David Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, warned the Republican Party that it should not expect a blissful paradise should former President Donald Trump win a second term in office.
Writing in The Atlantic, Frum warned that Trump getting elected in 2024 and then unilaterally shutting down criminal cases against him would rip apart the very fabric of the United States of America.
In the first place, writes Frum, it is unclear whether Trump issuing a pardon of himself for wrongdoing would hold up under the United States Supreme Court – even one that is filled with three of his own right-wing appointees.
And even if this gambit were to somehow succeed, argues Frum, he would still be facing state-based indictments in New York and, most likely, Georgia in which his pardon powers would have no impact.
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"So, for his next move, he would have to order the Department of Justice to argue that state courts have no criminal jurisdiction over a serving president," writes Frum. "He could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York City, or on the street in any state, and nobody could do anything about it until his term was up, if then."
All of this leads Frum to believe that a second Trump term would be a "permanent crisis" that "would generate would invite a 2026 Democratic congressional landslide big enough to jolt even a Trump-led GOP" into realizing it had gone too far.
