more of it. They want a reckoning and a house cleaning of the party at the very least.
Taking the Fifth is subject to an inference of guilt in civil cases. It also has implications for future employability.
But can't the DOJ just limited immunize them--if the primary purpose is not to prosecute but to establish whether the autopen action is valid? (If they were selling unauthorized pardons, that's a different matter altogether).
Quayle said...
I didn’t say it wasn’t a crime. I asked what crime it would be.
Sedition.
Blues Brothers - Guilty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cICYuBrPSdc&ab_channel=TheBluesBrothers
The legal standard is reasonable fear of criminal prosecution. I'd say that the administration's rhetoric, and willingness to pursue meritless claims against political enemies, means that standard is readily met here, even if those invoking the privilege don't think that they did anything wrong. Not really that complicated.
Every time somebody pleads the 5th, an argument breaks out on twitter about whether you have to be guilty of something to use the protection. I say yes. By it's own terms, it is unavailable to the innocent.
But admitting this reality would tend to negate the protection (because pleading the 5th amounts to a confession), so the Supreme Court embraced a judicial fiction--to preserve the protection, the court declared that citing the threat of self-incrimination does not indicate the person did something incriminating.
Necessary fiction or not, we are coming to a place where "pleading the 5th" is just a way to avoid testifying, regardless of your reasons. And that is not why the protection exists.
Trump is not Obama, not Biden, not liberal judge or persecutor. What are Democrats hiding?
It is simply a fact that July is not the longest, but the shortest month of the year. While it may end on the 31st, it doesn't begin until the 5th. Absolutely nothing gets done before then. When you point this out to higher management, this is known as pleading the 5th.
TreeJoe said...I think it's going to be impossible to prove that Biden DID NOT delegate such authority to them.
But does a president have the authority to delegate presidential powers? Can he tell someone else to read the bill and decide for him whether to sign or veto it?
And there is reason to think that, at least sometimes, Biden didn't even know. Did aides use the combination of his dementia and the autopen to cut him out of the process entirely, even once?
As discussed here a while back, the Supreme Court recently underscored that with pardons and other Article 1 prerogatives, “Congress cannot act on, and courts cannot examine, the President’s actions” — therefore, the only possible legal action is some kind of perjury trap, so I would advise my clients to shut up and stay that way.
Retribution? It’s what I voted for.
@Stephen I'd say that the administration's rhetoric, and willingness to pursue meritless claims against political enemies
Are you referring to the previous administration and the actions of Congress since 2016?
The Biden administration ranks right up there with the most petit-corrupt gang that ever invaded the White House. Not truly evil like a Woodrow Wilson or a LBJ, but just self-dealing unethical as with Grant and Harding.
All that said, I support their taking the 5th. Everyone should take the Fifth every chance one gets. Never talk to the authorities.
What trans/gressions did they commit and when?
Redistributive and retributive change are hallmarks of Obamacity.
"I don’t think they actually think that they have committed any crimes" What crimes could possibly be at issue, even in the "insinuations"? If no crimes are even at issue, how could the 5th apply?
I still can’t understand why Hunter is not being regularly called to testify before Congress and the FBI. He was highly involved in White House activities and cannot take the Fifth as he has a pardon for that time period. He has to testify truthfully or face a criminal perjury charge for which the pardon gives no protection.
While they claim the 5th, Hunter will claim the 8-ball.
When one side does it, it's defending the Constitution against seditious lawbreakers. When the other side does it, it's political retribution.
How can the use of the President's signature be a casual process, subject to no process controls, and deployable to the one of the most powerful of all Executive actions? Could Joe Biden's aides have given the go-ahead for bombing raids on Russia with the autopen too?
I can see its utility for standard form letters, or matters of common everyday procedure, but would they really expect us to believe that they could use it, without any formal register, to grant pardons from any future prosecution? No formal record of the President approving it, as per the approved process? Wow.
If I break into a home for the purpose of robbing it, and find myself in a den of counterfeiters, and just then the Treasury Department raid the place, and I get swept up in the crowd of counterfeiters, and they begin questioning me about the counterfeiting operation, which I don't know anything about because, hey, I'm just a harmless burglar, I think I'd Claim the Fifth because, if I was forthcoming about my presence in the building, I would incriminate myself of the crime of burglary.
Of course, I might suffer negative consequences until my lawyer worked out some sort of immunity so that I could, in fact, testify about what I knew about the counterfeiters without being charged with burglary.
That's how it would go if I were writing the filmscript, anyway.
Biden's handlers pardoned 3000+ ---> including piles of criminals and dirty judges and of course Biden's own grifting crooked family.
Such a vile stain on our once great nation.
Since 2005 it has been executive policy that “The President need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill he approves and decides to sign in order for the bill to become law. Rather, the President may sign a bill within the meaning of Article I, Section 7 by directing a subordinate to affix the President’s signature to such a bill, for example by autopen.”
If you’ve been told that’s illegal, you’re being played.
Do we have a firm count on how many Trump pardoned in connection with Jan 6 crimes?
"Would he advise his clients to plead the Fifth based on the idea of not knowing what the Trump administration is willing to do?"
There are literally NO downsides to maintaining your rights - all of them. The right to remain silent being one of the most important ones we have.
You can always change your mind, later, when the endgame is visible.
Readering said...
Do we have a firm count on how many Trump pardoned in connection with Jan 6 crimes?
Are you suggesting Garland's DoJ imprisoned people without records? I'm interested in what you know. I mean, we know they put people in prison to wait months for a trial, but putting them there without keeping track of them is a new claim.
Do we have a firm count on how many Trump pardoned in connection with Jan 6 crimes?
Given statements by Biden and others in the party, it's somewhere in the range of 100 to 200 million.
readering - name those Jan 6th crimes.
and willingness to pursue meritless claims against political enemies
A Biden supporter just wrote that. Good lord.
The President need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill he approves and decides to sign in order for the bill to become law.
Show us the approval when he decided to sign them. It's that easy. Surely there is a log of these approvals.
I guess Barack Obama is happy about the outcome in Donald J. Trump v. United States. It might just protect... him.
Filed under “Dogshit People”…
TULSI GABBARD RELEASES REPORT: BARACK OBAMA ORDERED THE IC TO FALSIFY ITS RUSSIAGATE CONCLUSIONS TO FRAME TRUMP; SAYS THAT ALL CONSPIRATORS MUST BE PROSECUTED TO "FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW"
House of Clowns begins to fall…
Less "report releasing" and more "perp walking."
The article can be read for free at the Internet Archive, specifically at https://archive.ph/6kIfw.
I use the Archive Page extension in the Chrome browser, to generate this sort of page, which gets around the pay walls at NYT, WaPo, etc.
"Pleading the 5th means you committed a crime. Otherwise, you'd testify."
Nope. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
Paul
"To plead the 5th you have to have something to keep silent about that COULD be misconstrued as incrimination. You can't just plead the 5th just cause you don't wanna talk.
Hence it really does make them look guilty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
Tim
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
Just because the 5th is used to protect the guilty doesn't mean it shouldn't be available to the innocent. The State has huge resources available to pursue the guilty as well as to engage in punishment prosecutions of the innocent. I'd rather see these scumbags get off than see one more protection of the innocent destroyed.
tim maguire,
"By [the 5th's] own terms, it is unavailable to the innocent"
The actual 5th reads, in part: "No person ... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself"
Not a single word about [supposed] guilt or innocence in there.
I'm confused by the use of the word "retribution". I think it's appropriate, but I'm surprised that the WaPo thinks it's appropriate. Is the paper's stance that Trump was wronged by the Biden administration and this is payback?
The fact that this issue is being seriously discussed will tend to discourage staffers of future Presidents from participating in autopen abuse -- unless there's a definitive judicial ruling that such abuse is not a crime. That's a pretty good result in my opinion.
Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. These weasels are running for the 5th--not that there is necessarily anything wrong with that. But the guilty flee ---
It's like a bad novel. From the helpful summary
Facing off against her former lover, the ruthless defense attorney Michael Donovan, Alex is forced to battle not only the tricks of the courtroom but also the ghosts of her past.
The autopenis is next.
GPT-40 says:
The cost of invoking the Fifth Amendment, which allows individuals to refuse to answer questions that may incriminate them, is generally much lower than hiring a high-priced lawyer to combat lawsuits. Invoking the Fifth Amendment typically involves no direct financial cost, as it is a constitutional right. However, there may be indirect costs, such as potential legal consequences or the impact on one's reputation.
In contrast, hiring a high-priced lawyer can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on the complexity of the case, the lawyer's fees, and the duration of the legal proceedings. Legal fees can vary widely, but top attorneys often charge between $500 to $1,000 per hour or more.
In summary, invoking the Fifth Amendment is significantly cheaper in terms of direct costs compared to the expenses associated with hiring a high-priced lawyer for legal battles, including those related to lawsuits involving high-profile figures like Donald Trump. However, the decision to invoke this right should be made with careful consideration of the legal implications and potential consequences.
You don't think they actually think that they have committed any crimes.
@Althouse, is this post meant to be another typical law professor’s hypothetical? Because this sentence seems very speculative to me.
And even while trying to navigate the unfamiliar pathways and temptations of American power, Valeria will have to contend with a mother still frozen by bitterness about the past, a brother jealous of Valeria's future, and the ghost of the father who abandoned them all and then died before Valeria could even begin to understand his reasons.
Just take the fifth, is my advice.
Show us the approval when he decided to sign them. It's that easy. Surely there is a log of these approvals.
Let us know how far you get with your demands.
Lawfare is a bitch, huh?
Tim, we don't have constitutional rights to protect criminals. We have constitutional rights to protect innocent people charged with a crime.
Big difference.
In fact, Akhil Amar, Yale Law Professor, has argued that the exclusionary rule is bad because it protects the guilty. You are excluding relevant evidence of a crime to punish the police.
Amar says that courts should admit the relevant evidence, and open the police to civil lawsuits to punish the police.
The Fourth Amendment, of course, says nothing about excluding evidence to help criminals get away with crimes. Amar is right, and the Supreme Court screwed the pooch.
What’s striking is how unfamiliar people are with what it means to be an executive. It would be perfectly constitutional for a president — say, Donald Trump — to tell subordinates, “You have my full trust. Prepare a list of pardons and affix my signature to them.” Such executive action would be untouchable by Congress, courts, or future administrations.
tim maguire said...
“But does a president have the authority to delegate presidential powers? Can he tell someone else to read the bill and decide for him whether to sign or veto it?”
Isn’t that what happened for the last 4 years? I fail to see the big deal here, everyone knew Joe Biden wasn’t the president. He read what was on his teleprompter and he signed (or had someone sign) what was on his desk. That was his entire job.
Suppose a "bad" cop invades a suspect's house without a warrant, and finds a dead body.
Do you exclude the dead body from the murder trial?
The exclusionary rule is profoundly bad, because it helps criminals directly, and helps innocent people indirectly (at best) and makes us all more vulnerable to crimes.
Anyway, our Constitution protects innocent people from the police. That's the focus.
There's a distinction between political crimes and legal ones. In Iran-Contra, ADM Poindexter was not prosecuted for using profits of Reagan's sale of arms to Iran. Previous Presidents had sold the WH furniture to buy something else without authorization from Congress. Doing too much of Biden's job for him because his brain is mush isn't a legal crime, either, but it sure stinks, and they deserve punishment of some kind. Lawyer fees and public shaming may be all we can do.
..."It would be perfectly constitutional for a president — say, Donald Trump — to tell subordinates, “You have my full trust. Prepare a set of bombing plans for Moscow and affix my signature to them.” and then send it over to the Joint Chiefs for immediate execution.
No, I don't think so. I don't think it's 'perfectly constitutional' for a President to do these things informally, with no procedural controls. Not at all. And if it has happened - where it's impossible to discern later whether or not the President was actually involved at all - then something is seriously awry. Don't they have Special Prosecutors for stuff like this?
And it's one of these 31-day months, too, so I've got to be extra stingy.
I never thought of of Althouse as particularly waspish -- gracious, who less irascible on the interwebs? But hasn't stupid old Joe been stung enough? (And am I thinking we'd exhausted the honey bee versus wasp subject over a week ago.) On the other hand, the cruelly neutral this side of the Styx didn't get the 31th of July off, either. Sting away, O Queen Bee of Bloggers.
It is indeed strange that the mental condition of President Biden should become a legal issue after the fact,. At least 15 Presidents have suffered mental conditions:
Presidents met the diagnostic criteria for depression, including James Madison, John Quincy Adams, Franklin Pierce, Abraham Lincoln, and Calvin Coolidge.
Evidence of anxiety disorders, ranging from social phobia to generalized anxiety disorder included Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses S. Grant, Coolidge, and Woodrow Wilson.
Signs of bipolar disorder were displayed by Lyndon Johnson and Theodore Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt’s decision to go on a two-year expedition of unexplored areas of the Amazon smacks of manic thinking.
Alcoholics included Pierce, who died of cirrhosis of the liver; Grant was once allegedly so drunk he fell off his horse during a military parade in New Orleans, and Nixon was once unable to take a rather important phone call from the British Prime Minister because he was “loaded."
Ronald Reagan, after he'd been out of office about 5 years, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1994, but the gradual onset of the disease likely began near the end of his presidency.
Joe Biden is displaying physical and mental problems at age 82 and he has an incurable form of prostate cancer. So Trump needs to back down on his revenge prosections and let him die in peace.
Likewise, Donald Trump is displaying more and more evidence of cognitive decline and irrationality which makes him more dangerous than all that went before him.
Big Mike said...
"You don't think they actually think that they have committed any crimes."
Took me a minute but the emphasis refers back to what the quoted author wrote about his feelings.
Althouse murderizes offenders with a slim little stiletto. Sometimes. She also has a broadsword.
"...but would he advise his clients to plead the Fifth based on the idea of not knowing what the Trump administration is willing to do?"
Being serious now, Jonathan Shaub isn't advising clients, he doing partisan polemics. If stupid old Joe was his client, he might advise him to adopt Nixonian tactics -- stonewall here, bribe there, suborn perjury if necessary. Unlike the 37th President, Biden can't be impeached, and he's unlikely to be convicted by a D.C. jury. Pleading the Fifth, however, will make Biden and his handlers enemies of Democrats longing for power in the wilderness. They'll be forced to damn him and his entire presidency to avoid being tarred with the same brush. A lawyer concerned with Biden's "legacy" would not advise invoking the Fifth Amendment; it's too early and nothing is yet writ in stone. Newscum and his bitch are skating close to insurrection (the real kind, Inga). That will make old news of the whole Biden fiasco.
@Earnest Prole, that's absolutely true, and also since that is most pointedly NOT the defense Joe "I made every decision" Biden is using, it is safe to assume his staff was doing much that he knew nothing about until after the dirty deeds had been done.
Hmmmm. Still no answer from Readering.
"Likewise, Donald Trump is displaying more and more evidence of cognitive decline and irrationality which makes him more dangerous than all that went before him."
The irony of gadfly (a byname that fails to evoke Socrates no matter how shamelessly his visage is stolen and exploited) passing judgment on anyone's cognitive competence is a tasty dessert.
It would be perfectly constitutional for a president — say, Donald Trump — to tell subordinates, “You have my full trust. Prepare a list of pardons and affix my signature to them.”
Maybe you think that flies in a government. In the business world, your signature on a document means you agree to what was in the document. For that reason, most people don't foolish things like tell others to sign on their behalf, without explicitly stating who has their delegation of authority and what they can use that delegation on. And in those cases, the person signing on behalf of another signs their own signature.
Oh, but I've seen digital signatures on documents. And that happens very often, typically using a login with ID and password to authenticate your approval prior to affixing the digital signature. The digital file is encrypted with the authentication rights, and besides the meta data in the document itself; there is usually a signature log file that is also kept showing who signed what, when, and from where. That's how Docusign functions.
Now Earnest Prole; tell us how you run your business.
Prepare a set of bombing plans for Iran and affix my signature to them.” and then send it over to the Joint Chiefs for immediate execution.
You’re proposing Trump be investigated for exercising his powers as Commander in Chief?
Maybe you think that flies in a government
As I noted above, the actual law is that “the President may sign a bill . . . by directing a subordinate to affix the President’s signature to such a bill, for example by autopen.”
No mention of goofy Docusign protocols.
C'mon, they're just criminals, and of the highest level crimes, you know, like the ones they pretended Trump was guilty of.
If this was Trump people..., well you know the thing.
Kirk Parker said...The actual 5th reads, in part: "No person ... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself"
Not a single word about [supposed] guilt or innocence in there
Hmm…you might want to read that again.
Isn't all prosecution retribution and all punishment revenge? I'm fine with that.
tim,
The words don't change upon rereading.
Can it possibly be that you are one of those interesting souls who believes the government never brings charges against anyone unless they are guilt?
"The former president’s allies are seeking legal protections amid fear that they have become the latest targets for political retribution."
If the former president's allies weren't working so tirelessly to obstruct Trump's efforts to institute the policies he was chosen by the voters to enact, I'd be inclined to oppose political retribution.
Since that ship has apparently sailed, I'm all for Trump doing whatever he thinks is necessary to get to the "FAFO" endgame.
You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in court. If you remain silent, your silence can’t be used against you in court.
So know your fucking rights.
What needs to be signed and what doesn't- a question all to itself.
The Constitution requires two signing for two thing- bills, in order to become law (unless POTUS takes no action for 10 days excepting Sundays while the legislature is in session) and the electoral vote results of each state that are transmitted to the President of the Senate. That's it.
As discussed in the past here on this very blog- there are no procedures for POTUS to classify or declassify anything. He can do either on a whim. And id a POTUS takes classified material home with him at the end of a term and says he declassified it before leaving- well, that's that. Not possible to prove otherwise. VPOTUS and SECSTATE, BTW, cannot do declassify anything unless POTUS authorizes them to do so. If they take the classified material when they leave office- it's a crime. And if found in their possession they have to prove it was declassified. Unless, of course, SECSTATE or VPOTUS were Democrats...
That's the sticking point with the pardons. Biden has approved all of them. Well, he said he did. No way to prove he didn't. So, same thing- he approved them all, even if he didn't even know who was on the lists. Could have been verbally, could have been a delegation- print up a list, and it's good as far as I'm concerned. The pardons are done, and cannot be undone. Not a crime to use the autopen for pardons if POTUS said go ahead, do it. Now- is it possible to still charge an underling with a crime for doing so? AH- yes it is. With a huge burden of proof. Show an actual quid pro pro- like money changing hands causing Underling#1 to add a name to the list. Pardon would still be good, but Underling#1 could be charged with accepting a bribe...
POTUS while overseas directing a bill be signed by autopen- that is constitutionally suspect. IMHO- not Constitutional. Let it go for 10 days and sign it when you get back- it's still law. If Congress is set to go into recess- tell them that have to stay for the 10 days to pass because you're not going to be around...
Unless there was a quid pro pro- pleading the 5th makes you look guilty of something when you're not guilty of anything. Did you know that POTUS was non compos mentis? So what? It's the job of the cabinet and VPOTUS to do something about that- not you. You could even outright state- "Biden had no clue what we were doing, but he was OK with that. So what? Is that a crime?" Well, no, it isn't. Seems no one was hiding their actions from Biden, so he was giving his tacit approval for things to happen. Even though he was non compos mentis and didn't actually know what those things were. We can thank Kamal for that for failing to discharge her duties. Or maybe she was too non-observant to notice Biden wasn't all there mentally.
Readering said...
Do we have a firm count on how many Trump pardoned in connection with Jan 6 crimes?
--
AKA unarmed "insurrection".
AKA slaughter of Ashleigh Babbitt that could have taken out others, by the dude who left his gun at a urinal.
AKA More +lethal round)shots fired at Trump's head in Butler, PA
The Biden machine was apparently ferocious in suppressing adverse reporting on Biden, so there's little wonder Kamala didn't revolt. They had all her ex-staffers ready to squeal.
rhhardin said...
"The autopenis is next."
That should have happened in the Clinton era.
POTUS while overseas directing a bill be signed by autopen- that is constitutionally suspect. IMHO- not Constitutional.
Your comments are more cogent than the rest, but since 2005 your scenario has been explicitly covered by the executive memo I quoted upthread. You can google a few of the words and read the Justice Department’s 30-page legal gloss that supports it. I can say with great certainty that the Supreme Court will not be retroactively reversing bills signed by autopen.
Readering said...
Do we have a firm count on how many Trump pardoned in connection with Jan 6 crimes?
Have you apologized for accusing them of killing police and spreading blood libels you lying sack of shit?
Stephen said...
The legal standard is reasonable fear of criminal prosecution. I'd say that the administration's rhetoric, and willingness to pursue meritless claims against political enemies, means that standard is readily met here, even if those invoking the privilege don't think that they did anything wrong. Not really that complicated.
You are just a piece of shit trying to say that with a straight face. You know you are just projecting what your side was doing.
People like you just cannot be in a free country. You do not have the requisite moral fiber to live in a free country. You belong in a fascist country.
Whether it’s Biden’s use of an autopen or Trump’s lewd drawings to Jeffrey Epstein, both sides are involved in controversies involving pens. 😂
both sides are involved in controversies involving pens.
Yes, in both cases neither man touched the pen in question or authorized those that did to do so on their behalf.
Looking forward to reading the comments. My understanding is that the next step is offering immunity and compelling their testimony at which time they are required to explain what actions they took that were incriminating. If they are unable to do so other options are available.
Mean ol' me would send out subpoenas to several of those closest to the auto pen and their next tier subordinates. Then via discussion or in writing I'd say we're going to grant pardons to a few, very few, of the people on this list. Those that are unresponsive will not get a pardon.
Poof, there goes the Fifth for the first few through the door.
Then see where self preservation raises its ugly head.
"Rather, the President may sign a bill within the meaning of Article I, Section 7 by directing a subordinate to affix the President’s signature to such a bill, for example by autopen.”
The words, "by directing" seem to be pretty damn important here.
Totally disagree. They are evil. Pure evil.
Michael said...
The Biden administration ranks right up there with the most petit-corrupt gang that ever invaded the White House. Not truly evil like a Woodrow Wilson or a LBJ, but just self-dealing unethical as with Grant and Harding.
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