Plan B Forum

In another thread, we've been having a discussion about whether or not Donald Trump's failure to follow an order from the Supreme Court should be considered an Impeachable Offense...

This seemed like a pretty simple question to me, (and from most of the responses in that thread, to most other folks participating as well) but one poster, (I won't use his real handle; let's just call him "les") seems to be having a really hard time with it...

This led me to wonder if perhaps les has a point, and this is really a tougher question than it appears to me to be. I thought I'd run a poll to see if it's really the no brainer it looks like to me or if others are having the same problems with it as les....

(I had to change the wording a little bit from my original question to shorten it to the 100 character limit for a poll question, but I don't think I've altered the meaning.)

You forgot the WGAF option.

Gob wrote:You forgot the WGAF option.

You're right, it didn't occur to me that anyone could be that provincial and disinterested, since a US President who felt free to defy the US Supreme Court would not just affect the United States, but also have far reaching international impact and implications...

I just assumed everyone here was knowledgeable enough to understand that...

I stand corrected...

I checked the third option. Like many of the 'polls' I get in the mail with questions carefully constructed to get me to send them money, these choices are worded to provoke, not reveal.

snailgate

Okay, well so far we have seven folks who got the correct answer, no folks who got the wrong answer, and two folks who formally chose not to answer...

Of those two, I get the impression that SG didn't really find the question too complicated to answer yes or no; that he chose that option as a protest against the "editorial content" I included with the first two options...(He would have really disliked my original wording: "1.Yes, because I love America and support the Constitution" and "2. No, because I hate American and spit on the Constitution"... )

The other person who chose option three was either too embarrassed to admit it and explain why (perfectly understandable) or was just fuckin' with me...(I'm looking at you Crackpot...)

I didn’t vote tho I was severely tempted to vote option 3.

If any president were to defy the Supreme Court they would need some bulletproof (or at least nearly so) rationale for doing so as it would trigger a constitutional crisis. As this president can’t come up with a rationale over 140 characters I severely doubt it is possible.

the biggest problem with this is that, in actuality, an impeachable offense is whatever Congress decides it is; impeachment is a power delegated solely to Congress and not other part of government, will (or IMHO should) intervene; indeed, it is the political response to a president who is out of touch with the people (who are much closer to their congressional representatives and theoretically have more power over them). So while I think it SHOULD be an impeachable offense (and voted that it is), it is not at all certain what Congress would say.

I agree with BigRR: what constitutes an impeachable offense is solely within the purview of Congress. However, I would hope that Americans would be sufficiently outraged to be demanding that their representatives issue a bill of impeachment (I know, good luck with that). I further note largely as a technical matter, but also because political "optics" and inevitable "showdown" media spin, that the Supreme Court does not issue orders directed to individual litigants; it merely affirms, reverses or modifies the decisions of lower courts. In this type of situation it would be a U.S. District Court (or perhaps a state trial court, depending on the underlying claim) that would issue the order, for example, that the President appear for deposition or produce documents subject to a subpoena. (I have to admit, it amuses me to think that if Trump were to remain defiant, the U.S. Marshals Service would be obliged to detain him and drag his ass before the court to answer for contempt.)

Presidential impeachment by its nature is a political issue, not necessarily a criminal one, which is why all the blabbering that "collusion is not a crime" is completely irrelevant. If Congress decides that colluding with a foreign adversary to sway an American election is an impeachable offense, then it is one. I certainly think it is. The fact that there may be criminal conspiracy, obstruction of justice, fraud and money-laundering charges also available is just icing on the cake.