Democrats need to begin using the right word: Extortion

Thom plus logo The favorite phrase in the media right now is "Quid Pro Quo," which is Latin for "this for that." but in the law there is a different word for what Donald Trump and his buddies did: Extortion. The Hobbs Act provides a 20 year prison sentence for anybody who tries to get any "thing of value" while "under color of official right." In other words, using your political office to threaten or promise benefit or harm to somebody else or another country, like Ukraine, in exchange for their doing something for you which has value, like helping you in the election. Democrats need to begin using the right word: Extortion.

-Thom

Comments

Willie W's picture
Willie W 3 years 20 weeks ago
#1

So Trump was right when he said, "there was no Quid Pro Quo". So we have Quid Pro Quo, extortion, bribery, campaign contriutions, speach (money is now speach), threats of being fired. promise of promotion, etc. Different variations of the same thing. It's rampant. and nothing will stick. Eeryone is guilty to some degree.

RobSandera's picture
RobSandera 3 years 20 weeks ago
#2

Another Twitter account turned off my letter to Twitter

This is nuts you people are crazy These little GOP punks harass me I was implying would it be nice if the The GOP was confined to ruining their own environment instead of everybody else's there is nothing to do with suicide

They turn in the suicide complaints and then they laugh all over the Internet I have found proof of

FranInCal's picture
FranInCal 3 years 20 weeks ago
#3

So your phone screener dumped me before I explained what I wanted to say: We should use all of the words: Bribery, Extortion, Obstruction . . . and Quid pro Quo. LAWYERS know what Quid pro Quo means so we should keep it on the tool rack with all our other hammers. In this season of Impeachment it helps to have an issue with legal implications to use. If you really don't need me, don't come around asking for money.

Dingodick's picture
Dingodick 3 years 20 weeks ago
#4

They are running hydrogen trucks from California to Arizona. They have fueling stations. Great alternative power. Cleanest ever. Heard some talking about the Tesla trucks. They are running here in the west Right Now. ;Thanks

deepspace's picture
deepspace 3 years 20 weeks ago
#5

Perhaps the Democrats, the media, and everyone else not hopelessly infected with Republican brain-rot should quit defining impeachment merely as a legal concept in the traditional sense and think of it more as an imperative to counter an existential abuse of power that threatens the core of our democracy, whether or not the abuse fits easily into established case law.

Not only has this illegitimate president and criminally minded punk committed verifiable felonies both before and after his inauguration (and allegedly during), more importantly, Trump's entire pattern of behavior is also that of a megalomaniacal malignant narcissist drunk on money and power. Using the highest position of the public trust primarily to serve himself rather than the People, while deliberately failing to protect basic constitutional principles -- e.g., no foreign interference in our elections! -- is a naked abuse of power such that impelled the framers to include an impeachment clause as an acceptable political remedy to remove a dangerous degenerate who, though duly elected (or installed by the Electoral College), is clearly unfit to serve.

The disposition of Trump's many other legal transgressions may continue in great earnest (hopefully) within the regular court system once he's removed from office, negating whatever questionably protected legal status is supposedly afforded the presidency nowadays. Of course, since the general election is just 12 months away, notwithstanding any further damage to America's credibility and to Mother Earth's survivability easily imagined to happen by then, removal from office by losing reelection would accomplish the same goal in a much cleaner way than would an improbable impeachment conviction in the Senate, an inherently undemocratic institution anyway -- if indeed he is not destined to win reelection, which certainly can't be a foregone conclusion.

Since Nixon was pardoned, look how fuzzy the lines have become in the neverending battle for supremacy between the so-called co-equal branches of government, a self-destructive battle antithetical to the constitutionally mandated framework that separates power for a reason. How many times must our bedrock principles be reaffirmed, flowers to cultivate, or will they simply become lost and forgotten by future generations tangled up in the stubborn plutocratic and authoritarian weeds that our apathetic generation allowed to take root?

Still, an impeachment inquiry and any resulting articles passed in the House, as well as a public trial in the Senate, albeit shat upon by Republicans, should loudly inform the electorate -- and the future beyond -- of the clear choice next November: Bring this wanted felon to justice and reaffirm the principle under our system of government that no one, especially a president, is above the law.

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