A shocking FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago would make former President Trump eligible for re-election if convicted. It soon sparked a heated legal debate as to whether it should be stripped. for the White House.
Political and legal experts unite to call Monday's raid unprecedented, but will it ruin 2024 run chances? There was little consensus on whether or not it would give him a guaranteed victory.
Shortly after Mr Trump admitted to the raid, he said his Florida estate had been "surrounded" and "occupied" by the federal government. The classified presidential record is widely believed to be a potential federal violation the raid was investigating.
Mark Elias, Hillary Clinton's attorney for his 2016 presidential campaign, emphasized that: 18}
He linked to a screenshot of his 18 U.S.C. § 2071 makes it a crime for a person in custody of government documents to "willfully and unlawfully conceal, delete, mutilate, obliterate, alter, or destroy any document."
Those convicted face up to three years in prison and "disqualify themselves from their jobs and from holding public office under the United States."
Presidential historian Michael Beschloss agrees, noting that an unprecedented raid took place exactly 48 years after the night that then-President Richard Nixon resigned. , the scandal now led to a law Trump is said to be investigating. There are real penalties, including the fact that you may never hold federal office again," Beschloss told MSNBC.
But other legal experts argued that legal blocks had long been ruled inapplicable.
"If Trump is convicted of violating this law, he could be disqualified from the Presidency. No. ''was Josh Blackman,a professor of constitutional law at the South Texas College of Law at Houston.
He said that in2015, the law was overhauled and Clinton was accused of storing classified material on a private e-mail server, and that the potential You mentioned that a specific block was determined. out.
He was one of many to cite a Supreme Court ruling that held that Congress could not change constitutional eligibility criteria.
Law professor Seth Barrett Tillman — one of her 2015 authors on applicable laws — said Monday that the only restrictions on presidential eligibility are citizenship, residency, and age.
"Former presidents may be in legal jeopardy, but the fact is that, even if convicted, they cannot re-run for elected federal office, including the presidency.Tillman tweeted
"As a matter of law Trump would be free to run for president — when in prison Even," he argued.
Elias, the former Clinton attorney who hinted at the possibility of banning Trump from office, said the law was so unclear that "there will definitely be constitutional challenges" in court. rice field.
"But the idea that a candidate has to file a lawsuit during a campaign is, in my view, 'a blockbuster in American politics,'" he said. } Mentioned the first claim.
"You can guess what will happen, but it's unheard of."
All of this applies only if Trump is convicted of a crime. He has strongly denied any wrongdoing and has previously said that the president's records were turned over "in the usual routine process."
Others suggested that the raid would only bolster support among Trump supporters. Many of them, sharing his belief that he was being unjustly targeted, rushed to support him outside Mar-a-Lago. If you raid his house just to find classified documents," one legal expert told Politico.
"This will prove to be the biggest law enforcement blunder in history," experts said.
Although the law is divided, There was a clear consensus for Monday's raid. It was for record books.
"This investigation is arguably one of the most important the FBI has ever done," Jonathan Schaub, a former legal counsel for the Justice Department, told the Miami Herald.
Historian Beschloss tweeted, "I neversaw anything like this in the history of presidents."
"Let's just stop and see how strange and terrifying this is. The FBI is planning to raid the former president's home because of serious suspicions that a federal crime was committed here. is," he said. he told MSNBC.
"They're not just doing it for fun."
The 45th Commander-in-Chief hinted at the imminent announcement of his 2024 execution of the raid. We released a campaign-style video in the early hours of Tuesday morning.