Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that it's the end of America "as we know it" if president aren't immune from criminal prosecution.

The former president — who is facing a mountain of legal woes — is trying to win back the White House on the idea that he should be above the law

Donald Trump isn’t happy that judges on a Washington, D.C., appeals court ruled that he’s not protected from prosecution in the Justice Department’s election interference case against him. The former president has long been claiming he should be immune from criminal repercussions for anything he did while in office — including conspiring to overturn the democratic process — and on Wednesday he posted to Truth Social that a president’s job is so contingent on their ability to commit crimes that it would mark the “end” of “our Country, as we know it,” if they are not afforded that right.

“If a President does not have Immunity, the Opposing Party, during his/her term in Office, can extort and blackmail the President by saying that, ‘if you don’t give us everything we want, we will Indict you for things you did while in Office,’ even if everything done was totally Legal and Appropriate,” Trump wrote, adding that “Obama, Bush, and soon, Crooked Joe Biden, would all be in PRISON. Protect Presidential Immunity. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

…

There’s no evidence that Bush, Obama, or Biden committed crimes while in office, but Trump is under heavy legal scrutiny for an array of potential crimes — most of them tied to his effort to remain in office despite losing to Biden. Trump tried to get the Justice Department’s case against him thrown out last year, alleging he could do no wrong because he was the president. Judge Tanya Chutkan shot down the bid, and Trump appealed, sending the case to the D.C. appeals court. In a hearing last month, Trump’s lawyers argued that immunity should go so far as to protect a president from prosecution even if they were to order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival.

  • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1902·
    9 months ago

    In Donald Trump’s America, a President simply can’t do his job properly without breaking the law. Think about that! What did he do during his term that we simply don’t know about?

    For all of Joe Biden’s flaws, I am pretty confident that he is not doing illegal things on a daily basis, and doesn’t need this blanket immunity.

    • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
      130·
      9 months ago

      We need to investigate his son Hunter getting a security clearance when he should not have been eligible, and also 2 billion dollars from Saudi Arabia.

      Wait that was Jared kushner? Nevermind nothing to see here.

        • ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
          5·
          9 months ago

          Yeah, haha - but seriously though, we have to look at Hunter using his proximity to the president to get China to approve his side business trademarks in exchange for-

          Wait, sorry, that’s Ivanka. Nevermind.

      • Goku@lemmy.world
        14·
        9 months ago

        Yeah it’s a known perk of being POTUS that your offspring get cushy job offers… Not saying it’s right, but it’s not illegal as far as I know.

      • Neato@ttrpg.networkEnglish
        36·
        9 months ago

        Didn’t his kids receive like a billions bucks from Saudi Arabia right after he left office? I thought the assumption was they just sold boxes of classified documents.

        • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
          22·
          9 months ago

          You’re conflating two of the many horrible things that happened in the Trump years. First was Kushner getting $2 billion dollars for selling Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman the “names of Saudis disloyal to the crown prince.” Those people were of course all subsequently arrested by the prince.

          The second was that, after Trumps reckless handling of top secret information, the CIA sent out a cable to all their offices informing them of the loss of an unusually high number of human assets. While there is no proof Trump and co. sold or leaked classified information, I personally am confident that even if he didn’t sell the information, his carelessness is almost certainly the cause of at least some portion of those deaths. The following are some excerpts from the Cornell Policy Review - The Executive Records Recovered from Mar-a-Lago and the C.I.A.’s Missing Informants(PDF). The whole thing is worth a read if you’re interested.

          In October 2021, almost a year prior to the Mar-a-Lago search, The New York Times reported that the C.I.A. had disclosed, within a top-secret C.I.A. cable, that an unusually high number of foreign citizens serving as U.S. government informants had been killed, arrested, or compromised by rival intelligence agencies. The C.I.A. admitted it had no concrete evidence as to why this was happening, and could only point to internal measures like “poor tradecraft; being too trusting of sources; underestimating foreign intelligence agencies and moving too quickly to recruit informants.” There may be more information about why this was occurring, and the F.B.I. document seizure at Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 suggests a possible explanation.

          The New York Times reported that the D.O.J. search of Mar-a-Lago was instigated by the discovery of highly classified material related to “clandestine human sources.” This was confirmed by the F.B.I. affidavit from Mar-a-Lago, alluding that the documents contained information on the C.I.A.’s Human Intelligence Control System (HCS), a system designed to protect intelligence information derived from clandestine human sources. The HCS intelligence documents contain details about the sources of the information–informants themselves. In some cases these details are general, such as if an unidentified clandestine source has direct or secondary intelligence knowledge. In others, these details are more descriptive and could provide identifiable information. The New York Times states the documents retrieved from Mar-a-Lago in January 2021 included some files demarcated as HCS information which could possibly identify C.I.A. informants. Protection of these informants’ information is why the C.I.A. and the intelligence community may have originally sought control over the HCS intelligence documents as soon as Donald Trump left office, then had the N.A.R.A. refer the DOJ to recoup this top-secret, national information.

          Though it is uncertain if foreign intelligence ever accessed these documents, media reports indicate one possible occurrence in Inna Yashchyshyn. In May 2021, Yashchyshyn successfully posed as a member of the Rothschild family to gain access to Mar-a-Lago. At that time, the F.B.I. reported that Yashchyshyn hoped to make Trump family connections and raise money. Little is known about Inna Yashchyshyn other than that she is a Russian-speaking Ukrainian immigrant who used a fake identity to gain access to and build relationships with several U.S. politicians, including Donald Trump. Her link to any foreign government agency is unknown; however, two truths remain: (1) she is closely linked to a Moscow-raised businessman named Valeriy Tarasenko (who provided the F.B.I. with her motivations and actual identity during a deposition), and (2) she used a fake alias to gain special access into Mar-a-Lago.

          • Neato@ttrpg.networkEnglish
            10·
            9 months ago

            Thanks. That makes more sense. I think selling the Saudis info about dissidents was definitely espionage and am wondering why he isn’t in prison.

            • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
              11·
              9 months ago

              Rumor has it the information about the dissidents was straight from a Presidential Daily Briefing so yeah, he really should be in jail.

        • LocoOhNo@lemmus.orgEnglish
          211·
          9 months ago

          $3 Billion, specifically. And I don’t remember the time frame in relation, but a bunch of American spies wound up dead as well.

          • Neato@ttrpg.networkEnglish
            10·
            9 months ago

            Wow. So espionage as well. How did our government not find enough evidence to bury them? The trump kids are fucking morons.

          • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
            7·
            9 months ago

            Unless we’re talking about different things, it was $2 billion for Kushner and the spy thing was a separate issue. See my reply to the same poster for details.

    • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
      201·
      9 months ago

      For all of Joe Biden’s flaws, I am pretty confident that he is not doing illegal things on a daily basis

      Or if he is, they’re “normal” presidential illegal things like ordering CIA black ops or whatever, not abusing the position to gain personal fortune and autocratic power like Trump does.

    • Mammal@lemmy.worldEnglish
      61·
      9 months ago

      To be fair, and to paraphrase The Big Lebowski: He’s not wrong - he’s just an asshole.

      In most representative democracies the head of state and head of government are two distinct offices for precisely this reason.

    • HappycamperNZ@lemmy.world
      48·
      9 months ago

      I suspect Biden is doing illegal things most days.

      Big difference is Biden is under the umbrella of presidency, and probably under good advice from his advisors.

      Trump is out for himself, and believes America and the presidential powers are there to serve him