Should Donald Trump fail a second time to be re-elected he faces the very real possibility of jail time and massive financial penalties due to the sheer volume of criminal cases and civil lawsuits that are on hold until after the election.

That is the opinion of Syracuse University law professor Greg Germain who explained in an interview with Newsweek that the former president’s only path to get out from under the federal cases he now faces is to beat Vice President Kamala Harris in less than two weeks and then push the Department of Justice to drop the cases filed against him.

As Germain stated, the multiple federal cases Trump is facing are solid and his only path to victory may be having them shut down.

Newsweek source: https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-legal-cases-georgia-washington-florida-new-york-stormy-daniels-chutkan-cannon-1974406

  • davidagain@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    This is more like you’re a traffic warden and when people park across the middle of a busy intersection, you do nothing and then claim you don’t want to affect the traffic.

    If you’re a teacher and you let the kids play on their phones all year, have you influenced the learning?

    Inaction is a choice and has consequences.

    • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
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      3 days ago

      The purpose of traffic wardens is to direct traffic. The purpose of teachers is to educate children. The purpose of courts does not include influencing elections.

      Anyone would agree that courts deferring rulings is not ideal, but it’s better than a situation where courts are influencing elections.

      Do you have any other explanation as to why every judge in every court hearing a case against Trump has expressed reluctance to take any action that might undermine the election?

      • davidagain@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        he purpose of traffic wardens is to direct traffic. The purpose of teachers is to educate children. The purpose of courts does not include influencing elections.

        Actually, the purpose of courts is to enforce the law. It’s only of influence in the election because Donald Trump is a 44-time convicted felon and an insurrectionist who is barred from the presidency by the constitution. He brought that all on himself, and didn’t think of the consequences.

          • davidagain@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            I find it tedious too that the Republican party would pick an insurrectionist and serial bankruptee as their candidate and then get butthurt if the courts do their job, somehow believing that Trump’s electoral desires outweigh the legal process. I bet if it were a Democrat who was up on felony charges you’d be demanding that they be denied bail!

            • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
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              2 days ago

              It’s not Trumps electoral desires that outweigh the legal process. The electoral process is the core of democracy, and it can’t be subverted by a public institution.

              If the electorate is stupid enough to elect an insurrectionist and serial bankruptee then public institutions including courts must allow them to do so. That’s a fundamental inescapable component of democracy.

              Yes a Trump presidency will be a disaster for everyone. Yes Trump deserves to face the consequences of his many crimes. Yes the American public is about to make a terrible mistake.

              However, the dirty complex unsolvable problem is that Trump may have enough support to be elected President. The court is not the right tool to address that issue, because the court is empowered albeit indirectly by the electorate.

              It natural to want court processes to expose Trump as the fraud he is and cut his chances at a second presidency. It wouldn’t necessarily work out that way though. Courts are regularly used in faux-democracies to empower autocrats. That would be the perception amongst Trump’s base and really, if we’re allowing courts to influence elections then the only thing separating us from “autocrats” is that we think we’re the goodies and they’re the baddies which is obviously a furphy.

              The only way to get rid of Trump is at the polls. Beat him in the election, send him to jail, watch him disappear into his worst nightmare of irrelevance.

              • davidagain@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                If the electorate is stupid enough to elect an insurrectionist and serial bankruptee then public institutions including courts must allow them to do so. That’s a fundamental inescapable component of democracy.

                No, the constitution says he’s ineligible to be president because he’s an insurrectionist. Just the same as Arnold Schwarzenegger is ineligible to be president because he wasn’t born in the USA. It’s not election interference to keep Trump off the ballot paper any more than it is to keep Arnie off the ballot paper, and it doesn’t matter how many people want Arnie or Trump as president, those are the rules of the election. He ought not to be on the ballot paper and the courts should have ruled on this years ago. “BuT DemOCracy” doesn’t overrule the constitution. If you want a different constitution, you need to get it through the process of passing an amendment, but as it stands, he’s ineligible.

                • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
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                  2 days ago

                  All I can do is to keep rephrasing the same points you’re trying to avoid.

                  Do you really want a court to decide the outcome of an election?

                  Do you need me to enumerate the many problems that would cause?

                  • davidagain@lemmy.world
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                    2 days ago

                    I keep answering the question again and again and it keeps blowing your mind and you think I mustn’t mean it.

                    I want the courts to decide who is guilty and apply the law. No matter who. I don’t think ex presidents should be above the law, and very very very much neither did the founding fathers.

                    What I don’t want the courts to do is ignore the law just because someone is a Republican, and you think I can’t possibly mean it and that there’s a massive gotcha for me because there’s a theoretical possibility that a Democrat candidate would go to jail, but the crazy thing is that I really do think that that’s how the law should work.

                    It’s called the rule of law, and republicans think it means they can put people they don’t like in jail, but actually it just means following the rules irrespective of who the person is.

                    I don’t know why you think someone should escape punishment just because they might be elected, particularly if they’re guilty of crimes that are supposed preclude them from being president.