John D wrote: ↑
CaptainFluffyBunny wrote: ↑
You've done the ride with a cop" thing. Police are just like any other group of people, some good, some bad and most muddling along in between.
If it was a perjury trap, it would be pretty clear to everybody and the heavily-Republican Congress would use that excuse to dismiss the Mueller investigation. I think in this case, the idea of a perjury trap is Trumps plausible excuse for not testifying. The man lies nearly everything he says, and it seems compulsive.
I'm still doing the cop thing and I regularly scout the neighborhood as a citizens patrol volunteer. I am very much a pro law and order kind of guy. But, I am not stupid. Don't talk to the cops! Now this doesn't prevent me from calling dispatch that there is a suspicious van in someone's driveway. I will report people to the cops. I just don't need to talk about me. Haha.
Trump is one of the biggest liars on earth. Of course he shouldn't testify under oath.... just for his own good. Now, if you really hate Trump... then of course you think he should testify.
There's no perjury trap unless Trump is a complete moron and he decides to answer questions instead of pleading the fifth. However I expect that it would take A LOT to get Trump to be compelled to testify, and he likely WON'T agree on his own.
Of course Trump has a constitutional right not to self incriminate himself, just like every other US citizen. He
might not have a right to refuse to testify if he's subpoenaed. It's
very rare that a President might be subpoenaed, but it has happened both to Bill Clinton and to Richard Nixon. Clinton was compelled to testify for a civil case, Nixon to hand over the infamous tapes.
Several experts seem to agree that Trump can be subpoenaed, although the specific issues of whether a president can be
legally compelled to testify for a federal prosecution case has never made it to the Supreme Court.
IF Trump is subpoenaed he COULD refuse to testify anyway. The matter would come in the hands of the Supreme Court, which would have to rule on this matter. Clinton and to testify so SCOTUS never had to rule on whether they subpoena were LEGALLY COMPELLING them to do so. I expect that Trump will not agree to testify like Clinton did.
In 1974 the Supreme Court compelled Nixon to hand over the infamous tapes, so there is SOME (unclear) precedent for compelling a president to be legally compelled by a subpoena. It's just not clear if the 1974 decision applies to the president being compelled to testify. It's likely that IF Trump is subpoenaed, the matter would come to the Supreme Court. There's likely going to be a long-drawn court battle if that happens.
IF Trump is subpoenaed AND the Supreme Court rules against him, so he's compelled to testify, there's still no "perjury trap". If he wants to avoid being prosecuted for perjury his best option would be to decline to answer any question and assert his fifth amendment privilege.
Like here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDpLMZUH2fA
It's actually not that hard not to incriminate yourself: you just need to say nothing but that you don't want to incriminate yourself. Trump can do it. It wouldn't look good politically, though.
The absolutely worst thing that Trump could do would be to refuse to testify AFTER he'd been subpoenaed AND AFTER SCOTUS ruled that he's compelled to testify. IF this happens the US would have a constitutional crisis. In the nightmare case scenario Trump could be indicted of contempt of the court for refusing to testify, but still refuse to appear in court.
Nixon avoided a similar crisis first by handing over the tapes, then by resigning before he was indicted. I don't think Trump would accept that. If the absolute worst happens it would take MONTHS to figure out what to do.
All of this is still highly theoretical though. Trump hasn't been subpoenaed yet, so he's well within his rights not to testify (nothing compels him to do so).
Still it's concerning that he makes Twitter jokes about a serious matter that could eventually trigger a constitutional crisis.
