The issue of whether a sitting President of the United States can be arrested and detained is a legal question. What's your legal research background? For me, I have a Master's Degree in Business Taxation. My University professors knew how to teach legal research! You look to the Constitution. You look to laws, to regulations, to court case analysis and decisions. I may have specialized in tax law, but I certainly appreciate what goes into researching Constitutional law. Ultimately, the Constituion rules. All laws, regulations, and court decisions must be decided based on the Constitution. The Constitution controls.
Let me make an analogy you might appreciate. If you're researching a Biblical question, where do you start? I start with the Bible. I will look at what my church teaches and read the verses they use in support of their position. I will look at respected Commentaries and the writings of religious folks I respect. But I always go back to the Bible verses referenced by all those sources. The Bible is the source of Truth.
So now the question before us is: Can a sitting President of the United States be arrested and detained? I look to the Constitution. I look to respected sources. That's where I found the opinion of the Department of Justice. They don't say "That's what they taught me." No, they quote from the Constitution. They quote from court cases. They discuss why they are deciding what they are deciding. But ultimately everything is based on the Constitution.
Your approach to Constitutional research? Apparently you didn't like the Department of Justice's opinion. But do you read the carefully researched document and show where they are wrong based on the Constitution and relevant court cases? No. You do the equivalent of Christian-lite cherry picking of Bible verses. You find the Bible verses which, when taken out of context, clearly support your unChristian viewpoint. Except that, in this case, it's an unConstitional website you've decided is worthy of your respect. Did you even read the viewpoints on that website??? "The longer answer is that the Constitution was suspended by FDR in 1933 via his EMERGENCY BANKING PROCLAMATIONS and subsequent LEGISLATION. Since then we have been ruled by 'public policy' not the Constitution." Those are the folks you're looking to for answers about the Constitution??? And the opinion you like is one person just saying, "That's what I was taught." No legal rational. No cites or references. Just "trust me, we can arrest a sitting President." Shoot, that's even lower than cherry picking Bible verses, because they aren't even quoting Bible verses!
Again, no, the military is not allowed to detain a sitting President. That is a military coup. It is illegal. It is unconstitutional.
And paranoid ranting from the lunatic fringe - "He may nuke a U.S. city" - are given the weight they deserve - NONE.
You didn't like that I didn't respond to your questions, but they are all answered in the DoJ opinion. I'm not going to regurgitate the document if you are incapable of reading and understanding it.
If you are concerned about the actions of the President, bring your concerns up to your Representative. They are the ones who can initiate impeachment proceedings.
You bring up the idea of Obama committing treason and call for special rules in that instance. That's not necessary. Treason by the President is specifically covered in the section on impeachment. "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High crimes and Misdemeanors." Removed from office after convicted. Until then, they continue to hold their office. That's what the Constitution says!
If Obama does something clearly illegal, such as 2nd amendmenting John Boehner, than I suppose that he would be declared disabled (by reason of insanity) under Article Two, Clause Six of the Constitution. But the Constitution and all the procedures in place would be followed to declare him disabled. I also suppose that would be the fastest impeachment and trial possible.
But, again, there is no provision for the military to get involved. We are not a banana republic. We do not sanction coups. We follow the Constitution.
I’m asking serious questions and they deserve serious answers, not just more of the blah-blah Alinsky you regularly serve up.
No, like usual you are imagining outlandish scenarios and rejecting answers you don't care for. Instead of looking for the right answer, you are cherry picking sources to get the answer you want. That's intellectually dishonest.
What you are saying is that even if Obama activated a nuke that he believed was in DC and not deep in the Atlantic Ocean, nobody could do a darn thing to stop him from having the nuclear football for at least another 6 months or so that it takes to do an impeachment - all because that’s the DOJ’s opinion of what the Constitution says.
Unless they use the preferred communist method of unaccountability - declaring him insane. The only difference between that and a military coup is that it is a political coup. Anything to keep the power in the hands of the already-too-powerful. Who gets to decide that the POTUS is insane? Let me guess - the politically-motivated Congress which obstructs justice by voting on the basis of politics rather than evidence?
And the officers’ oath HAS to mean nothing. The country is forcing our military officers to perjure themselves by making them take an oath they are never allowed to keep.
I don’t buy it.
I was responding to a comment that anybody in the military who suggested that Obama be arrested for attacking the US would be removed right away. If what these people have said is correct, the instructors with advanced Harvard law degrees are outright TEACHING that this IS the contingency plan for when a POTUS blatantly attacks the US.
I wanted to find out if that is what the advanced law degree people ARE teaching the military - because if that is true, it makes the DOJ “opinion” suspect.
I read the opinion quite a while ago, and what I remember from it is that it is just that - opinion. The scenario pondered in one of the cited cases, IIRC, was whether somebody could arrest a Congress member or the POTUS for speeding in order to keep them from a vote - and the answer was that you can’t do that - and it was extrapolated that you therefore can never arrest a POTUS in that kind of scenario.
And again I say, if the law can’t tell the difference between arresting somebody for speeding and arresting somebody who has done an action he thought would blow up Washington DC.... then the whole rationale for martial law is blown to bits. The whole idea of martial law is that when there is great danger, sometimes the normal guarantees - even of the Constitution - MUST be suspended.
Does the DOJ say that martial law is unconstitutional?
Does the DOJ say that all the Constitutional guarantees that have been suspended by folks like the NSA, TSA, etc because of the “war on terror” are unconstitutional and so they must never, ever happen?
When they start applying the same logic to the POTUS as they apply to other terrorists with the potential to kill thousands if not millions of Americans, then and only then will I take them seriously.
But then maybe they are. The terrorists that Obama has trained and armed can hop on a plane to the US without having to go through the TSA, or they can waltz right through our open southern door that Eric Holder is making sure they can go through without anybody stopping them. It’s just the 90-year-old nuns who have to be photographed naked or groped. God knows those little old nuns are SO MUCH MORE dangerous than an enemy in the White House or his terrorist allies that he’s armed, trained, funded, released, and enabled in every way imagineable.
Spit. If this country buys this crap, it deserves everything it’s going to get. And it’s gonna be bad, bad, bad.
My questions still stand; you have not once addressed my questions - and it does no good to point to the DOJ opinion because it doesn’t address those questions either. AND that opinion was from 1973 and updated in 2000 - BEFORE 9-11-01. If so, the whole “Constitutional guarantees can be suspended because of the asymmetrical warfare we face” rationale wasn’t even brought up, so that opinion is WAY out-of-date - in effect, overruled by what’s transpired since 9-11-01.
The court rulings on the constitutionality of the Patriot Act would come to bear on issues such as whether a terrorist POTUS could be arrested. If nuns can be groped before being allowed on an airplane, without violating the Constitutional protections against “unreasonable searches and seizures”, then a LOT more is “reasonable” now than before 9-11-01...
My questions still stand, and you are refusing to address them.
I also still want to know if military officers are taught by the advanced-degree Harvard law people that this is the proper procedure for keeping their oaths to the Constitution and protecting the country from an enemy POTUS.
Also, the 20th Amendment mentions specific situations in which a POTUS has not yet been removed from the OFFICE but is still not allowed to ACT as POTUS. Arresting a POTUS does not remove them from office. It disables them from ACTING as POTUS, with the Congressionally-approved line of succession being followed as to who ACTS as President during the interim. Arresting the POTUS if/when he attacks the US... contradicts nothing in the Constitution.