Life after the White House: What does the future hold for Donald Trump?
Washington, United States, November 12 (RT) .- While Donald Trump continues to refuse to accept defeat to Joe Biden in the November 3 elections and insists that there was electoral fraud, various media and experts wonder what he will do. the president after leaving the White House and what legal battles he will face once he loses his presidential immunity.
LEGAL DISPUTES AHEAD?
A series of lawsuits and investigations await Trump when he returns to private life. In his hometown of New York, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance has been conducting a criminal investigation into the President and the Trump organization's business for more than two years. The investigation, originally focused on secret payments made by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen before the 2016 election to two women who claimed to have had sexual encounters with the president, has been expanded and could focus on bank, tax and insurance fraud, as well as the falsification of business records.
Meanwhile, New York Attorney General Letitia James is simultaneously investigating whether Trump and her company committed tax fraud.
In addition, the president faces several other lawsuits, including two for defamation, filed by women who accused him of sexually assaulting them and then belittling them by denying the accusations.
"Once you leave office, your cloak of immunity, real or implied (per Department of Justice guidelines, which stipulates that a sitting President cannot be prosecuted for criminal offenses), will disappear," said David Weinstein, former US Attorney Florida, speaking to USA Today.
"He is very vulnerable to prosecution," confirmed Jimmy Gurule, a former Justice Department official in the George H.W. Bush, referring to the Vance investigation, which examines Trump's tax returns and other financial documents. "I think the threat is very real and very substantial," he concluded.
WOULD YOU GIVE YOURSELF A PARDON?
There is no definitive answer to this question. No President has tried this before, so the legal validity of this alleged act would ultimately remain in the hands of the courts, in the event of a lawsuit.
The presidential clemency powers are very broad, allowing Trump to seamlessly grant amnesty to his friends (as he has done to the conservative Roger Stone) and his family. The president would not have to wait for charges against him to be formally filed to self-pardon: he could try to do so preemptively to cover the possibility of a prosecution after he leaves office.
On the other hand, some jurists argue that a self-pardon would be unconstitutional, because it would violate the basic principle that no one should act as a Judge in their own case.
It should also be noted that pardons are only applicable to federal crimes, not to charges brought by lower courts.
Rather than try to amnesty himself, Trump could resign at some point before leaving office, passing the authority to pardon Vice President Mike Pence, an option already suggested by a Justice Department attorney to President Richard Nixon in 1974.
However, it is unclear what the vice president would gain if he agreed to pardon Trump, Corey Brettschneider, a professor of political science at Brown University, told Reuters. "I don't think Pence wants that to define his legacy," he said.
TELEVISION, GOLF OR PRESIDENTIAL RACE?
As for Trump's future occupation, two sources with alleged access to conversations between the president and his advisers told Axios that the president is considering running again for the next presidential elections in 2024.
In the same vein, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham believes that the President should run again in 2024 if his legal battle that began after the vote on November 3 is unsuccessful. "I would encourage you to think about doing it," he said Monday on Fox News Radio.
Meanwhile, former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney also hopes Trump will stay involved in politics. "It would absolutely put him on the list of people likely to run in 2024," he said.
On the other hand, several media have suggested that Trump could launch his own television network, as he already considered doing in 2016 if he lost the elections. In fact, The New York Times reports this week that discussions about the launch of a Trump TV have continued this year. In this sense, it is speculated that the President would seek to compete for viewers with Fox News, which he has criticized lately, even tweeting that both viewers and himself "want an alternative now."
Another possible scenario is that the president moves away from all public life. In June, Trump mused at the White House on the possibility of taking a road trip in an RV with Melania, while at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania he wondered if he could get into one of the trucks parked there, already that he would like to "just get out of this."
In this sense, his ex-wife, Ivana Trump, stated this week that the President will have to face reality and "declare that he lost" the elections, and believes that finally "he will go to Palm Beach to play golf and live a normal life." , since "that is the best option". Although Donald Trump "hates being a loser," he has "a lot of money, places to go, live and enjoy life," he explained.
