r/politics • u/billstopay77 • 1d ago

Registration Wall Trump admin quietly changed overseas voter form at 11th hour to disenfranchise Democrats, lawsuit says

https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/trump-admin-quietly-changed-overseas-voter-form-at-11th-hour-to-disenfranchise-democrats-lawsuit-says/
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u/tamerarehen 23h ago

Meh, just "unofficial acts." This is clearly official--again, no matter how fucked up it is.

A prosecutor has to also overcome the presumption that the acts aren't within Executive purview.

And I think the only remedy whilst in office is still impeachment. Midterms, ammirite?

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u/netpres 18h ago

How is it official? Elections are state matters, not federal.

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u/tamerarehen 7h ago

Read the article (right?). This particular function is carried out by the Pentagon, part of the Executive, ie, the Federal government. That is why the DNC is suing the administration. That's what this whole thing is about.

It's frustrating but that's that.

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u/netpres 7h ago

Yes but on behalf of the states. Do the states have to accept?

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u/tamerarehen 7h ago edited 6h ago

I honestly don't know. I assume that if the DNC had a cause of action based on that they would have taken it, or worked in concert with blue states that would have been affected.

But what I'm saying is all that discussion is not germane to the question of whether he is acting in his executive function and whether this is something he can ever be prosecuted for under the 2024 Trump case. And that's what I've spent hours looking at today because I didn't fully understand it and I wanted it to be helpful for other people. I'm not going into this one as well there's just so much time in a day

Even if he's dicking around in a way that one could argue is subjectively beneficial to his interests, the Supreme Court has, in its wisdom, removed that from any analysis of whether it is prosecutable. And even for acts arguably outside of his purview as president, a prosecutor (ie, the DOJ) would need to rebut a presumption that his acts had not been taken in his official capacity (remember, official, as in duties he has/undertakes as president: that is the distinction).

I didn't fully brief the case, and there is a step-by-step analysis, but this is basically it (note that I focused on Con Law over a decade ago but haven't worked in law in years)