January 6th legal proceedings and investigations megathread

[emailking]

One thing I'm disappointed about is that Dreeben hasn't pushed or really even talked about the issue of speed and ruling quickly. Barrett is the only one who has brought it up (twice).

[Inmate Trump]

If the president has full immunity then Biden can “make things happen” to ensure he stays in office. Got it.

Republicans are really going to sacrifice the entire nation and all it stands for, for Donald effing Trump?!

[emailking]

Trump's lawyer opted for no rebuttal. Arguments over.

[2016]

Unlikely from what I've observed that Chutkan will ever get this case back!

No Trial before the Election I think.

Trump just won big here unfortunately.

[emailking]

Well she'll get the case back when they rule which will probably be in the summer. But a trial before the election I think just got a lot less likely.

[SteveRogers]

So it sounds like the bottom line is there are NOT 5 votes to endorse Trump’s claim of “absolute immunity,” but we’re likely to end up with the Court announcing some convoluted test to untangle what is or isn’t an “official act,” which means the case could get kicked back up and down the courts forever before it goes to trial.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

If the president has full immunity then Biden can “make things happen” to ensure he stays in office. Got it.

Republicans are really going to sacrifice the entire nation and all it stands for, for Donald effing Trump?!

Yeah, if we are going to end up with a dictatorship, better that it be a Biden dictatorship than a Trump dictatorship.

I would hope that if worst comes to worst and we have to go down this path, Biden would use his dictatorial immunity to arrest SCOTUS and Congress, but, instead of creating a permanent dictatorship, he instead chooses to create a new constitution with much more secure checks and balances and clear firm protections for genuine democracy, to ensure that this never happens again.

If this were what he did, then essentially Biden would act like a dictator in ancient Rome - someone who historically temporarily had absolute power in order to get the country through a crisis, but subsequently gave up power back to the Roman Senate.

I would hope the new constitution ought to be a Parliamentary system rather than a Presidential system, because clearly a Presidential system is much more prone to this sort of evolution towards creeping dictatorship. The new constitution should also allow for a multi-party system, which is less prone to the rise of negative partisanship we have had (since rather than there being only one alternative, there are multiple alternatives, so one party doesn't win just because the other party loses - that means that you can't just run against the other party, you have to have an actual positive governing agenda to distinguish you from the 3rd parties as well).

[emailking]

Can we stop with the hyperbolics? lol

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Can we stop with the hyperbolics? lol

No. SCOTUS pays attention to public opinion, so members of the public ought to make clear here, and everywhere else in the public domain, that SCOTUS will have lost all legitimacy if they go that extreme route. SCOTUS Justices and their clerks and anyone else associated with the judicial branch of government in general ought to be made fully aware of that anywhere on the internet or out in the real world where they may turn.

[Burke Bro]

This court is suicidal. If Trump gets elected, he’s not going to give two sh**ts about what the Supreme Court has to say about immunity once he’s in office.

[emailking]

Can we stop with the hyperbolics? lol

No. SCOTUS pays attention to public opinion, so members of the public ought to make clear here, and everywhere else in the public domain, that SCOTUS will have lost all legitimacy if they go that extreme route. SCOTUS Justices and their clerks and anyone else associated with the judicial branch of government in general ought to be made fully aware of that anywhere on the internet or out in the real world where they may turn.

I'll rephrase. You should stop with the hyperbolics.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

They're not going to rule that Trump has absolute immunity.
They're going to do what's most beneficial to Trump's campaign while still saving themselves plausible deniability.
Which means kicking it back to a lower court to decide issues of official action before the trial can start. Ugh.

[rob in cal]

Most likely outcome might be something for everyone. Trump loses on the merits but SC delays decision and orders process to start over?

[wbrocks67]

They're not going to rule that Trump has absolute immunity.
They're going to do what's most beneficial to Trump's campaign while still saving themselves plausible deniability.
Which means kicking it back to a lower court to decide issues of official action before the trial can start. Ugh.

Yeah this is some bullsh**t. Of course they're going to give Trump another lifeline and give some convoluted response that delays his trial even further.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

I'll rephrase. You should stop with the hyperbolics.

I think the much greater danger than excessive hyperbole is insufficient hyperbole.

Trump's lawyers literally just argued, directly to the faces of the Supreme Court Justices in oral argument, that the President ought to be allowed to order Seal Team 6 to assassinate their political opponents, and should be immune to prosecution if they do that.

The danger here is not something that should be minimized, it is something that should be emphasized.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

I can't even begin to imagine how bad the ramifications will be if they rule in favor of Trump on this. Fortunately, it does look like they're not leaning in that direction.

[emailking]

I'll rephrase. You should stop with the hyperbolics.

I think the much greater danger than excessive hyperbole is insufficient hyperbole.

Trump's lawyers literally just argued, directly to the faces of the Supreme Court Justices in oral argument, that the President ought to be allowed to order Seal Team 6 to assassinate their political opponents, and should be immune to prosecution if they do that.

The danger here is not something that should be minimized, it is something that should be emphasized.

The court didn't go for that. It was presented as a hyperbolic example. You're worried over nothing. And even if they ruled that directly we shouldn't arrest the Supreme Court and Congress (wtf?).

[GoTfan]

I'll rephrase. You should stop with the hyperbolics.

I think the much greater danger than excessive hyperbole is insufficient hyperbole.

Trump's lawyers literally just argued, directly to the faces of the Supreme Court Justices in oral argument, that the President ought to be allowed to order Seal Team 6 to assassinate their political opponents, and should be immune to prosecution if they do that.

The danger here is not something that should be minimized, it is something that should be emphasized.

The court didn't go for that. It was presented as a hyperbolic example. You're worried over nothing. And even if they ruled that directly we shouldn't arrest the Supreme Court and Congress (wtf?).

If the court rules that the president has absolutely immunity, then they remove the limits on what a President can do.

[emailking]

Even Trump's attorney conceded that ST6 has a duty not to follow illegal orders. The Justice Department can't just arrest anyone Biden tells them too, including say all of Congress, even if he would hypothetically face no prosecution for it.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Even Trump's attorney conceded that ST6 has a duty not to follow illegal orders. The Justice Department can't just arrest anyone Biden tells them too, including say all of Congress, even if he would hypothetically face no prosecution for it.

Well if he wouldn’t be able to face prosecution for it why can’t he order them to do it?

[emailking]

Why would he do it when it wouldn't happen?

Also why would he do it when he's not an immoral thug like Trump.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

The court didn't go for that. It was presented as a hyperbolic example.

You can't say that "the court didn't go for that" unless and until they rule contrary to that.

And even if they ruled that directly we shouldn't arrest the Supreme Court and Congress (wtf?).

If they did rule that directly, think about the scenario it would set up. Think about it from a game theory type perspective. It would set up a scenario where you get a large payoff from striking first, and a very very large negative payoff if the other player strikes first. It would be sort of like nuclear war if it were not possible to do a retaliatory strike against a first strike. Under those incentives, both sides would be incentivized to pre-empt and strike first, because you suspect that if you don't strike first, the other side probably will.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Alito was always a hack but now he has become the caricature of a Trump lackey.

https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1783536742873649578

[emailking]

The court didn't go for that. It was presented as a hyperbolic example.

You can't say that "the court didn't go for that" unless and until they rule contrary to that.

I can say it and I do. I listened to the whole thing.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Even Trump's attorney conceded that ST6 has a duty not to follow illegal orders. The Justice Department can't just arrest anyone Biden tells them too, including say all of Congress, even if he would hypothetically face no prosecution for it.

Remember that the President also has pardon power. The fact that ST6 "has a duty" not to follow illegal orders is cold comfort if they decide to "follow the chain of command/commander in chief" with the knowledge that the President will pardon them to ensure they are also at no risk of prosecution. Or perhaps the President pre-emptively pardons them at the same time as giving the order. And they also may not agree that the order is illegal.

What this would also mean is that the President just needs to get people who are personally loyal to the President into various positions of power, so that they can execute the President's orders, regardless of whether or not some lawyer says they are supposedly "legal."

But what is probably the even more important thing to consider is that the President could do the same thing with a private group, and would not need ST6 or the military for this at all. Presidents/political parties could set up party militias loyal to the party leader/President, similar to Hitler's SA for example. When the President is elected, the President could then tell the SA to perform a variety of illegal/unconstitutional acts, and the President would be immune to all legal consequences from that. And the President could give them all pardons to ensure that the SA militia members would also be free from prosecution as they execute the President's unconstitutional orders.