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When it comes to President Trump potentially pardoning himself, he should be careful what he wishes for, according to USA Today contributors Philip Allen Lacovara, Jeffrey Abramson, and Dennis Aftergut.
A 1974 ruling from the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel said that a President cannot pardon himself, but the contributors write that courts haven't had an opportunity to test that conclusion -- yet.
<p>"There is a menu of recent federal Trump crimes to choose from — his <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/01/05/fact-check-trump-pressured-georgia-recalculate-vote-tally/4135556001/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">pressuring the Georgia Secretary of State</a> to 'find' enough votes to overturn the state's election result would seem to violate federal law making it a <a href="https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:52%20section:20511%20edition:prelim)" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">crime</a> to attempt to <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/242" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">deprive</a> citizens of their right to a fair and impartially conducted election," they write. "Trump's call to an angry mob to march on the Capitol has every appearance of violating<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2384" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> federal law defining a "seditious conspiracy"</a> as one that uses 'force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States' or to 'hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States.'"</p><p>According to USA Today, Acting Attorney General, Jeffrey Rosen can't be relied upon to uphold the 1974 ruling. But Joe Biden's pick for Attorney General, Merrick Garland, "is a man of the law." </p><p>While there are arguments in favor of self-pardoning, one must consider the absurdity of the concept -- "a president could pardon himself for bribery or treason or fomenting insurrection, the very crimes for which he was impeached the week before. And then re-commit the same acts and pardon himself again," write USA Today's contributors. </p><p>"Even ardent textualists, intent on reading the Constitution strictly according to its words, should recognize what the DOJ concluded in 1974 and others have recently agreed: The framers of a Constitution designed to enshrine the rule of law cannot have contemplated allowing anyone to be judge in his or her own case.'"</p><p>Read the full op-ed over at <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/01/18/trump-self-pardon-impossible-column/6630712002/" target="_blank">USA Today</a>. </p>
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Trump is furious with GOP leader Kevin McCarthy -- even though he didn't support impeachment
January 18, 2021
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is on President Donald Trump's bad side this week, despite the fact that he spoke out against impeachment.
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman tweeted Monday that Trump has spent the past several days continuing to tell his White House aides that he "won" the election.
<p>But it's Trump's anger with McCarthy that is serving as the source of the outgoing president's distraction of the moment. </p><p>Trump previously attacked Mike Pence for refusing to protest the election during the Senate certification process, asking him "you don't want to be a p*ssy do you?" Trump has been using the same word to describe McCarthy, Haberman reported. </p><p>McCarthy voted to void the voters in multiple states, even after Trump's supporters staged an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. </p><div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="fa224c40be6bd25b150b3f5d00f3c168" id="32c34"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-partner="rebelmouse" data-twitter-tweet-id="1351251992543453186"><div style="margin:1em 0">McCarthy did NOT support impeachment, but that’s hasn’t mattered to the president, according to people who spoke with him.</div> — Maggie Haberman (@Maggie Haberman)<a href="https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/statuses/1351251992543453186">1610998554.0</a></blockquote></div>
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'Embarrassing': Trump has left most House Republicans looking 'pathetic and spineless'
January 18, 2021
Despite the danger he is facing from President Vladimir Putin and his allies, Russia opposition leader Alexey Navalny has returned to Russia. Never Trump conservative Benjamin Parker makes a Navalny/House Republicans analogy in an article published by The Bulwark this week, arguing that while Navalny is a profile in courage, the many House Republicans who are afraid to stand up to President Donald Trump are a profile in cowardice.
Following the deadly January 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol Building, the U.S. House of Representatives indicted Trump on one article of impeachment: incitement of insurrection. Most House members who voted to impeach Trump were Democrats, although ten were Republicans — including Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming (the third highest ranking House Republican) and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.
<p>"Aleksei Navalny, the <em>de facto</em> leader of the Russian opposition, nearly killed last summer in a poisoning attack, boarded a flight back to Russia," Parker explains. "Most House Republicans cowered, refusing to hold Donald Trump accountable; Navalny went back home to confront the regime that tried to murder him."</p><p>Parker adds, "Navalny had been staying in Berlin since the Russian security agency FSB poisoned him before an August 20 flight from the southern Siberian city of Tomsk, where he was organizing with his Anti-Corruption Foundation…. Navalny had previously survived attacks in which unidentified assailants threw acid in his face, partially blinding him in one eye. He has repeatedly faced politically motivated criminal charges, and the European Court of Human Rights declared him a political prisoner for a house arrest designed to prevent him from leading protests. Russian authorities also held his brother in jail as a hostage for almost four years."</p><iframe src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1350948153592320003&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.alternet.org%2F2021%2F01%2Falexei-nalvany%2F&partner=rebelmouse&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px" style="vertical-align: middle; max-width: 100%; position: static; visibility: visible; width: 550px; height: 605px; flex-grow: 1;" title="Twitter Tweet"></iframe><p>In contrast to Navalny, Parker writes, the House Republicans who were afraid to vote to impeach Trump were totally spineless. One House Republican who Parker praises, however, is South Carolina Rep. Tom Rice, who voted to impeach.<br/></p><p>According to Parker, "Rice's calm confidence contrasts with the shameless cowardice of most of his Republican colleagues. Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin complained that House Democrats didn't give due consideration to his suggestion of a censure for Trump — as if, having survived one coup attempt and while preparing for another, members of Congress should have merely stated their displeasure with the president for inciting a mob that tried to assassinate them and done nothing to prevent his repeating the offense. Rep. Chip Roy, while conceding that the president committed impeachable offenses, whined with embarrassing flaccidity that the article of impeachment was poorly drafted."</p><p>Parker wraps up his article by stressing that when Gallagher and many other House Republicans had a chance to defend liberal democracy and the rule of law, they lacked the courage to do so.</p><p>"Anyone following Navalny's odyssey could only regard the spinelessness of congressional Republicans as pathetic," Parker writes. "Gallagher, Roy, and the rest can't compare to Navalny; they can't even match the everyday bravery of Tom Rice."</p>
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