FACT: “The fact that Donald Trump is telling House Republicans not to address the border because he wants to blame Biden for it is really appalling."
ALSO FACT: Donald Trump cannot claim presidential immunity to defend himself from criminal prosecution, DC Circuit Court of Appeals rules
Former President Trump’s alleged efforts to remain in power despite losing the 2020 election were, if proven, an unprecedented assault on the structure of our government. He allegedly injected himself into a process in which the President has no role — the counting and certifying of the Electoral College votes — thereby undermining constitutionally established procedures and the will of the Congress. To immunize former President Trump’s actions would “further . . .aggrandize the presidential office, already so potent and so relatively immune from judicial review, at the expense of Congress.” Youngstown, 343 U.S. at 654 (Jackson, J., concurring) (footnote omitted). As Justice Jackson warned:
Executive power has the advantage of concentration in a single head in whose choice the whole Nation has a part, making him the focus of public hopes and expectations. In drama, magnitude and finality his decisions so far overshadow any others that almost alone he fills the public eye and ear. No other personality in public life can begin to compete with him in access to the public mind through modern methods of communications. By his prestige as head of state and his influence upon public opinion he exerts a leverage upon those who are supposed to check and balance his power which often cancels their effectiveness. Id. at 653–54 (Jackson, J., concurring).
We cannot accept former President Trump’s claim that a President has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power — the recognition and implementation of election results. Nor can we sanction his apparent contention that the Executive has carte blanche to violate the rights of individual citizens to vote and to have their votes count.
www.cadc.uscourts.gov/...$file/23-3228-2039001.pdf
Hours after a federal appeals court unanimously voted against all three of Donald Trump’s presidential immunity arguments in his January 6 case, the former president’s biggest fans in Congress decided to introduce a nonbinding resolution that Trump “did not engage in insurrection or rebellion against the United States.”
One after another, a hurried collection of MAGA House Republicans made their case for the former president.
You know maybe the one place that gets a little tart is that they pointed out, 'Look, Trump, when you were in your second impeachment and trying to defend yourself in the Senate, you told the Senate through your lawyers that don't impeach him because he can later be held criminally liable. Now you're turning around and saying something else,'" he said.
"That is pretty remarkable."
He noted that the judges spoke to Trump in this one instance to jog his memory of the defense he used before the Senate in his second impeachment a little over a month after the deadly day of Jan. 6, 2021.
"And he agrees that if he had been convicted by the Senate in that impeachment trial, he would not be immune from prosecution for the 'official acts' at issue here," the document reads. "Thus, he concedes that a President can be prosecuted for broadly defined 'official acts,' such as the ones alleged in the Indictment, under some circumstances, i.e. following an impeachment conviction."
What's more, the judges also reminded the 45th president that every commander-in-chief is "liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgement and Punishment according to Law, at least after impeachment and conviction."
www.rawstory.com/...
Driving the news: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) officially pulled the plug Tuesday on the bipartisan border security deal, acknowledging that pro-Trump Republicans would never allow it to become law in an election year.
Zoom in: The failure of the Mayorkas impeachment, a controversial effort that came after months of pressure from the GOP base, delivered an especially humiliating blow to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).
- Three Republicans — Reps. Ken Buck (Colo.), Mike Gallagher (Wis.) and Tom McClintock (Calif.) — joined all Democrats in voting against the first impeachment of a Cabinet secretary since 1876.
- A fourth Republican flipped to "no" to allow the vote to be brought back up when House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) returns from cancer treatment, but the optics of the floor debacle will sting for some time.
The big picture: House drama aside, former President Trump's dominance over the Republican Party has effectively frozen President Biden's national security agenda and ground Congress to a halt.
www.axios.com/...