r/law • u/T_Shurt Competent Contributor • 14h ago
Executive Branch (Trump) Trump Posts Letter Threatening To Prosecute Local California Election Workers: “They will all go to jail for a long period of time!!!”
https://abcnews.com/Politics/trump-administration-threatens-prosecute-local-california-election-workers/story?id=137339732479
u/bakeacake45 12h ago
May John Roberts go to hell for protecting this crook.
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u/stevez_86 10h ago
It is surprising that more people don't see that John Roberts is a crux of all this. He is the one that has been invested in this kind of doctrine since the 80's.
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u/SignoreBanana 7h ago
Between this and his helming the court during Citizens United, he's probably had more influence on the downfall of this country than any single person in US history.
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u/Fair-Arugula668 12h ago edited 11h ago
I hope he lives long enough to watch everything he did unwind. I hope he's forced to write thousands of dissenting opinions. I hope when someone needs to take a particularly difficult bowel movement it's known as a chief Roberts or something similar.
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u/Egheaumaen 14h ago
What's his play here? Discourage Californians from working in elections so that California votes can't be counted?
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u/at42151 11h ago
Question the legitimacy of any election that he is projected to not win. He's not playing for November, but for January 2027. When the new congress is seated, he and all of the right-wing media will say, "They're not real representatives, because of this or that irregularity." Same game with Rep. Omar, or a dozen more you will hear about in the next three months.
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u/sweatboxy 6h ago
Chaos. Trump will declare any place the Democrats win as cheating. The Republicans in Congress will refuse to seat the New Democrats and we will have a constitutional crisis unlike any we have seen before.
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u/AbeFromanEast 14h ago edited 19m ago
3 more years of this, as he progresses into dementia and becomes even more demented.
Nero made his horse a Senator. Maybe Trump will outdo him!
EDIT: It was Caligula who made his horse a Senator, to mock the Senate.
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u/PabloPicasshooole 10h ago
Trump already did. Caligula (not Nero) made his horse a senator, but Trump made the Senate his stable
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u/pastoreyes 14h ago
Horse is a good pick if you want everything voted down with a simple nay.
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u/Virambulans 11h ago
Hay now! Making horse puns will make you appear not stable.
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u/mcburloak 10h ago
A tail as old as time
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u/spook30 9h ago
Y'all are really grabbing the reins on these puns.
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u/werther595 12h ago
It could be over, or at least better, in a few months if the people who typically dont vote get up off the couch and say enough is enough
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u/Disastrous_Basis3474 11h ago
Congress cowards can end this at any time.
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u/pseudonominom 10h ago
Traitors.
They’re traitors.
He started an illegal war, has killed American citizens, dismantled institutions with no oversight, and looted billions both personally and for his buddies. Congress has a duty to stop him and they ignore their duty.
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u/hywaytohell 10h ago
Totally agree with this, every one of them is a traitor to the constitution. They held a sub committee on Hunter Biden for 4 yrs only to charge him ironically with a gun charge. With this clown they all turn their heads and gaslight any questions about it.
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u/NeitherEntry6125 11h ago
What do you think is going to happen?
Seems like Trump will litigate any dem led state, and refuse to seat their representatives.
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u/ofWildPlaces 10h ago
POTUS does not have the authority to refuse to seat elected members of Congress.
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u/RagahRagah 9h ago
Trump doesn't have the authority to do a lot of things he's done. The whole party also submits to him on anything he wants. Lastly, he is immune and has faced 0 physical consequences and never will.
Stop underestimating him.
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u/AggressiveWallaby975 8h ago
It's wild watching people twist themselves into knots while proclaiming he can't do something because of some arbitrary custom, rule, or law.
I say arbitrary because it's been proven time and again that if no one can enforce the rule or law, it's just words on paper.
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u/RagahRagah 8h ago
It's hilarious for someone to say he has "no mechanism" when literally everyone in that entire party, which is in charge of virtually everything, bends to him, and there's no one to realistically stop him, and physically stopping him is the only way. There's no one that's going to do that and he is an amoral traitor, with immunity.
There are tons of mechanisms, and they are all right at his fingertips.
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u/ofWildPlaces 9h ago
There is no mechanism that he can use to do it. Its not even a matter of law, its as impossible as him sprouting wings and flying.
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u/RagahRagah 8h ago
The party has power of everything, and everyone in a position of power bends to him. No mechanism? He has every mechanism. What you're calling impossible is fucking easy, lol.
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u/NeitherEntry6125 10h ago
Cmon bro: Trump owns Mike Johnson. Mike Johnson replaced the clerk of the House with a loyalist.
What's going to happen when Mike & Clerk refuse to seat them?
Nothing.
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u/ofWildPlaces 9h ago
Johnson loses his support in the House the moment a Dem majority is elected. The GOP would not have the votes to keep him as speaker.
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u/Lowe0 9h ago
The Clerk is the one who bootstraps the incoming House until a Speaker is elected.
That said, the particular method of circumventing the election doesn’t make any difference. It all goes to the Supreme Court, who will have to decide how much they’re willing to endorse to keep the party in power.
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u/bucki_fan 9h ago
He doesn't control that. That one is explicitly spelled out in the constitution.
Not that such trivial things will stop him from trying
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u/2sAreTheDevil 9h ago
The power of the purse and the power to declare war is explicit to Congress via the Constitution also, and yet, here we are.
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u/ContextLengthMatters 8h ago
I am so tired of people trying to still operate in a world of good faith.
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u/FrostnJack 7h ago
Which Dear Leader’s minion, was it Johnson, refused to seat a special election Dem from AZ for months so she couldn’t tip the scales against the MAGA House. Already a moment in history, don’t need the POTUS to do it. Its minions act with Its voice & Its hand. No imagination or laws needed. Done already
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u/WorthConversation451 10h ago
Good thing Trump loses all his election related cases and has no say over who gets seated.
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u/NeitherEntry6125 10h ago
He controls Washington.
They don't need a "Jan 6" riot, they're already in the building.
It's done.
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u/HLOFRND 8h ago
We will go back to what we had in the second half of his first term- treading water until it’s over.
Right now, we are pretty powerless to stop anything.
But it’s almost certain at this point that we will take the House at the very least, which will slow down the avalanche of bullshit. And we may take the Senate as well, which will give us even more leverage.
The long term implications are huge. We can stop him from seating another SCOTUS justice, which will have an impact for 30-40 years. It won’t balance the court, that won’t happen for a generation or two unless we expand it, but it is still better than nothing.
He still has his executive orders, but make no mistake, even taking the House is a huge win.
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u/Special-Reaction2029 10h ago
And even if they manage to get a supermajority of votes to impeach, he will refuse to go and I have my doubts there is a mechanism to remove him other than the military, which may just side with him.
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u/Paulpoleon 9h ago
Have a 9 year old beauty pageant contestant carry a Big Mac out on the south lawn and when he chases them lock the door behind him.
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u/Zealousideal_Order_8 5h ago
Trump has zero say as to who gets seated. Mike Johnson has zero say as to who gets seated.
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u/Marathon2021 Competent Contributor 8h ago
Vaguely optimistic me hopes that if the R’a get absolutely clobbered in the mid-terms, the party will just begrudgingly agree that he should be seen as a “lame duck” and either not follow his legislative agenda anymore or … dare I see it … pull a Nixon on him and basically say “we have the votes, you can leave on your own and let JD finish things out and hope to save our brand identity by 2028 … or we can let the impeachment start and this time you won’t have Mitch protecting you.”
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u/sphinxorosi 14h ago
It’s not dementia, he’s fully aware of what he’s doing
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u/1of3musketeers 10h ago
It’s malignant narcissism combined with dementia. His dementia is deteriorating his frontal lobe which is responsible for impulse control, reward seeking behavior, empathy, and socially appropriate conduct. He is increasingly showing signs of deterioration of all of these functions and rambles on incoherently in his speeches. His narcissism is amplified and increasingly the malignant parts are on display including grandiosity, paranoia, and sadism. This doesn’t remove his responsibility for his actions. He should be removed from office. We won’t repair the damage he has done in this lifetime.
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u/milo7even2 13h ago
It’s both. He exhibits clear signs of dementia on the regular as well as doing everything he can to drag the country down.
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u/Aggravating_Bat3618 8h ago
I believe that there’s some dementia there.
The problem is that he is not the one pulling the strings.
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u/CCLF 10h ago
It was Caligula that threatened to make his horse a Senator.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned.
Neither of which, strictly speaking, are at all true.
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u/Rude_Engineering_629 8h ago
Also it was consul, it was either meant to show the senate how little power they had or just fiction made up after to paint him as crazy. It definitely didn’t happen we have extensive records of romes consuls because that was their name for the years.
Also Nero wasn’t in Rome when it began burning so he couldn’t have played the fiddle. Also there was no such thing as a fiddle lol. Also Nero extensively helped out during the fires and rushed back to Rome.
The better Caligula story is, him lining up his boats so he could ride over the water. Which I believe is also not true, but atleast much funnier to imagine.
Propaganda has been a thing since forever.
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u/JakeTravel27 10h ago
and the favors to putin become greater and greater and greater. Would not be surprised to see pedo trump and his grifter family flee to russia.
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u/Illustrious_Law8512 34m ago
It was Caligula, actually, and he wanted to do that to mock the Senate and their lack of relevance to life and law in Rome while he was Emperor (it was never proven to have happened). Not out of insanity or dementia. That was propaganda against him after he was assassinated.
Though incorrect on the Emperor and the reason, the observation is still valid. Trumpster Fire has neutered Congress, made himself a king with final say on everything, and probably could appoint a horse (Marjorie notwithstanding) and no one would contest it. MAGA Mike would likely share his office with it.
I'm looking forward to the GOP turncoat propaganda after he's gone.
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u/VanuasGirl 14h ago
Well the horse is in the hospital so may be a doctor and therefore more qualified than many already in the senate. That made sense in my head.
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u/world_weary_1108 14h ago
Well, if he starts playing a fiddle you know your in trouble. His senators are already horses arses.
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u/T_Shurt Competent Contributor 14h ago
Facts.
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u/Dustybear510 14h ago
I’m sorry but his undoing will be way longer than a first term. First justice and charging the whole current administration is gonna be a long process.
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u/truelogictrust 13h ago
Ohh there's no going back.😀. This the America i remembered as a child these people were always here. Now people see us differently. It doesn't matter what America thinks of Americans. We are now seen globally as a bully state with a white nationalist narcissism problem.
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u/iRunLotsNA 8h ago
As a Canadian, I spent the first two decades of my life believing the U.S. was our closest ally, ideologically and geographically. My parents spend their first five thinking the same.
The last decade, we no longer believe that. Many, many Canadians feel the exact same way.
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u/garf02 13h ago
so good that Trump and Scotus showed President can fire anyone...
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u/Fair-Arugula668 12h ago
Woah woah buddy. He can't fire the fed chair because scotus pulled some shit out of their ass about historical reasons. It was an impressive tale of nonesense they used to shit out that ruling. How convinient it was that the important stuff be kept from the child's hands.
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u/JohnHazardWandering 10h ago
He can't fire the fed chair because scotus pulled some shit out of their ass about historical reasons.
...and shoved into a ruling completely unrelated to the fed chair.
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u/kretzkiller 2h ago
As soon as it’s starting to look good again republicans will somehow regain office to fuck things up again. Americans are so stupid.
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u/United-Vermicelli-92 9h ago
We should gave the paperwork ready to go on day 1 then for every single mother fucking fascist who broke our laws.
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u/black_metronome 11h ago
And then Americans will vote Republican again because it will take longer than 4 years to fix this shit
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u/Calm_Leek_1362 10h ago
This is Clinton and Obama. Republicans wreck shit. Democrats govern and right the ship. People get complacent and run back to their single issue voting as soon as things are looking up again and they put republicans back in power. That’s been the cycle for the last 35 years.
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u/Patriot009 14h ago
The next president doesn't have to be involved in over half of these fixes. A competent Cabinet and WH staff could handle most of this. We've had so many recent years with a corrupt, incompetent Trump administration that I can understand why so many have forgotten that it isn't the norm. Remember when Biden wasn't rage tweeting until 2 in the morning and having rallies every week. That's actually normal. Part of "undoing Trump damage" should include remembering that Trump is a megalomaniacal malignant narcissist and his relationship with media was NOT normal for a presidency.
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u/Cloaked42m 11h ago
We are going to need an inspirational hero to get us through this. I haven't met them yet.
Met some great statesmen. No one that is a shining hero on the hill who can rally us.
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u/InAppropriate-meal 14h ago
yeah i really do not think there will be another, legitimate, president for a very very long time in the USA
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u/Nyuk_Fozzies 13h ago
You're delusional if you think one term will do that. This is generational damage.
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u/Blacktip75 14h ago
Your going to need halve a century, and knowing the voting history they will vote in someone like vance 4 years later cause the real economic hit will keep going as US dependencies are being reduced globally… which will take a few years to be fully visible.
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u/nannygoats 13h ago
This is exactly what I’m thinking. Republicans will start crying how the Dems caused all of it and can’t fix it and convince the dumb masses to vote R again. Hell, they’re gonna start that on Nov 4 at 12:01am.
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u/Chessh2036 12h ago
Hope I’m wrong, but idk if some of it can be fixed. I don’t think a new President will take down his ballroom, that’s prob there for good. His name will be taken off though (hopefully).
But in terms of rebuilding the government agencies he’s destroyed/ended will take years. Even if Dems had all of the power for 8 years it might not all be fixed. That’s how much damage he’s done.
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u/bagheera369 11h ago
The problem is, you can't do what he's doing to something that's actually alive, which is why I say the country is dead, lying cold on the concrete, being stripped for parts.
So in all honesty, it can never be fixed. He revealed the rot, he revealed the lack of morality, the lack of intelligence, the lack of even the desire for intelligence, and most importantly, the lack of spine, that exists, en masse, within this country.
The oligarchs knew already, which is why they all support him, because he'll continue to let them feed on the corpse...an intestine here, an arm there, and where the vulturous business-people shit, the carrion and dung beetles that make up our general populace, run to lap that shit up, and eat the scraps.
Yeah, there are some folks who are aware, and there is a much smaller percentage that knows why and how all this is happening, and a smaller percentage still, who understand what it will take to put something living back on the land that used to be the USofA....but it's not enough.
We became the Land of the Dead Dreamers, and a Democratic president, yet alone one of the 8-10 currently expected to lead the pack, will not save us....even if they had a twenty-year term.
The country failed, for one reason...it's citizenry.
You'd have to find a way to fix that first, before you can see the spark of life glimmer here again.
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u/RagahRagah 9h ago edited 7h ago
This is Russia's goal and it's likely it's already accomplished. Even if Dems win everything and are allowed to be seated (fat chance), there is way too much damage for them to try to fix, and Trump will still be President so he won't let them. Then you have the next presidential election cycle and even if they win everything there, they still have an ungodly amount of damage to repair, not to mention try to get us moving forward again after that and then win everything again to maintain it. Then there's SCOTUS...
The stars would have to align in a way they literally never have before. The harsh reality is that the realistic probability we get back what we had before 2016 is microscopic.
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u/LittlestWarrior 9h ago
Forging a new way forward might be easier than returning to what we had before. A strong, left-leaning populist, bully pulpit President and an actually functioning Congress* could accomplish so much.
*remember, this is perhaps the laziest one in history, when comparing bills passed + time in session
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u/gerblnutz 8h ago
How many dems (at least fetterman) are going to vote against their party or outright flip if dems get a majority in either house? The centrists and israel firsters are embedded deep.
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u/RagahRagah 7h ago
That's another problem I forgot to mention. They aren't going to save us. There definitely needs to be a more progressive movement in the party that has started with people like AOC, Mamdani and El-Sayed.
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u/LittlestWarrior 7h ago
Exactly. Partially what I meant by "actually functioning Congress". If the representatives do not represent the people, they are not a functioning body.
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u/Calm_Leek_1362 10h ago
No we will never repair our international reputation. The United States is one election away from another trump, so we literally can’t negotiate international treaties because the other side will assume we will break them.
At least establishment republicans understood this for decades. John McCain was the last serious Republican, and any idea of the right respecting our country’s credibility and status died with him.
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u/doc_nano 11h ago
Oh, I’m going to insist that the next administration take down the ballroom and restore the East Wing as close as possible to its historical status. Ideally with Congressional approval, but without it if necessary because we have that precedent now I guess.
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u/Spiritual-Spend8187 12h ago
Hasn't beem built yet and I imagine whoever comes next has better taste than trump.
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u/LittlestWarrior 9h ago
I think we don't realize how much a functioning Congress and President can accomplish. We have the laziest Congress in many years (looking at total bills passed + time in session), and Trump is well... Trump.
If we get a strong bully pulpit President and a passionate Congress, more could be repaired than you think; the first term doesn't have to be "wasted" on only a repair job that Republicans can immediately screw up once they get power again. We can make progress.
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u/evil_illustrator2 8h ago
And hopefully releasing any of the Epstein evidence left. But I'm sure patel will try to destroy it on the way out.
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u/Asher_Tye 11h ago
They did the same thing to Ruby Freeman and her mother in Georgia. Then Rudy Guiliani got tossed under the bus.
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u/jakeb1616 9h ago
One of the worst things trump has ever done up to that point, pointing the finger at us citizens and ruining their lives over false accusations.
Unfortunately this was just the beginning, and between his ice raids, war with Iran (+ the conditions on that carrier), and accusing that Olympian of vandalism it just keeps getting worse.
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u/GrannyFlash7373 9h ago
Trump's signature M.O. THREATEN and intimidate. The BIG BABY isn't getting his way. I don't think he has the legal precedent to jail these people for not kow towing to his whims and fancies.
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u/gerblnutz 8h ago
So Trump has now committed multiple felonies in CA under Newsoms election tampering law right?
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u/Zealousideal_Order_8 5h ago
Apparently the Russian bot farms are back in operation, as demonstrated by the posters who are claiming that Trump has the power to prevent Democrats from controlling the House.
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