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Comment by Joeri | Hacker News Reader

When a different side takes control of the justice department they may choose to go after all those who broke the law by order of this president. The president might be protected from consequences according to the supreme court, but those answering to the president are not.

This administration has set the standard that the justice department can be weaponized against political enemies. The ratchet only goes one way in American politics, presidents never relinquish the powers claimed by their predecessors.

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The obvious solution to this is to change everything structurally needed to ensure the other side never again takes control, which is clearly also in progress.

>The obvious solution to this is to change everything structurally needed to ensure the other side never again takes control, which is clearly also in progress.

- Signed, the side that tried to throw a candidate in prison.

A convicted felon. Candidacy shouldn't be part of the equation.

Prison is typically where felons go, yes.

> The president might be protected from consequences according to the supreme court, but those answering to the president are not.

Unless they are granted a blanket pardon beforehand.

Then all you can really do is an "audit" for who did what, from which no charges can be laid.

That does not allow escaping from international laws.

Can't escape State law either.

Trump seems to have been able to.

The US army does, though.

Actually it does if the US, bullies the other countries into not enforcing it and the US it's actually the main country enforcing international law. If a country dare to enforce international law against an us person, they will cut resources or threaten to use military

International law makes traffic cops look like Judge Dredd

or civil lawsuits.

Individual federal government employees are generally immune from civil liability for all official acts, even if those acts were illegal.

Even before Trump, the US had a standing policy of threatening severe retaliation against anyone who tries to enforce international law against US citizens-- this isn't just an informal policy, it's a specific law passed by Congress. And the scope has only gotten broader since then.

The whole concept of "international law" is polite fiction anyway, the reality has always been "the strong do what they can, the weak endure what they must".

Just lock them up anyway and pardon yourself for ignoring the pardon if that's how the game is played.

The idea of a blanket pardon is absurd on its face and we're only allowing it because we're allowing political prosecution.

Or arrest them using ICE and make false claims. Or just make their life miserable and punish anyone who hires them.

In reality stuff like this feels like the beginning of an end.

I seriously don't know how anyone can look at what is happening right now and be okay with it.

> When a different side takes control of the justice department

That's an argument about the degradation of the rule of law, taking as a prior that the rule of law won't degrade. It's... unpersuasive. The end goal of this kind of thinking is that the other side never does take control, ever.

The current administration pretty clearly does not intend to give up power. They tried to evade democracy once already, and have fixed the mistakes this time.

Whether they will be successful or not is unknowable. But that's the plan. And the determining factor is very unlikely to be the normal operation of American civil society. Winning elections is, probably, not enough anymore.

He will very likely just pardon everyone on his last day.

There are some signs that the current Administration has no intention of allowing “a diferente side” to retake power.

Trump third term being one.

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