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Although there is more information to learn about handling the top secret documents that Donald Trump took home and refused to return, it will always be true that Bruce Poliquin, Susan Collins and Paul LePage initially reacted by dismissing federal law enforcement to search Mar-a-Lago to retrieve them .
under the fourth amendmentlawful police searches require a warrant approved by a judge who found probable cause for a crime.
However Poliquin he stated that the FBI should be investigated and that he would push for it if elected. Collins opined that it was “excessive” if the search was “solely” for the retrieval of documents. LePage claimed the research made the US look like a “banana republic”.
Poliquin’s flowery statements seemed like cowardly politics with yeast hypocrisy i extremism.
Collins, who, as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committeeis well aware of the strict protocols involving classified documents; at best, he was irresponsible in ignoring the possibility (which happened) that Trump had sensitive secrets in his basement that are legally supposed to be readable only by very secure facilities.
LePage’s comments sounded like when he compared the IRS to the Gestapo in 2012 (because he collected premiums for health care).
Because police searches to recover evidence are part of the regular toolset used by the criminal justice system, these responses denigrated law enforcement and our legal system, which now faces threats of violence without precedents the judge who signed the order and the fbi have been threatened and last week an attacker with a nail gun and assault rifle tried breach an FBI building in Ohio. He was later killed in a shootout with police.
Another common talking point of Republicans — if this could be done to a former president like Trump, it could be done to you too — showed a strongly elitist bent.
The idea that it’s bad or scary for a former president to be subject to the same laws as anyone would have bothered our founders. Not only does the concept of equality under the law go back eight centuries to the Magna Carta, but usurpations of the law by monarchs fueled revolts in England in the 17th century and the American Revolution in the 18th century.
Indeed, our republic is based in part on the view that everyone is subject to the same laws. We take the concept of the rule of law so seriously that the front of the Supreme Court building is emblazoned with “Equal Justice Under the Law.”
There is no asterisk or exception that puts former presidents like Trump above the laws we must follow.
The Constitution it stipulates that impeached and “convicted presidents shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law” and nowhere does it state that former presidents not convicted of impeachment cannot be.
Forty-eight years ago, when Richard Nixon resigned, people knew that a former president could be investigated, prosecuted, tried and punished. Indeed Gerald Ford’s message of forgiveness noted Nixon’s vulnerability before the pardon, saying that “Nixon has been susceptible to possible impeachment and trial for crimes against the United States.”
Instead of an investigation into Trump’s actions that make us look like a “banana republic,” treating former leaders like others respects our Constitution and laws and is so healthy. democracies work.
Every ex-president is a normal and ordinary citizen has no legal authority to take and keep the presidential papers.
This is even more the case with the national security papers Trump brought to Florida, stored in his basement and other parts of the building, and he wouldn’t even return them. after being cited. According to the search warrant, there were probable cause Trump violated the Espionage Act and laws prohibiting obstruction of justice and the taking or concealing of government records, each of which carries severe penalties.
Given these facts, Trump’s Republican defenses smacked of intense political tribalism.
And, because Republicans used bad arguments to protect Trump, Democrats in Congress continued to rule.
inflation i gas prices are falling and last week Democrats passed a law that lowers prescription drug prices for seniors, lowers health care costs, addresses climate change, reduces the deficit, and pays for it with taxes on big, rich corporations. All this has generated a rather surprising contrast between the political parties.
