This forum hosts a "Faith and Religion Mega-Thread," first started in 2007, which today has 11,860 posts which by now have encompassed almost every subject imaginable. That just might be "an Internet record" by now.

Therefore, I'm fairly confident that this community knows how to conduct itself responsibly, even when discussing "politics."

The immediate subject at hand is what it means that "a [former] President" is now faced with both civil and criminal liability – possibly hundreds(!) of years of jail time – for actions performed while in office. And what the consequences might be.

This is a perfectly acceptable subject. Let us proceed. (Perhaps unlike many other "on-line places" ...) I think that we are "big boys and girls" here.

Not so fast, @rkelsen. "Article 2" invests the entire "Executive" authority of government in one(!) individual. (The Founders also considered an "executive council," but chose against it.) Therefore, this individual might be called upon to make "command decisions," both(!) militarily and civilly. However, (s)he must do so, perhaps under conditions of incomplete information and extreme urgency. "Time and history" might in fact prove – ex post facto – that the decision(maker) was: utterly wrong.

Implicit in this grant of power must be the assumption that the decision-maker must not fear that "the Peanut Gallery" will then succeed in putting this person in prison, because they disagree.

The Supreme Court already decided that the Officeholder is immune from civil liability: "you cannot sue the President." But it has not – until now – been faced with the question of criminal liability. (Therefore, it has never yet ruled on that angle.)

It has also never considered that someone might "drag up a skeleton from a person's closet," specifically because that person [used to be] President. Or, attack his business dealings, in hope of "putting him in prison" for some technical reason. (The 'Lawfare' goal being: "putting him in prison.")

But: All of these issues really focus down on the freedom that this "one individual" can actually feel, when he is executing his "Article 2" role. You asked this person to "take the Oath of Office," and (s)he agreed.

And, c'mon please, let's not kid ourselves as to the possibilities. If we open that "can of worms," then we're gonna be "eating worms" forevermore. No one in his right mind is going to volunteer to wear on his back Gary Larson's "bummer of a birthmark."

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As we go forward in these debates, please let us be careful not to "castigate the commenter." No matter how well they did or didn't do in "High School history class." (As for me, I remember that I learned nothing in that class, except that I passed it.) We're discussing subjects, not people.

That is a rank misstatement of the case. HE broke laws WHILE in office, but that is not the crime addressed by this investigation, indictment, or trial. This trial is about crimes he did commit BEFORE he came into office! There is no constitutional or even policy protection for those crimes.

And, yes, the scenario you described is as likely as the next criminal case against him convening in the moon. I probably should not have humored you.

At this point, I'm starting to think you might be trolling us.

It has already been mentioned multiple times in this thread that the crimes Mr. Trump has been charged with fall squarely outside the protections of Article 2 of the Constitution, for the following reasons:

- Article 2 applies to acts performed by a sitting President. Mr. Trump was not the President at the time he allegedly committed these crimes.

- Article 2 applies to acts performed in the line of duty. It does not, for example, allow a President to walk into a bakery and steal bread.
You should read up on the Magna Carta, and in particular its influence on the US Constitution.

Many of the concepts in it have been carried through to the Constitutions of many Western Democracies, including the US.

I've noticed some news outfits refer to Obama as President Obama while in same segment they refer to Trump as simply Trump or at best former President Trump.

Technically it is supposed to be Former President (insert name)

I simply think that you'd better be very careful about "bringing criminal charges against a [Former ...] President." (It goes without saying, of course, that you would not be concerned at all about "this(!) person's conduct," in some past life, unless he then became President.)

You are – in true "Lawfare™" fashion – now attempting to use the Law to attack your political opponent and bring him down. You want to throw him in jail and keep him there until he dies, so that he can no longer oppose you.

But – you had better stop and think very carefully about "the 'four corners of'" what that might actually mean. If 4,000 counties in this country can now convene a Grand Jury and pass a criminal indictment against "The President," then from now on this will happen endlessly. And so, rational people will now decide that they will not volunteer to take the job at all, because they know that at 12:01 PM four years later they will be arrested and sent to prison. Forever.

We have an abundance of history from other nations to show us where this leads ... and it's not good at all. "Those who learn not the lessons of History ..."

"Article 2" vests enormous power and responsibility in one person. Many of the original Founders since expressed the opinion that these powers should have been vested in some kind of "privy council." Although they also had to decide "who(!) speaks for 'the nation.'" (In the 18th century ...)

The authors of the Constitution granted explicit immunity to Members of Congress, but apparently they did not recognize the need to do so for the President. (Or, Justices and Federal Judges.) Nonetheless, the SCOTUS has already decided on civil immunity. I fully expect it to rule similarly on criminal immunity.

But the entire issue really should be the subject of a Constitutional Amendment, perhaps brought forward by the Several States. This is a matter (one of several ...) that The Founders did not think of, but should have. Amazingly, we have only "amended" this document twenty-seven times in more than two hundred years, and the latest one was "line #2" on the original Bill of Rights document. We have "read into" this single page of handwritten text endless times, but we have almost never changed it. I think that right now we are suffering the consequences, at the hands of conniving lawyers.

For govt sponsored news I like DW ,Canada, nice things like that.

For free-er news agencies NPR , War and peace report with Amy Goodman.


Probably not your cup of tea Jefro for News agencies.
But I am not wound up by them like some redneck folks.

CNN and Fox can be boring. I don't like being manipulated into being upset either. I'd rather watch Scripps News instead.
Half or more corporate news agencies fired or layed off their
investigative report staff after the web got up and running.

Sounds like you are on a diet of MRI's.

Will do. Former President Trump cannot help himself; he feels compelled to confess his crimes. He stands outside the court house and says that the payments made to the women were legal expenses.
I feel actual pain for his legal team. Former President Trump is making it easy for the prosecutors to prove their case.

I suspect that had the information come to light in 2017 and Trump NOT taken office, by 2019 he would have been defending himself in court on these same charges. All of the argument about how many former Presidents might face charges in the future for political reasons is hogwash and misdirection. Those who have not been criminal have not faced charges, and this will not change that.

According to the Magna Carta, the rule of law must apply universally. What's the point of having it if certain parties are going to be exempted?

Despite whatever your source of news is telling you, this is NOT political. Mr. Trump is an alleged criminal having his case heard. That's all there is to it.

Anyhow, you (and I suspect millions of others) will never admit that you got taken for a ride by a thieving, grifting con man will you?

You dodged the question before: How much have you accrued in capital losses on your $DJT shares?
Exactly right.

I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the only other person I've seen making his arguments is Donald Trump himself

https://x.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1780647077552238637

Very soon, thousands of Grand Juries around the country will be concocting and filing "criminal charges" against Barak Obama, George "W," and (why not?) maybe even Jimmy Carter. They will now accuse them and seek to put them in prison for any official action that they now disagree with. (Or, maybe just to target them, they will look to some incident in their pre-Presidential past.

If necessary, a suitably politically-hostile Congress will "impeach them," maybe decades after they left office.

Do you really want to dive down that rabbit-hole? The Supreme Court didn't, with regard to civil cases. It never before had to consider criminal charges, although now it must.

Even the US Constitution realized that Members of Congress had to be able to speak freely "on the floor," and to receive protection when traveling to-and-from their homes. Unfortunately, it did not consider Presidents, Justices, or [Federal] Judges. All of whom are people who "must be able to speak and act freely, in order to perform their appointed roles." (Particularly(!) "the President!") If any "podunk Grand Jury, somewhere in Podunk," could throw any of them in prison, of course they would. Incessantly. And the entire system would break down. As it is right now in danger of doing.

There are no "grand absolutes" here – only very-pragmatic practicalities. No one is ever again going to volunteer to hold public office, if they know that they will be arrested and thrown in prison for life immediately after they leave. During their tenure, they will be "chilled" by the threat of yet another indictment – and of course, for having been "chilled" they will simply be indicted anyway for having failed to act. Your entire system of governance now crumbles in the face of a decision made by "seven individuals, somewhere, anywhere."

Sundialsvcs repeats himself a lot.

I'm enjoying your extreme use of hyperbole. "Jailed for life." That's more than a bit over the top. So to follow you down your logic rabbit hole we shouldn't convict and/or jail Former President Trump because political bad actors surely *will* jail future presidents. Unlikely.
The US constitution holds that we're equal in the eyes of the law. There's more than a little evidence that Former President Trump committed criminal acts. If you or I did what he's done we'd be in jail long ago.
In the eyes of the law former President Trump is innocent until proven guilty. If his behavior is excused then democracy itself is in peril because every future President will know they are above the law.

Yes. Often without saying anything new.
You get used to it.