The Case for an American Nuremberg

Jonathan Last: “The Supreme Court in its wisdom created what is, in practice, total criminal immunity for the president. The Constitution’s mechanisms for restraining a president—the impeachment clause and the Twenty-fifth Amendment—have been proven to be dead letters. In 237 years they have never once performed their intended functions; there is no reason to believe that they might suddenly become functional in the future.”

“So our president is now a defined-term king. He cannot be removed and he cannot be prosecuted. His ambitions are limited only by his own sense of morality.”

“The only way to constrain this new American Caesar is to create disincentives for those who would carry out his orders. To rob future presidents of the foot soldiers needed to wage a war against the half of America they dislike.”

“And the way to create those disincentives is to bring the maximum force of law against every agent of the government who broke any federal or state law under Trump.”