Perhaps we should not be so fast to dismiss the likelihood that he typically means what he so usually says. With Trump you do not know. In the intervening time, critics are accusing the President of hedging his bets within the upcoming election by starving the US Postal Service of funding because the company faces the monstrous process of delivering a report variety of mail-in ballots in the course of the pandemic.
Perhaps he’s simply making an attempt to agitate his opponents. What if he is not? How would America cope with the unprecedented refusal of a defeated president refusing to surrender energy?
The peaceable and voluntary presidential transition is likely one of the enduring glories of American democracy. The precedent was established by George Washington, who refused to run for a 3rd time period regardless of strain to take action in 1797.
No American president has ever sought to retain the presidency after dropping an election. There have been many shut elections in presidential historical past such because the Kennedy-Nixon race in 1960 and the Bush-Gore contest in 2000.
In the 1960 race Nixon supporters groused that voter fraud they alleged was orchestrated by Lyndon Johnson supporters in Texas and Mayor Daley’s Democratic machine in Chicago tilted a really shut race to John F. Kennedy. Regardless of these suspicions, Nixon swiftly dropped any fraud problem and graciously accepted Kennedy’s ascension to the presidency.
Al Gore did the identical factor when the Supreme Courtroom dominated George W. Bush the winner
by a razor thin majority of contested Florida votes within the 2000 election.
Each dropping candidates earned the respect of the nation for what seemed to be a selfless determination to unite behind a brand new president fairly than demand a protracted voter fraud investigation.
Trump, although, delights in trampling custom as he plots a distinct course.
He started his quest for the presidency by falsely claiming that then-candidate Barack Obama, was not certified to function president as a result of he was not born in america. The declare was conclusively disproven when Obama produced his licensed lengthy kind Hawaiian beginning certificates, and Trump himself, in September 2016,
finally admitted “President Barack Obama was born in america.”
Nonetheless, he’s so keen on the theme that final week he appeared to endorse a slight variation on it with respect to Kamala Harris’ proper to run for vp on the Biden ticket. Trump asserts, falsely, that she is “possibly” unqualified to run as a result of her immigrant dad and mom weren’t US residents on the date of Harris’ beginning in Oakland, California.
It’s no marvel, due to this fact, that some opponents fear that the extremely unpredictable and controversial Donald Trump may simply attempt to maintain on to energy even when he loses.
Have been he to aim such a maneuver, nevertheless, historical past suggests it would finish together with his private humiliation, shame, and doable imprisonment on prison prices. In 1807 former Vice President Aaron Burr was tried for treasonous acts towards america, establishing the precedent that even holders of the nation’s highest elected positions may be charged with prison offenses.
Although
Burr was acquitted, it appears clear that an try and illegally seize and retain presidential energy would violate a wide range of prison conspiracy legal guidelines.
The US Structure
specifies in Article 2, Part 1 that after his election, the President will maintain workplace for a “time period of 4 years…” The clear which means of this provision is that on the conclusion of these 4 years, until reelected to at least one further four-year time period permitted by the
22nd Amendment, the President shall instantly forfeit all govt powers and develop into an unusual citizen.
If the President refused to vacate the Oval Workplace on the completion of his first four-year time period, extreme penalties would comply with. He would in all probability be reminded of this throughout a go to from the leaders of each events within the Senate and Home of Representatives. An identical congregation of politicians
persuaded Nixon to resign in the course of the Watergate scandal.
To beef issues up on this case (which, have been it to occur, can be way more severe than Nixon’s predicament), such a gaggle is perhaps joined by members of the Joint Chiefs of Workers to make it clear that the navy can even stand with the Structure fairly than a rogue president.
On this speculative state of affairs, ought to Trump persist in an try and retain presidential energy, it would probably be seen as a criminally
treasonous conspiracy under the Constitution. Treason can lead to prolonged imprisonment and even the dying penalty underneath US legislation. Trump undoubtedly is aware of this as a result of he regularly accuses his opponents of treason.
He additionally loves lawsuits so we’d actually count on him to file a lawsuit searching for to overturn the election outcomes on foundation of “fraud” if he loses.
However he would probably be upset to be taught that if such a lawsuit delayed the inauguration of a brand new president previous the constitutionally scheduled date of January 20, 2021,
the laws of presidential succession would bestow the presidency on his nemesis, Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi, pending certification of a brand new president by the Supreme Courtroom and the Congress.
Whereas serving as interim president, Pelosi would undoubtedly order Trump’s arrest and confinement within the Tower, the Trump Tower, underneath home arrest to await his treason trial.
Underneath such circumstances, regardless of the President’s bluster about holding his choices open regarding presidential election fraud, Trump will pack his baggage and head for his new low-tax Florida house if he loses the election.
On the earth’s oldest steady democracy even a “secure genius” cannot outsmart the US Structure.
Correction: An earlier model of this piece incorrectly said the yr George Washington’s second time period ended. It was 1797.
