The alternative take here is that this is saying no one is above the law. That ISN'T the sort of thing you see in corrupt/unstable institutions.
A lot of Americans seem super comfortable with the idea that their leaders and aristocrats aren't supposed to be subject to the law.
This may be one of those times that there's actually enough of a case that judicial branch feels it can take a shot at one of their betters and actually hit. We won't know until things are unsealed.
With all due respect, I'm of the opinion that the alternative here is the weaponisation of the judicial branch.
Most commenters on this post has knowingly or unknowingly broken the law multiple times in their lives. As the Buffet saying goes: "If a cop follows you for 500 miles, you’re going to get a ticket."
Buffet said this in relation to JP Morgan's "London Whale" scandal. Whats interesting here is he went on further to say: "You can’t be active in a big business without making some mistakes, and sometimes they may be big ones". This is especially true for government.
For example, something as simple and normal as taking some work docs home or discussing work with a spouse could lead to breaking serious federal laws.
Clinton's private email server is a perfect example of this, she committed a clear crime here but Comey chose to not prosecute. Despite this decision, he faced heavy scrutiny for delaying the decision which many believe had an impact on the outcome of the election.
It is important to take note of my earlier point, this is not a debate on whether leaders and "aristocrats" should be subject to the law. We are witnessing a departure from practices established centuries ago in common law tradition.
> "If a cop follows you for 500 miles, you’re going to get a ticket."
There's a lot of nuance here. Again, we don't know whats in the indictment, but the 500 laws I break today probably are going to be minor or non-felonies. This isn't a matter of "well everyone breaks the law", this is a matter of "some people break major laws and they aren't being held accountable".
> For example, something as simple and normal as taking some work docs home or discussing work with a spouse could lead to breaking serious federal laws.
And that's why intent is included when considering whether someone has broken the law.
> Clinton's private email server is a perfect example of this, she committed a clear crime here but Comey chose to not prosecute.
And I believe that if there was a case that could have been brought against Clinton there should have been. I don't think that's a get out of jail card for others, I think that was a failure of justice. I wouldn't have had one moment of poor sleep over her going to jail.
> We are witnessing a departure from practices established centuries ago in common law tradition.
That tradition has led to a place where obvious criminality isn't punished. There appears to be no respect for the law from the leadership. If this is a departure, it's a good one.
I Believe you understand why it is prudent for the judicial branch to refrain from prosecuting key figures from both political parties if the crime committed is just a minor technicality such as not paying a parking ticket or accidentally using non-secure lines of comms.
I think we disagree on whether what Trump is rumoured to be charged on falls under the category of "reasonable to refrain from prosecuting".
I think this is a politically biased DA, going out of his way to use a technicality to charge Trump. In my opinion, this is way outside of what is acceptable. If the rumours are true there is no major nor minor crime committed here, this is at best a technicality and will likely be thrown out.
Besides my opinions on the specific case, I think we also disagree on how much leeway these key political figures and officials should be given before the justice department gets involved.
I personally believe we should give much more affordances. I despise the modern idea of the "civil servant". Its a sort of neutering of what should be very revered roles. Everything from the laughable law salaries which are earned by 20 something kids in silicon valley or wall street. To little things like the secret service being able to veto the president on what he/she wants do etc.
It just seems so unamerican to me. In a very short timeframe, we have lost so much of the reverence and weight given to these roles.
Anyways, I can go on a very long tangent here, so I'll stop myself.
If the charges do turn out to be minor I too will agree he shouldn't be prosecuted. We just don't know. At the moment I think it's disingenous and diminishing to assume it's something like a parking ticket.
> I personally believe we should give much more affordances.
Yeah, totally at an impasse here. I'm not American, but it seems very un-American to me to consider political leaders part of an untouchable special class. I'm fairly certain one of the founding ideals of America was that there should be no kings. I agree that they should be respected, but that requires holding them to a higher standard. You don't become senator or president and then can do whatever you want. A country can only ever be as good as its leaders.
> “Instances of classified information being deliberately transmitted via unclassified email were the rare exception and resulted in adjudicated security violations. There was no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information.”
> “While there were some instances of classified information being inappropriately introduced into an unclassified system in furtherance of expedience, by and large, the individuals interviewed were aware of security policies and did their best to implement them in their operations,” the report said.
I didn't mean to get into the politics of it, I was using the case as an example where Comey went as far as setting a new precedent of "intent" as the standard of prosection in order to avoid the prosecution and impacting the election.
Mishandling of classified material is a crime, regardless of intent. Here's a short summary of chatGPTs take:
> This statute does not require that the person transmitting the information have a specific intent to harm the United States or aid a foreign government;
> Additionally, under 18 U.S. Code § 1924, it is a federal crime to knowingly remove classified material from its proper place of custody or to transmit it to an unauthorized person, regardless of whether there is any intent to harm the United States or aid a foreign government.
I'm confused by this. Intent is a well considered and discussed topic in the legal system. People are charged for entirely different crimes based upon intent (for example, murder vs homicide) and sometimes won't even be charged (for example, in an instance of a vehicle accident causing death).
They could've still prosecuted her and gave her a slap on the wrist. This is what they would've done to anybody a level or two beneath her but Comey set a new precedent that the standard to prosecute would be intent.
This is why they can't prosecute trump for the files at Mara-lago, besides the (very reaosnable) argument that he was the president so be definition anything he takes home should be deemed unclassified, Comey set the precedent of intent so if they cant prove intent they cant prosecute.
> This is why they can't prosecute trump for the files at Mara-lago, besides the (very reaosnable) argument that he was the president so be definition anything he takes home should be deemed unclassified, Comey set the precedent of intent so if they cant prove intent they cant prosecute.
According to most legal experts I've heard from that's not actually the case. Declassification is a process that must be gone through and it's not just an "at-will" activity[1]. I also believe that, if charges do come about, it will be an attempt to prove that the documents Trump hid were repeatedly and willfully withheld, which, given his unwillingness to work with and repeated lying to the government, does seem to be the case. Again, intent.
[1] The American Bar Association: "In all cases, however, a formal procedure is required so governmental agencies know with certainty what has been declassified and decisions memorialized. A federal appeals court in a 2020 Freedom of Information Act case, New York Times v. CIA, underscored that point: “Declassification cannot occur unless designated officials follow specified procedures,” the court said."
https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2...
I appreciate the attempt, but this poster has already resorted to posting ChatGPT responses, so I don't think it's worth the effort. They aren't serious responses. And actually, I just noticed they're ban evading and using ChatGPT to write all their responses, because apparently, HN is too PC for their edgy takes.
I don't troll, I just use chatGPT to rewrite some of my comments so that I don't get flagged/banned.
I'm slightly autistic so I find myself constantly being scrutinised not for the substance of my comments but its insensitive style.
Take this topic for example, my original text had a lot of parts questioning the intelligence of the people who don't recognise how dangerous and short sighted this is. I did this using some colourful language which the prompt got rid off.
In an ideal world, I wouldn't need to resort to these things but we live in a world resembling that Black Mirror episode where the lady had to constantly fake politeness.
P.S. If you don't believe me, just put what ever I wrote into an AI detector. Also the autism isn't an official diagnosis, I had a doctor friend diagnosis me lol.
Spiro Agnew was felonious, so there is some precedent. He did plead however. The courts are frequently already seen as weaponized, for legislative purposes at least. The grand jury system isn't seen that way though, and I have trouble seeing how it would be twisted to be so.
meh. we rightly realized there is more danger from leaving the ability to prosecute political leaders then from letting them get away with it. we're also entirely comfortable with letting 9 in 10 get away to preserve a high standard of doubt (blackstone's ratio). because the alternative is weaponizing the justice system, which undermines trust in it even more surely than letting a politician get away with a parking ticket or paperwork discrepancy.
we've already killed impeachment as having high legitimacy, clinton case was pretty politically motivated as were trump's. let's not have the whole ass criminal justice system follow pls and ty.
btw i am not saying he's innocent, this is just a dumb case.
this whole shitshow has a very third world look to it.
> we're also entirely comfortable with letting 9 in 10 get away to preserve a high standard of doubt (blackstone's ratio).
All this tells me is that this is could be the 1 in 10. We don't know yet.
> which undermines trust in it even more surely than letting a politician get away with a parking ticket or paperwork discrepancy.
Are you certain that's what's occurring here? The implication at the moment is there's a felonies involved. Why are we assuming that Trump is being accused to committing no crimes larger than a parking ticket?
It seems to me that there's an general assumption (not saying it's your assumption) that all politicians are lairs and corrupt and criminals and that's the norm. I think that's an incredibly sad state of affairs and it needs to change. If the justice department wants to start taking shots at politicians who have committed felonies with ironclad cases (we don't know if that's the case here), I say fire away. I don't care what team they represent.
Everyone is currently diminishing the coming unsealing with the idea that somehow it's going to be that Trump jaywalked twice. We don't know that's the case and it would be ridiculous for NY to be taking swings at him for that. If that proves to be the case I'll be vocally against it, but for now I'm assuming that those pressing charges are halfway competent.
Political leaders need a different legal standard because there are ulterior motives to subject them to immense scrutiny. If he weren't Donald Trump, would he be getting charged for this? Think about all the deductions you fudged on your taxes; those transgressions went unnoticed because you are a "normal person". Impeachment is our recourse for a corrupt president and that ship has sailed.
> Think about all the deductions you fudged on your taxes
To be clear - absolutely none. This is a way to normalize deviant behavior by assuming everyone does it. Not everyone does. Many do, but that doesn't make it right.
> Impeachment is our recourse for a corrupt president and that ship has sailed.
He's no longer president, he's just a citizen. Keep in mind, if the rumors are true, these are crimes he committed before he became president. Is the argument here that once someone is president they are forever immune to prosecution?
A lot of Americans seem super comfortable with the idea that their leaders and aristocrats aren't supposed to be subject to the law.
This may be one of those times that there's actually enough of a case that judicial branch feels it can take a shot at one of their betters and actually hit. We won't know until things are unsealed.