10-17-2020, 05:40 PM
(10-17-2020, 05:15 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: CNN has Trump suggesting he will leave the country if Biden wins. I don't think Biden would specifically point the Justice Department at Trump, but the pardon power doesn't include state crimes so finding a country without an extradition treaty with the US might be prudent.
Does Russia have such a treaty? Think he would be considered a flight risk? Can a state with a crime pending against a president prevent him from leaving the country during a lame duck period? Do we really want him? Let him go?
Countries can extradite without a formal treaty. There are offenses so egregious, such as assassination of a head or chief of state, that an offender could reasonably expect to be extradited.
Presidential, legislative, and diplomatic immunity, all of which exist for the convenience of States, end when the position ends. As an example, Nazi war criminal Joachim von Ribbentrop could not escape consequences of brutal administration of occupied countries, arranging aggression that initiated illegal invasions, and persuading satellite regimes to deport Jews to extermination camps. Ribbentrop is about as extreme as one gets.
Joe Biden said that the Justice Department will be independent of him, and that he will not interfere in any prosecutions. I would expect him to pardon himself for federal offenses, but he has no means of preventing prosecution by authorities of any State. He might be wise to flee the US, and if he gave any coded messages to people in on the Michigan plot...
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.