Obviously orange man bad, but it would be awesome to see Trump do to DeSantis what he did to Jeb and Rubio.

  • pooh [she/her, love/loves]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    If I understand correctly, there is nothing in the constitution that prevents him from running as a presidential candidate from jail.

    Yeah, but there is a federal statute against it, assuming he's convicted before January 2025. I found this article explaining:

    Federal statute 18 U.S. Code 2071 had long banned the removal, concealment or destruction of presidential records. It says “willfully and unlawfully” removing such records can result in a penalty of up to three years in prison and that the defendant “shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States.”

    Marc Elias, a lawyer who litigates election law cases on behalf of Democrats, highlighted that line about disqualification and tweeted: “The media is missing the really, really big reason why the raid today is a potential blockbuster in American politics.”

    But in a subsequent tweet, Elias wrote that there would undoubtedly be a “constitutional challenge to the application of this law to a president. One can speculate how it would turn out, but it is unprecedented and would be fully litigated.”

    Either way, it would be a mess... A very entertaining mess.