Martin Alvito
Player Valuation: £50m
This has been the position of Republican presidents since Nixon. His aides burned for it, but Ford pardoned him. Reagan demanded Iran-Contra over the objections of his top aides, who would have burned for it had H.W. not pardoned them all (probably to save his own skin). Cheney broke the law, his top aide burned for it, and W. pardoned him.
Trump’s Angry Rant About His Legal Mess Reveals an Ugly MAGA Truth
His immunity defense isn’t merely a legal argument. He’s priming his base to back wanton lawbreaking if he wins back the White House.newrepublic.com
It's no surprise Trump thinks he's entitled to the same. The only president we've had in the last fifty years who truly, deeply believed in ethics and the rule of law was Carter. Even Obama let his AG go off the reservation a bit, and stepped up the drone strikes. That's a relatively clean bill of health in context, but the argument that he's a war criminal has legs.
The argument that Trump should have immunity for all future actions is obviously bogus, and should be rejected out of hand. If anything a president does personally is legal, aides can simply balk and demand he take any action that could land them in hot water. In practice, we have extended immunity to past presidents, even on campaign finance violations not part of their official duties. We didn't lock Clinton up for accepting a check from the Chinese, then granting them MFN. He clearly benefited from it - he gave the money back after the election - and there was a clear quid pro quo.
We've fallen into the classic trap of litigating what isn't politically feasible. Trump should have been impeached and convicted, the civil cases should have gone forward, and that should have been the end of it. The classified documents revelations should have been splashed all over the media, and Trump's disciples should have paid the political price in the next round of primaries. The pressure campaigns against secretaries of state should have come out, the aides should have burned, we should have passed clear laws rendering such behavior an impeachable offense, then moved on.
Idiot voters with no grasp of history, and the media enabling them rather than informing them, have landed us in this mess. The generation of Republican activists pushing scorched earth tactics will either get what they want, or destroy the party and their cause for a generation. The worst part is that, tactically, it makes sense. Those activists always wanted minority rule through mass disenfranchisement, and demographics shifts mean it's now or never.
