Will Trump Jump?
After hearing the bombshell news that the Federal Bureau of Investigation just executed a search warrant at Donald Trump's residence in Florida, my immediate reaction was to wonder whether this will be the trigger that prompts Trump to immediately declare his candidacy for the 2024 presidential race. Will Trump jump in the race now? It seems likelier than not, and certainly likelier than it did a day ago.
For four years, Trump relied upon the fact that the Department of Justice would always refuse to prosecute a sitting president -- for just about any crime under the sun. Trump revelled in this, and went on to blatantly commit what seems to a legal layperson to be a whole lot of crimes, in a vast range from the picayune to the extremely serious.
Trump now seems to think that if he is a declared candidate for the presidency, the same sort of legal immunity will apply to him. Which, obviously, would be the biggest reason why he would jump into the race early -- before the midterm elections even happen. He sees it as some sort of "get out of jail free" card, or at the least "get out of any investigations."
It's not, though. It's just not. Far from it. If there is clear and overwhelming evidence a crime was committed and probable cause to believe that Trump was the one who committed it, then he will face an investigation into that crime. That's what the Justice Department signalled yesterday, loud and clear.
But there's a flip side to this coin which few have even realized. Sure, Trump could get investigated, indicted, tried, and even convicted before the 2024 election. He could even be sentenced to jail. He could even go to jail. But none of that actually disqualifies him from running for president -- or from serving, if he won. This would lead to the bizarre scenario of Trump being sworn into office behind the bars of his cell, after which he would immediately sign a document pardoning himself for any federal crime, and then he'd get his belongings back and move into the White House. Stranger things may never have happened in American history, but Trump's always prided himself on outdoing everyone else in the "stranger things have never happened" category.
Trump has already whipped up his followers and sycophants into an outraged frenzy over the F.B.I. searching his home. Without anyone other than the federal agents involved, Trump himself, and Trump's lawyers knowing the actual reason for the search warrant, people can say anything they want about it. And Republicans are already decrying the whole thing as some sort of "politicization" or "weaponization" of the Justice Department and the F.B.I. With absolutely nothing to back up their claims, of course.
This isn't some sort of "rogue prosecutor" situation, though. The F.B.I. and the D.O.J. both have rules in place for those who either occupy (or could occupy in the future) the highest office in the land. Some random F.B.I. team can't suddenly decide to file a search warrant, to put this differently. It has to be signed off by both the head of the F.B.I. (a man Trump appointed, by the way) and the attorney general. And then it has to go before a federal judge or magistrate who examines the evidence, determines whether there is probable cause that both a crime has been committed and that evidence of that crime is likely to be uncovered by a search and seizure, and then he or she decides whether to approve the search warrant. To put it another way, the judicial branch of government is involved, it is not Joe Biden siccing anyone on Trump for political payback. Not by a long shot. And according to many who know the ins and outs of federal search warrants, whatever evidence exists that prompted this one must have been pretty damning, or else the judge would have erred on the side of caution.
If Trump is really right that this is all some sort of partisan witch hunt, he's got an easy way to prove it. All he has to do is release both the search warrant itself and the list of everything the F.B.I. hauled away during its search. He could conclusively prove if there was no real substance to the warrant just by making these two documents public. My guess is he won't. Because that warrant is probably pretty iron-clad. And it's probably a lot more serious than most of the news reports have even speculated about.
Of course, since we are talking about Donald Trump, "there's a tweet for that." Trump made a great show, in the 2016 campaign, of painting Hillary Clinton as some sort of nefarious criminal (see: "Lock her up!" and also: "...but her emails!"). But let's all please remember what the crime Hillary was being accused of actually was: mishandling classified documents. Which is exactly what the news reports are saying spurred this warrant. Trump took at least 15 boxes of stuff with him when he left the White House, and the National Archives had to go down to Florida to pry them out of Trump's clutches. What they found were classified documents. Since it is a crime for a private citizen to have such things, and since it is also a crime to not turn over presidential records to the Archive, the matter was referred to the F.B.I. for investigation. And now, the F.B.I. has searched the very place where those boxes were taken.
This all isn't definitive, however, it really is no more than speculation or an educated guess. What with all the recent revelations from the House Select Committee investigating January 6th, the target of the warrant could really have been all sorts of things. Nobody knows -- at least until Trump makes the warrant public.
Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, is reportedly running out of merchandise to sell (to raise money) with the "But her emails!" phrase on it. Which is pretty ironic, you've got to admit. The funniest online comment I read today was: "Hillary ought to go on Rachel Maddow's show and just laugh for ten straight minutes." She's certainly laughing somewhere, today.
Perhaps even more amusing is the Republican Party's 180-degree turnabout on the concept of "defunding." Their biggest complaint with the Inflation Reduction Act is that it funds too many I.R.S. agents. In other words, they are fighting hard to allow people to get away with cheating on their taxes. They're taking the "defund the I.R.S. position," which they've actually already implemented over the past decade or so by cutting its budget to the bone. And now they're screaming: "Defund the F.B.I.!" which is ironic indeed considering how much political hay they made over Democrats using the "Defund the police!" slogan. Not exactly your father's "law-and-order" GOP, is it?
There was other bad legal news for Trump as well this week (and it's only Tuesday). Rudy Giuliani will be testifying next week in the Georgia investigation into election tampering, and judges ruled that the House of Representatives is indeed entitled to see Trump's tax returns. That last one will be appealed, likely all the way to the Supreme Court, so it won't happen any time soon, but it wasn't exactly good news for Team Trump.
But again, to all the Democrats who are getting gleeful about the legal noose perhaps tightening around Donald Trump, even if he's chucked in jail it probably won't preclude him from running. And as he predicted (about shooting someone on Fifth Avenue), any court case, conviction, or imprisonment probably won't lose Trump all that many votes in the Republican base.
The law on mishandling classified documents -- one of the ones that could indeed have spurred the search warrant -- plainly states that a violator "shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States" ever again. But it simply has never been tested for an ex-president or a presidential candidate. It may not hold up as constitutional, since the U.S. Constitution spells out only three qualifications to serve: being a "natural born" citizen, being 35 years old or older, and having lived in the United States for at least 14 years. Trump checks all those boxes, obviously, since he already was allowed to serve. There's no clause in the Constitution that bars anyone who "has been convicted of a crime" or even "of a federal crime." The Supreme Court may decide that this supersedes any federal statute to the contrary. There is one way contained within the Constitution to bar a person from ever being president again, but it is impeachment. This is one of the penalties (the other being "removal from office") that the Senate can impose, with enough "Guilty" votes. But that's pretty far-fetched, because it would require 17 sitting Republican senators to vote to bar Donald Trump from the ballot. Which I don't see happening any time soon, no matter what is revealed in a court of law.
Eugene Debs ran for president from a jail cell, after being sentenced for sedition. He even promised he'd pardon himself if elected. Lyndon LaRouche also ran from behind bars, 72 years later. So it has indeed happened before. Neither one of them ever got close to getting enough votes to get elected, however. Trump just might, even while wearing an orange jumpsuit.
The one thing that does seem fairly certain is that this increases the temptation for Trump to just go ahead and declare his candidacy. There's really only one downside to this for him, and that is that the Republican National Committee has already said it will stop paying Trump's legal bills once he announces (so they can preserve some semblance of not being biased in the 2024 presidential GOP nomination race). But Trump could easily raise millions for his legal defense from all his MAGA followers, so this might not be all that big a deal to him.
Donald Trump is going to increasingly see announcing his third presidential run as the best way to bolster his case that it's really all just partisan Democrats trying to keep him from winning. He's already using this line in fundraising, because Trump (if anything) is the absolute master of grifting his cult-like followers, over and over again.
So will Trump soon jump into the 2024 race? I bet he will. By mid-September, at the latest. But it wouldn't actually surprise me if it happened later this week, at this point.
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
CW
If there is clear and overwhelming evidence a crime was committed and probable cause to believe that Trump was the one who committed it, then he will face an investigation into that crime.
As to probable cause, after approximately a year of back-and-forth discussions between the National Archives and Trump and his lawyers, Trump finally handed over in mid-January 2022 approximately 15 boxes of materials that were removed from the White House in violation of the law, specifically, the Presidential Records Act, after being told unequivocally the classified items could not be removed to Trump's personal residence.
I reiterate: Trump has admitted and returned classified presidential documents improperly (illegally) taken and stored at his residence. This alone is probable cause for the FBI to lawfully execute a search warrant in order to locate missing top secret classified documents that Trump took from the White House and moved to Mar-a-Lago, his private residence, in violation of law.
The mewling and whining emanating from the right-wing perpetual grievance brigade is effing hysterical. They are outraged, outraged, I tell you that Donald Trump is being investigated. I cannot stop laughing at the moaning Righties clutching their pearls saying things like: "If the FBI can raid the home of a 'president,' they can do it to anybody!" And to that I say: No shit!
So, to recap: If anyone purposely, inadvertently or otherwise removes top secret classified documents that pertain to national security issues to their private residence, I promise you that the FBI can most definitely lawfully obtain a warrant and "do it to anybody." If you're in a position like Trump was to actually do this... fuck around and find out.
CW
There is one way contained within the Constitution to bar a person from ever being president again, but it is impeachment.
There's another way within the Constitution to bar a person from ever holding office again:
How about the XXVIII Amendment?
"NO person who is so phuqueing dumb he thinks the Chinese pay the tariff taxes he imposes on Chinese exports shall ever serve as president again."
Heh.
I'm still waiting for the Democrats In Array headline.
[1] I cannot stop laughing at the moaning Righties clutching their pearls saying things like: "If the FBI can raid the home of a 'president,' they can do it to anybody!"
As usual with the Trumpanzees, everything is fake. Nobody can be that stupid. Acting stupid is just mandatory behavior to remain cult members in good standing. FBI agents politely searched the orange one's not-home while the suspect was summering in NJ. What usually happens is they break down the door and kill people in a hail of bullets (Breonna Taylor).
I saw an interview with Trump's favorite NY Times reporter, Maggie Haberman, recently where she was asked whether she believed Trump would run again. She said he would, but not for the reasons some people might think. Trump does not like the job, itself, so that isn't why he will run. Nor did she think he would run in an attempt to avoid being charged for his crimes. Trump will run because the moment he says that he is NOT running, all the media's attention will immediate shift to those who are running and he will not be able to stand that happening. That is the worst possible thing that can happen to Trump.
Of course, Trump will definitely be in the headlines when he is the first former president to be indicted, convicted, and sent to jail for crimes in multiple jurisdictions.
Trump now seems to think that if he is a declared candidate for the presidency, the same sort of legal immunity will apply to him.
I seriously doubt that Short Fingers thinks anything like that. He has good lawyers. He lies sometimes. Everyone should have stopped reporting on what he "thinks" six years ago. We don't know what he thinks. We know what he says and we know what other people around him say - virtually all of it lies unless they're under oath.
How about the XXVIII Amendment?
"NO person who is so phuqueing dumb he thinks the Chinese pay the tariff taxes he imposes on Chinese exports shall ever serve as president again."
See above.
Saying that you're running and actually running are two different things.
What usually happens is they break down the door and kill people in a hail of bullets (Breonna Taylor).
The Taylor shooting was not an FBI raid that went bad. That was a local police department's doing. If the police truly did falsify the warrant information to get the judge to sign off on it, then those former officers deserve as tough of a sentence as the law allows.
Regardless, it was still her boyfriend that caused her death by opening fire and hitting one of the officers who was executing the warrant. The police did not go in guns-a-blazing. The boyfriend fired through the bedroom wall and struck an officer in the leg. THEN the officers returned fire, killing Taylor who was standing next to/in front of her boyfriend.
[10] I didn't say it was an FBI raid and that it is distinction w/o a difference in regard to the GQP propaganda referred to by Kick.
I don't need any police-splainin" from you. You don't know any more about what happened to Taylor than I do - probably less because you're so all in on the copaganda.
Is something so inevitable really a bombshell?
Kick
I reiterate: Trump has admitted and returned classified presidential documents improperly (illegally) taken and stored at his residence. This alone is probable cause for the FBI to lawfully execute a search warrant in order to locate missing top secret classified documents that Trump took from the White House and moved to Mar-a-Lago, his private residence, in violation of law.
Spot on! THIS should be a slam dunk case to prosecute as Trump's lawyers have admitted that they have been in "negotiations" with the National Archives since over 15 boxes of documents and other items were removed from Trump's possession initially.
Not sure why Trump's team believed they could "negotiate" for their returning items that they were not allowed to have in the first place; nor do I know why it took this long for the FBI to go in and take the government's property back. Trump's attorney's had the opportunity to turn back over everything Trump took that he was not supposed to take.
People need to realize that federal agents have been fired and sent to prison just for taking home documents that they were working on because of the high security threat that the documents posed if they ended up in the hands of a foreign power. These are very serious charges, even if Trump tries to claim that he "declassified" everything he took.
It will be interesting to see what the other GOP presidential wannabes do if he declares. If they kowtow now, they may never get the ability to hit back later. If they come out hitting, Trump could sink them if they have an election this November. But if they want a chance at winning the primary, they can't appear weak on Trump...
I don't need any police-splainin" from you. You don't know any more about what happened to Taylor than I do - probably less because you're so all in on the copaganda.
I forgot, you know it all. My bad! Continue with your angry day.
“You see the mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” - Big Orange
Bashi,
So far they have all backed his claim that he is the victim of the liberal-run FBI and DOJ. Don't want to anger Trump by not supporting everything he says.
C. R. Stucki
3
How about the XXVIII Amendment?
I like it, Stucki... so I took my temperature to make sure I wasn't ill. ;)
The Trumplicans were "all in" for that inflationary pressure instituted by Donald Trump, but you had the good sense at the time to call it out for exactly what it was.
I have an addition for your "No Idiots" Amendment:
John From Censornati
5
I'm still waiting for the Democrats In Array headline.
http://www.chrisweigant.com/2022/07/29/friday-talking-points-democrats-in-array/
Where have you been? Rhetorical question. ;)
Great to "see" you. :)
[15] I forgot, you know it all.
Actually, I don't think you forgot that at all. You just obsessive-compulsively jumped in with your wall-of-cop like you always do.
. . . and since you want to provoke, I will continue.
In this country, people are legally permitted to protect themselves with a gun (for better or worse). That is especially true in their homes. If you come to somebody's home in the middle of the night and start breaking down the door, it is reasonable to believe that someone will shoot at you. It is NOT the homeowner's fault if they end up dead because cops show up based on lies and they protect themselves from a home invasion. The cops could always retreat and stand around somewhere like they did in Uvalde.
[19] Shame on me.
John From Censornati
6
As usual with the Trumpanzees, everything is fake.
I know, right!? The GOP needs rebranding to reflect what they've become because it ain't so "Grand." I think they should henceforth be known as "Gaslighting Our People" or the "Live Action Role Players."
Nobody can be that stupid.
The willfully ignorant ignore (redundant, I know) the self-serving lies of a man who wouldn't spit on them to put them out if they were on fire.
Acting stupid is just mandatory behavior to remain cult members in good standing.
Live action role playing.
FBI agents politely searched the orange one's not-home while the suspect was summering in NJ.
But not before burying his deceased first out of three near the first hole at Bedminster and yukking it up with the Saudis.
What usually happens is they break down the door and kill people in a hail of bullets (Breonna Taylor).
*clutching their pearls* "If they can do it to the President, they can do it to you." As if this is some new nugget of truth they've uncovered that was heretofore hidden. Nobody can be this stupid.
ListenWhenYouHear
7
So she's saying he's a famewhore? The shoe definitely fits.
Of course, Trump will definitely be in the headlines when he is the first former president to be indicted, convicted, and sent to jail for crimes in multiple jurisdictions.
While I have no doubt that the DOJ would indict a former POTUS, would we, the United States of America, put a septuagenarian former president in prison? It would have to be some wicked evidence to lock him up; although, he's definitely committed multiple crimes and most definitely belongs there.
John From Censornati
8
I seriously doubt that Short Fingers thinks anything like that. He has good lawyers. He lies sometimes. Everyone should have stopped reporting on what he "thinks" six years ago. We don't know what he thinks. We know what he says and we know what other people around him say - virtually all of it lies unless they're under oath.
Wherein they plead the Fifth, and why do they do that?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMyh7ko9L2g
ListenWhenYouHear
10
The Taylor shooting was not an FBI raid that went bad. That was a local police department's doing.
Of course not, but JFC of America (not to be confused with JTC from Canada) is responding to my making fun of the pearl clutching Righties who are whining incessantly that if they can "raid" (serve a warrant) on the President, they can do it to you... as if warrants are some kind of brand spankin' new development. :)
ListenWhenYouHear
13
THIS should be a slam dunk case...
It is, particularly since Trump held onto the illegally taken property of the United States for over a year to the point the FBI had to obtain a warrant to retrieve another 12 boxes from his Mar-a-Lago residence (in addition to the 15 he turned over in January that was found to contain classified information).
Not sure why Trump's team believed they could "negotiate" for their returning items that they were not allowed to have in the first place; nor do I know why it took this long for the FBI to go in and take the government's property back.
Because he was POTUS and not some other government servant who is given a shorter rope or zero rope.
People need to realize that federal agents have been fired and sent to prison just for taking home documents that they were working on because of the high security threat that the documents posed if they ended up in the hands of a foreign power.
^^^ This ^^^
These are very serious charges, even if Trump tries to claim that he "declassified" everything he took.
Exactly. Declassification of documents illegally removed from the White House makes them no less illegally removed. After 18 months of failing to return property of the United States to its rightful owner, the FBI, under the direction of Christopher Wray, a Trump appointee and Republican, made the decision to retrieve government property and obtained a warrant to send agents to do so... and now Trump is whining that he's a victim (again) and gaslighting and fundraising/grifting off the gullible rubes. Lather, rinse, repeat.
BashiBazouk
14
It will be interesting to see what the other GOP presidential wannabes do if he declares. If they kowtow now, they may never get the ability to hit back later. If they come out hitting, Trump could sink them if they have an election this November. But if they want a chance at winning the primary, they can't appear weak on Trump...
The unknowing consequences of Live Action Role Playing.
John From Censornati
21
Shame on me.
No shame at all. What I meant was I missed you. :)
I mean, the way the hypocritical Righties are clutching their pearls and moaning about something that no one would even know about unless (spoiler alert) Donald Trump decided to politicize the foreseeable consequences of his own illegal actions and use it to gaslight and fundraise off the gullible rubes, you'd think the FBI had gone on live TV and asked Russia to find the missing documents.
And to those who haven't quite figured it out (whether through willful ignorance or just plain stupidity), I reiterate: He's Benedict Donald, an insatiable modern-day Benedict Arnold seeking fame and money but wouldn't put you out if you were on fire because he lit the match.
It's a con, America, and you're the mark.
Of course Trump will jump. Before the end of August, methinks.
To Russ's point in [13] regarding the statute concerning the unauthorized removal of documents:
*
As to the fine and/or imprisonment up to five years as set forth in subsection (a), it was formerly one year, but then a national security bill that included stiffer punishments for mishandling secret information was signed into law by *checks notes* President Donald Trump in January 2018.
So, to recap: It was then-President Donald Trump who made the law he violated a felony. Heh.
MtnCaddy
I got something for you from our friends at The Lincoln Project, another of their one-minute commercials made for one person:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcVSC-BgTww
Who was it Donald?
Who gave you up to the Feds?
*whispering* Who squealed?
Who told them what you kept in the safe at Mar-a-Lago?
Yeah, I check in with The Lincoln Project every day. Gonna suck when these babyeaters dispose of Trump and go back to fighting us Dems. Hope some of it rubs of.
I also like Beau of the Fifth Column,Glenn Kirshner,
Betty Bowers, Randy Rainbow and Liberal Redneck.
Rumor has it that it was a Secret Service Agent who dished.
Kick,
Nice work providing the particulars for us down in the weeds types like me. Policy-Wonks-R-Us, and such.
That's why I like this Aussie Perun.
He's mainly an economics/defense procurement guy but he has enough knowledge of platforms and military doctrine to make his 45+ minute videos on Ukraine, China’s military modernization program and the like.
Yeth, Trump may prove to be an irony machine when all is said and done.
For the geopolitical, big picture view I like GeoPop, especially Peter Zeihan.
And STG TV has a 19 part lecture series on Ukraine by Prof. Alexander Stubb, the
former Foreign Minister of Finland. Generally under 20 minutes.
So Kick, I used to be in CA-8 and now I'm in CA-23.
YOU used to be in TX-23. What's your new District number?
Don't worry I won't use the info to acquire your location and come stalk you. You'd undoubtedly kick my ass, so there's that.
And I can kind of tell that your waaay out of my league, anyhow. *sigh*
Guess we lost Elizabeth.
Well, I dropped* and I'm up at 0620 so g'nite, Dearheart Queen of Snark Every Schoolboy's Fantasy ;)
*I'm trying to substitute things like mindfulness and Stoicism for the psyche meds, but Seroquel-- don't leave home without it! is something I'm willing to go to the mat for.
Woot!