While it is quite obvious that the latest push by
Democrats to find our esteemed president guilty of impeachable crimes will most
likely result in failure, it is interesting to note that President Trump didn’t
always think he was immune from prosecution and “above the law” as Democrats
might lead you to assume.
Most recently he was ordered to authorize the
payment of $2 million dollars in damages for illegally using funds from a
charity organization he set up for tax purposes. President Trump used
money from the Donald J. Trump Foundation to buy portraits of himself, payoff
his businesses’ legal obligations, and help finance his 2016 campaign.
When the investigation was begun into these illegal actions, President Trump immediately curtailed its operation. The court ruling also demanded that
he distribute the remaining $1.8 million in the foundation after its
curtailment to eight legitimate national charities.
In a second high profile lawsuit, filed by New York state, and California,
President Trump was accused of defrauding 6,000 college age students with
his Trump University, which promised to reveal Trump's real estate
investing "secrets" to people who enrolled in the courses.
Those cases cost Trump over $25 million in damages.
Additionally, there
is a pending racketeering lawsuit against Trump, his three oldest
children (Eric, Ivanka, and Don, Jr.), and the Trump Organization alleging the
Trumps promoted a get-rich-scheme that defrauded vulnerable investors, and that
the Trumps would have known this to be the case. It also accuses the Trumps of
receiving payments not disclosed to investors.
Finally, there are
over 100 lawsuits working their way through the courts over allegedly owned
unpaid taxes to states and municipalities that Trump has directed his
companies not to pay.
Space does not permit mentioning all the cases
involving our president, which according to USA Today, totaled over 3500 before
Trump became president. These include, but are not limited to, the defrauding
of investors, the failure to pay subcontractors, violations of fair housing
regulations and defamation of character. In comparison,Trump's litany of court cases makes 'crooked Hillary' look like a member of a church choir.
So you see Democrats are only partially correct when
they claim President Donald Trump thinks “he is above the law.” Private
citizen Donald Trump was never above the law. He was very familiar
with prosecution.
It’s only recently, since he’s found a new heaven in
the office of the president, that he has masterfully become shielded from
prosecution. He owes this gift to the conclusion that originated in 1973, in
the midst of the Watergate scandal, engulfing President Richard
Nixon. At that time the Justice Department’s Office of Legal
Counsel adopted in an internal memo the position that a sitting president
cannot be indicted. The department reaffirmed the policy in a 2000 memo,
saying court decisions in the intervening years had not changed its conclusion
that a sitting president is “constitutionally immune” from indictment and
criminal prosecution.
Guess that’s why Trump wants to continue as
president.
