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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPresident Pelosi?
Laurence Tribe, Constitutional law professor at Harvard, has been tweeting about Pence's vulnerability to felony charges related to his knowledge of DT's obstruction of justice.
Maybe we'd be better off if DT's/Pence's removal didn't take place till after the 2018 election.
Link to tweet
tymorial
(3,433 posts)SharonClark
(10,014 posts)Stinky The Clown
(67,847 posts)doc03
(35,454 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Lets win the House, either way.
monmouth4
(9,712 posts)Brother Buzz
(36,505 posts)LonePirate
(13,446 posts)Hillary next in line with 45 and Pence guaranteed to go down would make for an awesome 2019 as it would piss off everyone who needs a big F U.
HeartachesNhangovers
(816 posts)their own ambitions on hold for Mrs Clinton's benefit.
Control-Z
(15,682 posts)Are you a man? Just asking.
HeartachesNhangovers
(816 posts)Hillary Clinton for speaker? I think you are wrong. We'll see at the beginning of the next new Congress.
LonePirate
(13,446 posts)Outside of the Bernie wing of the party, there are plenty of Dems, especially women, who feel Hillary was cheated out of the presidency.
Control-Z
(15,682 posts)Historic NY
(37,462 posts)lunamagica
(9,967 posts)that really would be poetic justice!
mcar
(42,474 posts)guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)An interesting scenario.
jalan48
(13,916 posts)Last edited Sat Sep 2, 2017, 10:17 PM - Edit history (1)
Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)onenote
(42,852 posts)Assuming that the Democrats pick up the 24 seats to take the majority in the House (not a given, but not impossible), and assuming that they pass impeachment resolutions with respect to Trump and Pence simultaneously (also not a given, and probably very unlikely), it still requires 67 votes in the Senate. If the Democrats hold all 25 Senate seats they have to defend (including two independents) and win every single Repub seat (9, including the Alabama special election later this year)--not going to happen, it would still take 10 repubs to vote to convict both.
So if people want to dream about President Pelosi, they can do so, but its just a dream -- and one that is divorced from reality to boot.
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,232 posts)Republicans will hold the line at Pence, and if we win Congress in 2018 there will still be enough Republicans who will frame a two-fer impeachment as some sort of quasi coup
pnwmom
(109,025 posts)I wouldn't be so sure he's in the clear. It all depends on the case Mueller makes, and whether the Dems are in power then.
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,232 posts)And I don't think we can win enough seats to have a straight Democratic vote for that.
That means there will be some Republicans we'd have to win over.
Trump's not a problem because most Republican senators likely secretly hate him and the amount of culpability on his part with Russia is going to be overwhelming by the time Mueller is done.
But Pence? I think we'd need to show more than just the relatively speaking minor roles in Trump's crimes to convince Republicans to cede the White House to us for the good of the country.
Pence will skate even though he shouldn't. It's okay because in the end we can still use it as ammunition against him in 2020.
pnwmom
(109,025 posts)so he resigned.
So Mueller could bring a conspiracy case against Pence, Steven Miller, and others, while naming DT as an unindicted co-conspirator.
Yes, DT could try to pardon Pence (it's not legally certain he could pardon a co-conspirator). But I doubt that the GOP would want to elevate Pence to the Presidency under those circumstances.
But as I said, it all depends on the strength of Mueller's case.
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/can-a-vice-president-be-charged-with-a-crime-while-in-office
In two separate opinions from that era, the Attorney Generals office spelled out the argument that the President wouldnt face criminal charges while in office, but he could face charges after leaving office. The President would need to be removed by Congress through the impeachment process or resign to lose that short-term immunity.
However, the Vice President wouldnt have the same short-term immunity and could face criminal charges while performing his or her constitutional duties. In 2000, Randolph Moss from the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department re-examined those two opinions and still found them to be valid based on judicial precedents and the interpretation of Founding-era documents.
HeartachesNhangovers
(816 posts)it's not clear that Nancy Pelosi could win a state-wide election in California (she's never run for office outside of her San Francisco district).
pnwmom
(109,025 posts)to do with whether a prosecution or impeachment of DT/Pence would be valid or not.
HeartachesNhangovers
(816 posts)of prosecution or impeachment. I only pointed out that having a president that has never won anything beyond local office is not a democratic outcome.
pnwmom
(109,025 posts)to her position in the House, just as every other House member. And the Speaker of the House is always in the Presidential line of succession, even though they are only elected by their House districts -- not a statewide election.
True, she "only" represents about 710,000. But that's more than Senators Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy represent. They share the representation of about 625,000 people.
HeartachesNhangovers
(816 posts)Tommy Carcetti that in the event a double-impeachment happened AND Nancy Pelosi became president as a result, that a Republican argument of "coup" would be persuasive nationally.
pnwmom
(109,025 posts)The fact that Pelosi, a person in the legal line of succession, is "only" a member of the House has no bearing on the validity of DT/Pence's potential removal from office for cause.
First Speaker
(4,858 posts)Control-Z
(15,682 posts)HeartachesNhangovers
(816 posts)Me.
(35,454 posts)and that wouldn't be a qualifier in this situation
HeartachesNhangovers
(816 posts)customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)If they get Trump, Pence will seem reasonable by comparison. While the GOPers might very well scuttle Trump, they would have a much harder time doing that to Pence, who served in Congress.
BainsBane
(53,137 posts)I have no doubt that the Jackhole radicals of the world would far prefer Trump or Pence. All that work to put a fascist in office, only to have a liberal woman become president. All their Tiki torches would go to waste.
Yes.
GoCubsGo
(32,103 posts)If I were her, I would choose Hillary, and then resign and go back to the House as soon as Hillary is sworn in.
lunasun
(21,646 posts)Oh Happy Day.
Kath2
(3,089 posts)President Pelosi would be awesome!
Alice11111
(5,730 posts)Greybnk48
(10,182 posts)I would LOVE it if someone as deserving as Pelosi was our first female President.
wryter2000
(46,136 posts)If Trump is removed from office, Pence becomes President and chooses a VP. Then Pence is removed from office and his VP becomes President.