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DOJ wants to scrap Watergate-era rule that makes presidential records public

theintercept.com

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Re: DOJ wants to scrap Watergate-era rule that makes presidential records public

#31

Post by tremon »

koolba wrote: post #27
coldcode wrote: post #8

It's not a rule, it's a law passed by Congress and signed by the President in 1978. You can't just ignore it.

> It's not a rule, it's a law passed by Congress and signed by the President in 1978. You can't just ignore it. They’re not ignoring. They’re saying they think the law itself is unconstitutional. From the article: >> In a sweeping new memorandum from the Office of Legal Counsel, the DOJ claims the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional. The department’s edict, which is already facing legal challenges, argues th…

"This is unconstitional because Trump doesn't like it" is not a very strong argument. The position he's holding is called "Public Office" (not private office) for a reason.

Re: DOJ wants to scrap Watergate-era rule that makes presidential records public

#32

Post by autoexec »

josefritzishere wrote: post #3

That sounds like someone wants to hide the evidence.

That "someone" isn't just Trump. He's 80. He'll be lucky if he lives out the rest of his term. The odds of him still being alive 5 years after his presidency when his records could start to fall into the hands of the public are very very slim.

I don't think this is for him and his many many crimes as much as it is being set up for those who will come after him and the many more crimes they have planned for the future.

Re: DOJ wants to scrap Watergate-era rule that makes presidential records public

#33

Post by afiori »

jfengel wrote: post #14
coldcode wrote: post #8

It's not a rule, it's a law passed by Congress and signed by the President in 1978. You can't just ignore it.

Sure you can, when you're the President. He's got presumptive immunity for all official acts. If election interference is an official act (as they decided in Trump v US), then surely ordering the destruction of all of his records is also an official act.

Don't forget about pardon power.

Re: DOJ wants to scrap Watergate-era rule that makes presidential records public

#34

Post by ceejayoz »

koolba wrote: post #27
coldcode wrote: post #8

It's not a rule, it's a law passed by Congress and signed by the President in 1978. You can't just ignore it.

> It's not a rule, it's a law passed by Congress and signed by the President in 1978. You can't just ignore it. They’re not ignoring. They’re saying they think the law itself is unconstitutional. From the article: >> In a sweeping new memorandum from the Office of Legal Counsel, the DOJ claims the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional. The department’s edict, which is already facing legal challenges, argues th…

> They’re saying they think the law itself is unconstitutional.

Yeah, well, they can say that to SCOTUS.

Re: DOJ wants to scrap Watergate-era rule that makes presidential records public

#35

Post by afiori »

nickvec wrote: post #23
tlhunter wrote: post #2

https://archive.is/jHfOe

Crazy that you can't even read an article anymore without having to cough up money and/or provide your personal data.

yes, with a but, rephrased as "crazy that you can't use a private service without payment or otherwise contributing to its profitability" sounds less so crazy.

I agree on the excess.

Re: DOJ wants to scrap Watergate-era rule that makes presidential records public

#36

Post by afiori »

ceejayoz wrote: post #16

Fine. I wanna scrap the pardon power. Trade? https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-promises-mass-pard...

Pardon power competes with governors (at least NY) being able to edit laws before signing them for most anachronistic/dystopian feature of the US state.

Re: DOJ wants to scrap Watergate-era rule that makes presidential records public

#37

Post by ceejayoz »

afiori wrote: post #36
ceejayoz wrote: post #16

Fine. I wanna scrap the pardon power. Trade? https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-promises-mass-pard...

Pardon power competes with governors (at least NY) being able to edit laws before signing them for most anachronistic/dystopian feature of the US state.

You've reminded me of an absolutely bizzare line item veto story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-item_veto_in_the_United_S...

> In 2023, Governor Tony Evers used a line-item veto to extend what was supposed to be a two year temporary funding increase for schools to last over 400 years.

https://www.businessinsider.com/wisconsin-tony-evers-400-yea...

> Evers was able to make the nearly 400-year-old addition by vetoing part of a phrase that had referred to the 2024-25 school year, by striking a hyphen and the "20." When read together, the legislature's previous proposals for the 2023-24 and the 2024-25 school years became 2023-2425.

The WI Supreme Court upheld it. What a fucked-up system.

In picture form: https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/u...

Re: DOJ wants to scrap Watergate-era rule that makes presidential records public

#38

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

ceejayoz wrote: post #34
koolba wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not a rule, it's a law passed by Congress and signed by the President in 1978. You can't just ignore it. They’re not ignoring. They’re saying they think the law itself is unconstitutional. From the article: >> In a sweeping new memorandum from the Office of Legal Counsel, the DOJ claims the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional. The department’s edict, which is already facing legal challenges, argues th…

> They’re saying they think the law itself is unconstitutional. Yeah, well, they can say that to SCOTUS.

and they will, and SCOTUS will listen, and say "remind me what party the president is from again" and then say "hmmmmm"

Re: DOJ wants to scrap Watergate-era rule that makes presidential records public

#39

Post by qingcharles »

koolba wrote: post #27
coldcode wrote: post #8

It's not a rule, it's a law passed by Congress and signed by the President in 1978. You can't just ignore it.

> It's not a rule, it's a law passed by Congress and signed by the President in 1978. You can't just ignore it. They’re not ignoring. They’re saying they think the law itself is unconstitutional. From the article: >> In a sweeping new memorandum from the Office of Legal Counsel, the DOJ claims the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional. The department’s edict, which is already facing legal challenges, argues th…

The general rule is that even facially unconstitutional laws are usually enforced until a judicial ruling against them. see e.g. all the people who did prison time for municipal handgun prohibitions until District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010).

Re: DOJ wants to scrap Watergate-era rule that makes presidential records public

#40

Post by autoexec »

solid_fuel wrote: post #26
whatever1 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Are we gonna send the marshals to arrest the president? Jokes aside, this presidency showed that it was not our written laws that enabled the expected operation of gov branches within their expected limits. It was these unwritten laws we were taking for granted, because casually we assume that the gov will not be malicious. It seems to me that we need to stop letting lawyers write laws, and instead start wri…

I disagree. I think that constitutional scholars have always known that it's not the written laws that hold the executive in check. Our system was designed so that the 3 branches would check each other . The Federalist Paper #51 explicitly calls this out - "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition." [0] The problem with any system like you are suggesting where "we need to stop letting lawyers write laws, and inst…

It isn't just congress failing to their job. We The People are also responsible for not ousting the freeloaders in congress who are taking our tax money and not doing the job they were elected to do.

We are the final check on making sure that government is serving us and not the other way around. The founders were pretty open about what they expected from us if that could no longer be accomplished within the framework they were putting into place. I'd like to think that we can still vote our way out of this problem, but I fear that between attempts from the government to suppress voters and the surprisingly large number of people content with the idea of a fascist dictator (so long as he's wearing their team's colors) we might have a hard time overcoming the fear, apathy, and learned helplessness in the rest of the population necessary to effectively insist on the changes we need.

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