Trump's Personal Lawyer And Campaign Manager Both Going To Prison

[Final-Fan]

NightlyPoe said:

Final-Fan said:

Yes, you already mentioned the Constitution, but that is very vague in terms of being an answer to the question that I asked you.

(1) It's specific enough.  It says the president is in charge of the executive branch.  Hence he can ultimately decide what gets investigated and what doesn't because there isn't an investigation anywhere in government that he is not in charge of.  Your example of a lawyer has to do with an outside force.  The president is an inside force that sets policy and priorities.

(2) I ask you again, how is this fundamentally different than Obama ordering the relief of entire classes of illegal immigrants for baldly political reasons shortly before an election?  How is it different than setting aside federal marijuana laws in states that have legalized it locally?

When answering, please also address the fact that the Constitution explicitly says that Congress is involved in the process of appointing officers, so it's clearly not the case that they are meant to be totally uninvolved in the doings of the executive branch. 

(3) Yes, Congress has a check when it comes to appointing officers, but they don't have a check on the removal of officers.  They tried on Johnson and failed, and later the Supreme Court even ruled they don't.

Also, I would suggest that "corruptly" altering the course of an investigation would run counter to "taking Care that the Laws be faithfully executed", and therefore punishing the President for doing things he is not supposed to be doing seems entirely consistent with the wishes of the Constitution.

(4) I agree.  As a matter of fact, my personal threshold for impeachment and removal is much lower than most people's.  But failing to uphold a presidential oath is not a criminal matter.  I actually think it would have been quite appropriate to remove Obama for his refusal to uphold several laws as well as many judges who substitute their own beliefs for what the law says.

Impeachment was meant to have more teeth.

1.  Are you saying Congress can pass no law restricting what the policies the executive branch does and does not pursue or how it goes about doing so? 

2.  It is your opinion that this was done primarily for "political" reasons (by which I assume you mean relating to party politics i.e. election-winning), but I think there is a pretty reasonable case to be made that any such benefit was a "side benefit" of what the President already wanted to do for policy reasons.  Even if the timing was entirely political in that sense that doesn't necessarily mean the thing itself was political—the Emancipation Proclamation is a good example of this concept at work. 

3.  Fair enough. 

4.  My point is that if the president is acting contrary to his constitutional oath, then how can the very same act be constitutionally protected from being named by Congress as a criminal act?