• Leon@pawb.social
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    1 day ago

    Why can the president stand above the law? They’re talking a lot about having no kings or whatever but Trump basically is one.

    Sweden is a constitutional monarchy. Our king doesn’t have as much power as Trump. Neither does our prime minister.

    Neither should. That’s not how a democracy should work.

    • CerebralHawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 day ago

      Normally, a president can’t. The president is supposed to be checked by the legislative (Congress) and judicial (Supreme Court) branches of the government (president being executive).

      The problem is, the other two are loyal to him so they don’t check each other.

      Most presidents have not had this power.

      • Rothe@piefed.social
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        1 day ago

        I think they are talking specifically about the power of pardon, which all other presidents certainly have had.

        • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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          13 hours ago

          Yeah but a lot of this I feel is do to states failing to do their jobs as well. 87% of prisoners are in state prisons, none of which the president can pardon. I assume all it would take is one state prosecutor from say Florida to look at information released thus far in the Epstein files, say this happened in Florida, and file charges against her. I assume the federal government would have to turn over all of the information they have in the Epstein case to the state prosecutor or they would be obstructing an investigation. Other evidence in the case could potentially spawn more criminal charges for others involved and they could sentence her to whatever they found necessary. Then Trump couldn’t pardon her.

          “Dual sovereignty” rules make it so you can be prosecuted by the state for the same thing you have been prosecuted by the federal government.

        • KoboldCoterie@pawb.social
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          1 day ago

          The government has basically been held together by a system of social norms and gentleman’s agreements which Trump doesn’t give two shits about. The one, singular potential good thing that might come out of this presidency is if all of these loopholes get closed as a result.

    • SaraTonin@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      To be clear: Trump’s opponents are saying no kings. Trump & those around him are tweeting pictures and videos of him as a king. Stephen miller said Trump had “pleniary power”. His followers want him to be king.

    • Rothe@piefed.social
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      1 day ago

      The whole pardon thing, as well as others of the US presidential powers, are a remainder from absolutism. They thought they took the best of all worlds, by combining elements from absolutism with more democratic elements and combined them into a constitution, when in reality it was a pretty shaky construction from the beginning. And of course now it has long since gone completely rotten by deliberate corrupting the system even more than it was before.