Takes you back, doesn't it? Back to the days of Richard Milhous "Tricky Dicky" Nixon. It came up in the Frost-Nixon interviews.
Flash forward to 2016. Now we have the Giant Orange Turd channeling the worst of Nixon.
At a Tuesday lunch with the New York Times, President-elect Donald Trump said several things. He said that Breitbart is “just a publication.” He said that his son-in-law could make peacebetween Israelis and Palestinians. And, when asked about whether or not his past (or present) business activity constitutes a conflict of interest, he said, “The law’s totally on my side. The president can’t have a conflict of interest.”
As Trump sees it the law is "totally on my side" because, when it comes down to it, he is the law.
Unfortunately, he's probably right. If the US President can brag about murdering US citizens without being prosecuted, then what would possibly prevent a kleptocracy?
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Prevent a kleptocracy? Yeah Trump will "create a kleptocracy" and turn the country into Nazi Germany because that's what he ran on and we all know the US president has absolute power. They can legislate and alter the constitution at will!
ReplyDeleteNo, Anon, as you know quite well there is a specific procedure for amending the US Constitution, Article V. Trump won't attempt that because he would be doomed to fail. He can, however, flout the Constitution and govern extra-constitutionally which is more in keeping with his nature. That could be a form of kleptocracy.
ReplyDeleteAnon 1:40, the constitution doesn't really enter into it. It's likely that conflict of interest laws don't apply to the US president. The only things preventing him from using his public power for private profit are political disapproval and a sense of shame. Trump has repeatedly shown that he doesn't care about disapproval, even the disapproval of GOP leaders. And he has no sense of shame.
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