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Notes -
Keep in mind that he crossed the Rubicon because a Senate oversight committee ordered him to come home unguarded so he could be executed after a show trial. That was literally the only reason he needed to do it in the first place.
But Trump wasn't going to get a show trial and usually a hypothetical president wouldn't either. So the Rubicon is a bad example in that sense and a framing that better reflects reality has to acknowledge that? Or is the core concern that the justice system a former president would be subjected to is too unreliable and there need to be more checks and balances involved?
I mean I think we agree that former presidents shouldn't have to deal with nuisance lawsuits but we shouldn't let that caution overpower the actual need for accountability mechanisms. There's an especially large hole currently in the accountability process during the lame duck period, where a president can no longer be held to electoral accountability, the Senate might not move fast enough to use impeachment, and the president might after getting out of office be in practice near totally immune to legal accountability. With how much power we give presidents as individuals, that worries me.
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