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If Trump Wins, Could He Really Use the Justice Department to Jail His Rivals? (www.nytimes.com)

submitted 2 days ago by silence7@slrpnk.net to c/politics@lemmy.world

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But only norms and precedents, not laws, prevent this. In our system, the attorney general and the director of the F.B.I. sit within the executive branch and answer to the president.

How might a politically motivated prosecution actually unfold? The steps below show exactly how Trump could make his threats real — all while staying within the constitutional limits on presidential power.

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[-] Carrolade@lemmy.world 35 points 2 days ago

The Constitution is a very short document, you can read the whole thing in about 10 minutes or so. It does not include very much in the way of details, generally speaking.

Reading it when you're young is one thing, you don't really understand how systems come together anyway at that age. Rereading it as an adult is a bit of an eye-opener though, as it's easy to see just how little it really establishes, and what sorts of directions abuses could potentially come from.

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript

[-] silence7@slrpnk.net 23 points 2 days ago

In general, preventing abuse via static rules is really difficult. People who want to abuse the system are innovative. Most systems really depend on having people who respond to the abuse by stopping it more than having specific written rules to block the kinds of abuse that have happened in the past.

[-] just_another_person@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago

Well SCOTUS just kind threw and constitutional protections out the window with regards to Presidential Powers anyway, so now it seems you can make an argument out of anything and do the damage before anyone blinks.

[-] sevan@lemmy.ca 12 points 2 days ago

They way over-complicated it. Once he installs loyalists (as in their step 1), he can just round up anyone he wants, send them to a private prison run by an aligned billionaire, and ignore the courts. If the people in the departments controlled by the executive are willing to break the law, Congress and the courts don't really have any tools to combat that.

[-] silence7@slrpnk.net 5 points 2 days ago

Right. There's impeachment, but actually using it to remove people from power requires a supermajority, which makes it substantially ineffective against a criminal political party

[-] sevan@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago

Right, and that's assuming he doesn't just use his "dictator for a day" plan to remove anyone from Congress that opposes him. That's how other authoritarians create a sham democracy.

[-] CatsGoMOW@lemmy.world 17 points 2 days ago

Sure, why not? Who the hell is going to stop him? What’s legal or constitutional doesn’t matter if no one is going to enforce it.

[-] DarkCloud@lemmy.world 15 points 2 days ago

Fascism makes all things but empathy possible.

[-] Asafum@feddit.nl 13 points 2 days ago

SCOTUS:

[-] BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago

All he needs are the sycophants willing to carry out his bidding and that's what Project 2025 is about.

[-] silence7@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 days ago

They actually built a database of willing sycophants as part of it.

[-] graycube@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago

Anyone who disagrees can join his critics in prison. Soon there will be no one left who disagrees.

[-] empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 2 days ago

He can do whatever he wants as long as a stolen House and Senate via election fraud rubberstamps anything he wants and the courts are stacked too. That's it, curtains and exit stage left on US freedom.

[-] tacosanonymous@lemm.ee 6 points 2 days ago

A person with that many crimes under their belt shouldn’t get the chance to try. Full stop.

[-] MediaBiasFactChecker@lemmy.world -5 points 2 days ago

New York Times - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)

Information for New York Times:

MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: High - United States of America
Wikipedia about this source

Search topics on Ground.News

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/02/magazine/trump-politics-justice-department.html?unlocked_article_code=1.PU4.5SoX.zSsovZyA-Poc

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this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2024

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