The former president has made clear once again that he believes the office should have absolute power
The D.C. Federal Court of Appeals is expected to hand down a decision on Donald Trump’s claim to “absolute” presidential immunity any day now, and the former president is upping his public pressure campaign for a favorable decision.
Early Thursday morning, Trump took to Truth Social to rant about the exemption he believes a president — or former president — should have from prosecution over crimes committed while in office. “EVEN EVENTS THAT ‘CROSS THE LINE’ MUST FALL UNDER TOTAL IMMUNITY, OR IT WILL BE YEARS OF TRAUMA TRYING TO DETERMINE GOOD FROM BAD,” Trump wrote.
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The former president argued that without total blanket immunity, the chief executive would be stripped of the “authority and decisiveness” necessary to carry out their duties in office. “Sometimes you just have to live with ‘great but slightly imperfect,’” he wrote in the all-caps post.
I’m wondering if Bill Barr has had a change of heart. Prior to the Trump Administration, he was openly advocating the Unity Executive Theory, which basically says the President gets to do whatever the hell they want. He even made fun of “progressives” who argued that this would make the President into a dictator (at around 13:00 in the video). A little over a year after that address, he was pulling the brakes hard on Trump’s attempt to steal the election.
Hey, Barr, how about we pull back on the President’s power, not give more.
I just want to add a caveat (while basically agreeing with frezik) that proponents of the unitary executive theory thought that Bill Barr was a total crackpot. So, it’s more like Barr was trying to rehabilitate fascism through an already existing term that makes fascism sound respectable.
Yeah, and his choice to back is questionable, too. If you wanted to make the President a dictator, wouldn’t you want to find an intelligent philosopher king for the job? He picks Donald Fucking Trump.
Barr clearly isn’t an idiot. All I can think of is that he thought he could be the power behind the throne, and found out how wrong that was.
Yeah I think for fascists the opportunity for becoming a little mini-dictator over their respective area of the state is very tempting.