Can you give an example of another US President who was charged for a criminal offence outside of their term of office and declared to be immune from prosecution?
Or one who was investigated and then publicly not charged because they were deemed to be immune (for crimes outside of their term in office)?
Bill Clinton undeniably committed perjury. That was during his term, but not related to his duties as President.
Despite his clear guilt, every Democrat in the Senate voted not remove him from office, and he was never charged by a criminal court.
He was also accused of rape and sexual assault by numerous women, and never charged in any of those cases.
The Democrat voters I knew at the time (including myself) knew quite well that he was guilty of perjury and sexual harassment, and probably sexual assault as well, but didn't care.
We felt that the investigation was politically motivated, and that having him in office was more important than enforcing the law.
Look, if you want to toss Bill Clinton in jail for any or all of those offenses—go right ahead. I don’t think many Democrats would complain or shed a tear. If that’s the price for holding criminals responsible, then it’s one I’ll gladly pay.
Easy to say now, when you know it won't (can't) happen, and even if it did, it would have no effect on governing the nation.
As defrost said well: "the question of whether this was fair or unfair rests on whether other POTUS's have skated on criminal acts [for which they didn't have immunity as President]". Other POTUS's have, so, it was unfair.
Changing that may be a good idea, or it may simply lead to more abuse of power as the party in office investigates its enemies. I guess we'll find out.
You are literally holding the judicial process hostage and throwing proportionality out the window to make some contrived, disingenuous point.
People are not willing to entertain this non-sense. He means it when any reasonable person would burn Bill Clinton just to avoid the catastrophe conservatives would bring upon this country by making the law useless.
Show me the proof. Not some poorly reasoned allegation or out of context edited excerpt, but the original source where "they" say they intend to end democracy.
>Not some poorly reasoned allegation or out of context edited excerpt
I'm sorry I have to ask, do you guys think everyone else are just toddlers or that your uh... group of incredibly like minded individuals is really that clever?
>does thing
>claims to not do thing
Oh well I guess that settles that! We were all worried for nothing.
I certainly don't think everyone else is a toddler, but I do wonder about some people.
Anyway, this line of discussion is so far outside the HN guidelines (or the limits of "curious conversation"), I see little point in continuing.
If you want to bandy insults in a forum that doesn't expect any sort of rational thought, may I suggest reddit? I think you'd like that site better.
Edit in response to post below: Serious lack of self-awareness. Read your first message again and you'll see who made reasonable discussion impossible.
You prevented any possible discussion of dissent or disagreement by ignoring readily available proof and stuffing it under what I'm going to politely refer to as rationalization.
Don't you dare pretend like you're adhering to guidelines or standards of any sort, this forum or otherwise. The grandstanding is cute, but it's only fooling yourself.
Because US Presidents have immunity (limited) for official acts commited while in office.
Donald Trump was convicted for acts outside of term in office as POTUS, the question of whether this was fair or unfair rests on whether other POTUS's have skated on criminal acts outside of their term in office.
He gave the reasons. He took a deal for a fine, loss of his law license for 5 years, and not pursuing lawyer fees as his punishment for what he did. In exchange for that, he would be immune from being prosecuted any further on that matter. It's quite plain in the article you linked.
It was 2001, Clinton was leaving office, Bush was entering. They didn't need a prosecution of a former president on their hands. They had just assumed the White House after losing the popular vote, people were bitter about the whole 2000 election to begin with. There was no political will to prosecute the Clintons, because the entire point of White Water and the subsequent Lewinsky investigations was to damage the Clintons politically. Mission accomplished.
I mean, it took years to badger the DOJ into prosecuting Trump for waging an insurrection when he was on his way out. Honestly Trump would have gotten the same treatment as Clinton if he hadn't gone apeshit at the end. He wouldn't have a Federal indictment or a Georgia indictment. The other Florida indictment wouldn't have happened if he would have just returned everything he had taken instead of lying about it for a year and trying to hide it.
The two NY cases would have resulted in a fine and community service if he had just kept his mouth shut and shown a little contrition.
> There was no political will to prosecute the Clintons, because the entire point of White Water and the subsequent Lewinsky investigations was to damage the Clintons politically. Mission accomplished.
Yeah, just like now, the goal is to damage Trump politically. That's exactly what people mean when they say the prosecution is politically motivated.
No, in this case the crime was known about since 2018, and it was prosecuted because it was a serious crime. Someone went to jail for it already and they were prosecuted by the Trump administration. Hard to call this political when this case was first prosecuted by a Republican AG.
In the case of Clinton the entire “crime” was that he lied in the process of a political investigation into him which, ultimately we know today, had absolutely no legitimate basis whatsoever, as they ultimately found no crime aside from the one they induced. Today Republicans call this a “process crime” and they view it as foul play, presumably because they run that playbook themselves and know how dirty it is.
Today his conduct is a matter of course for Republicans — AG Jeff Sessions lied before Congress and wasn’t prosecuted. So really kvetching about Clinton at this point is ancient history and water under the bridge.
Again I ask you, point to something concrete which shows Bragg is a political operative instead of an independent DA. I’ll wait.
> Again I ask you, point to something concrete which shows Bragg is a political operative instead of an independent DA. I’ll wait.
By his own admission, Bragg sued over 100 times to block Trump's policies. That's over 100 times he acted like a political operative instead of an independent (in the political sense) DA. How much more proof do you need?
That's not an "admission" that's a statement of fact which is his record.
But let me get this straight. Those 100+ cases were brought while Bragg was working as Chief Deputy Attorney General of New York. I'm not exactly sure what the Chief Deputy AG role is, but clearly he wasn't a director. Either way, how does working as and fulfilling the role of Deputy AG for the state of NY make him a political operative? It's not a political role in the least. Those 100+ cases were DACA and immigration cases, so they were for NY citizens and constitutions, not political investigations into Trump.
Frankly, I think you have a definition of "political operative" so broad that it includes every Democrat. That's not the standard we run things on. Democrats only investigating Democrats and Republicans only investigating Republicans is not how you arrive at accountability.
What proof I'm looking for is Bragg campaigning on the idea that he would "go after" Trump, as people keep saying. Him stating a fact of his past that he did these prosecutions in his role as Deputy AG is not that. Despite you trying to paint him as biased, he had actually said many times he will follow the facts and won't prejudge the case.
Also, crucially (and I don't know why this is continually glossed over) he did not even bring the case to begin with -- it was brought by Cy Vance. Bragg actually received great flak from Democrats for not acting with more alacrity, which is what you would have expected if he were out to "get" Trump. By the time Bragg was elected the case was already before a grad jury. So this whole demonization of Bragg misses the mark entirely.
> Also, crucially (and I don't know why this is continually glossed over) he did not even bring the case to begin with -- it was brought by Cy Vance. Bragg actually received great flak from Democrats for not acting with more alacrity, which is what you would have expected if he were out to "get" Trump. By the time Bragg was elected it was already before a grad jury. So this whole demonization of Bragg misses the mark entirely.
That's "glossed over" because it's not true. Bragg was elected Manhattan DA in 2021. This case was brought before the grand jury on Jan 30, 2023 and the indictment was approved on March 30, 2023.
As for the rest, this discussion is clearly going nowhere. Bragg declared his intention to fight Trump during the campaign and spent several years trying to find a way. If you don't think that's political bias, I can't convince you.
---
Edit: Stop wasting my time. You claimed Vance brought the case, then quoted a source proving that was false: "Vance did not seek an indictment". To avoid admitting your mistake, you changed your claim from "brought the case" to "the first grand jury". I don't think you're discussing this in good faith.
No, you are incorrect. The case was first brought by Cy Vance in front of a grand jury when he was on his way out of office in 2021. He left the rest of the case to Bragg.
Vance authorized the attorneys on the team to present evidence to the grand jury near the end of 2021, but he did not seek an indictment. Those close to Vance say he wanted to leave the decision to Bragg, the newly elected district attorney.
Bragg's grand jury was not the first grand jury to have heard the evidence.
> As for the rest, this discussion is clearly going nowhere.
I disagree, I think you're learning a lot of new facts about the case you were unaware of before. Like the one above. I'm happy to spread knowledge.
> If you don't think that's political bias, I can't convince you.
If you think that's political bias then you must think every Democrat is politically biased against Republicans and vice versa, so therefore no Democrat can ever investigate a Republican. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems to me to be the obvious conclusion from your stance. I don't see a way a Democrat could prosecute a Republican without charges of political bias with your outlook on what constitutes bias.
Thankfully that's not the system we live under (yet), so I don't care if I can't convince you that's a bad way to run things. Suffice it to say though, you (and moreover Trump) are going to be sorely disappointed if that's your expectation for how things run.
Edit in response to your edit (as the someone else said, learn to post, you're supposed to wait for the rate limiter to expire not to circumvent it with edits):
> Edit: Stop wasting my time. You claimed Vance brought the case, then quoted a source proving that was false: "Vance did not seek an indictment". To avoid admitting your mistake, you changed your claim from "brought the case" to "the first grand jury". I don't think you're discussing this in good faith.
1) I'm not wasting your time, any moment you spend here is a moment you choose to spend. If you consider the time engaged with me wasted, you are the one wasting it. I haven't forced you to write a single word or to spend a single second doing something you didn't want to do.
2) That "Vance did not seek an indictment" does not mean Vance didn't originally bring the case. The facts were originally made public in 2018 due to Michael Cohen's testimony before Congress. Cy Vance then opened a case into the allegations, and advanced it to the point where in 2021 it was in front of a grant jury. Crucially at that point, Vance was on his way out and Bragg had already been elected. Which means while the case was being worked on before Bragg even got it, which is what he states in the other source I linked in this thread ("I haven't seen the facts of the case yet", meaning the case that Cy Vance started).
Either way, the point you seem very intent on missing, is that when Bragg started as DA, there was a case already started by Vance, that had already been before a grand jury once before, that already had been investigated and worked on for years. So to say that the case only made it to trial because Bragg had some sort of political agenda is false. He said before he was elected that he would continue the case and let the facts direct it, without prejudging it. You are conveniently ignoring all of that to conclude the prosecution was politically motivated because Bragg is a Democratic political operative. The track record and history of the case does not bear that theory out.
> I don't think you're discussing this in good faith.
Then don't talk to me anymore, I'm not going to try and convince you of my faith. Why am I spending all these words and hours if I'm not being genuine? Don't waste your time with such pointless allegations, just go do something else.
I've said already I'm not a lawyer so maybe I'm not using terms precisely that you understand a different way, but I'm not trying to deceive you or make specious arguments. I'm genuinely engaging with you at a fine grained level and we are honed in on this idea that Bragg is a political operative. You've brought very light evidence to bear such as anodyne statements of a desire for pursue accountability of political figures like Trump, and the fact he worked for a Democratic state government, but you haven't explained how that doesn't preclude all Democrats from investigating any Republican. I'm still waiting on that logic.
But moreover you claim Bragg's history of bringing DACA cases against the Trump administration on behalf of citizens is evidence of some sort of Democratic political animus against Trump himself.
To which I pointed out in fact the case was first brought/started/opened/whatever not by Bragg, but by his predecessor. The most aggressive statement against Trump you can find is Bragg stating he will continue the already started case, and he will let the facts take him where they may, which includes holding Trump accountable if necessary, but all the while not prejudging before looking at the facts of the case.
Which.... just doesn't rise to the level of political bias you are alleging that would bring into question the veracity of the case that just concluded.
