After three failed impeachments - two of Trump and one of President Bill Clinton - that part of the Constitution, which was meant to be the ultimate ticket for blowing through stop signs in the White House, has been rendered meaningless. The “Saturday Night Massacre” of protest resignations that led to the collapse of Richard Nixon’s presidency feel almost quaint in the disinformation age, when politicians lie and spew verbal hatred with impunity. The 25th Amendment, which establishes a line of succession for a president who is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of the office,” is weak medicine and procedurally cumbersome. 6 would have been a presidency without guardrails - one that could one day be handed down from dictator to dictator absent some meaningful effort to reestablish disincentives for committing crimes in office.Ĭonsider the other levers of accountability that exist in our constitutional structure. The cost of not indicting Trump over Jan. As I wrote for POLITICO Magazine in April of 2022, the Trump presidency blew up every other guardrail for protecting against unaccountable abuses of power in the Oval Office. This indictment was important because it ushered American democracy - which had been left bleeding on the battlefield after four years of Donald Trump - into a triage unit. Kimberly Wehle is a professor of law at the University of Baltimore School of Law and the author of How to Read the Constitution and Why. ![]() 6 would have been a presidency without guardrails’ BY KIMBERLY WEHLE Here’s what they had to say: ‘The cost of not indicting Trump over Jan. Regardless, many saw this indictment as a watershed - for the presidency, the Department of Justice, and for voters, who are now faced with the decision of whether Trump deserves a second chance at the White House. Their responses ranged widely, from those who think the new charges could dent Trump’s support, to those who think it won’t, to those who think it should but may not. So we asked some of the smartest political thinkers and legal observers: Will this indictment be different than the others? government, the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election.” That may be harder for at least some voters to dismiss than an episode involving hush money to a porn star or holding on to some government documents. ![]() 6 “was fueled by lies,” special counsel Jack Smith said in announcing the indictment, “lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. Capitol, according to federal prosecutors. ![]() Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election amounted to a conspiracy to defraud the United States and led directly to the deadly riot at the U.S. But this indictment is on more serious charges - an attack on American democracy.
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