General Discussion

they exchange official duties for personal gain, and they go to prison for it.

rod blagojovich, for instance. just because an official duty is involved shouldn't make it immune. in fact, it very much should be criminal if done for illegitimate purposes.

so donnie exercising or not exercising or delaying exercising presidential powers to end the coup would be an official act, but if he acted with corrupt intent, then it should still be criminal.

that said, i'm not holding my breath hoping the psychotic six on the supreme court will see things this way.

i'm bracing for them to say it has to be something like "obviously" unrelated to official duties in order for a president or former president to face criminal liability. this would be incredibly broad, enough so they could throw out any j6 charges, though i hope not broad enough to throw out the catch-and-kill charges, much of which happened before he took office (though some of the fraud about the funds may have happened after, not sure of the timing).

then there's the question of how to treat presidents-elect. personally i think they haven't taken the job yet so they're still ordinary citizens, but again, i wouldn't count on this supreme court to see it like that.