Hre's something interesting about co-signers of loans to the Orange from Deutsch Bank.
Lawrence O'Donnell: Source says Russian oligarchs co-signed Trump's Deutsche Bank loans
The plot, if any, is clarifying.
I saw Lawrence O'Donnell last night. I think bank records proving Donny is financially anchored to the Russians will shift public opinion, at least of his softer support.
Next constitutional amendment.
People running for political office (judges & dog catchers included) at the community thru federal level, must with their application for office specifically approve the total release of the last seven years of individual and corporate tax returns. No sign, no run. Corporate returns are required if an individual was/is on a board of directors or within the top 25% of management of a company, business or corporation (includes religions/charitable). Write in candidates must comply in writing within twenty-four hours of being elected or defeated. A through scrubbing of the tax filings must be completed and published by the United States Internal Revenue Service within seven days of a candidates filing. Any false statements by the candidate must be corrected within seven working days. Any unpaid taxes must be paid in full including a 25% failure to pay surcharge within three months prior to the election. Any false statement unpaid taxes incur a 50% failure to pay surcharge within three months prior to the election. Write-in candidates must comply with unpaid taxes or false statement unpaid taxes two weeks before being sworn into office. The same rules apply to people being appointed to fill vacated positions/offices. The same rules apply to political appointees up and to include the Supreme Court Judges. Failure to comply; cannot be legally sworn into office. FYI ~ Required for each re-election run also.
Over the cliff NOTES:
The only people opposed to this are criminals or cowards afraid of being caught.
If nothing else, just like the mobs, just make bad behavior harder to be bad.
Personally I'm very private about my finances. There is nothing in there illegal or even eyebrow raising, but it would prevent me from ever considering running for office. We need to be concerned about the requirements of an office in proportion to the ability to do damage by that office. Dana Rohrbacher, who was long rumored to be a Russian agent was one member of Congress and had little power on his own. A state legislator or city counselor has even less ability to do damage. Someone who has fewer checks on their power, like the president, needs to be more thoroughly vetted.
What I would propose would be a law to back up the Emolument's Clause of the Constitution (nobody can nail Donny for it because Congress never passed any laws about it). It should read something along the lines that the president must structure their outside finances in some way that there can be no question of any financial conflicts of interest. If anything comes up in office, they are suspended from the presidency under the 25th amendment until there is an independent investigation into their finances and no probable cause for any conflicts found. If they are exonerated, they can return to office, if criminal activity is found, they must stand trial and can only return to office if found innocent.
The 25th amendment allows for Congress to pass any other criteria than the cabinet vote to remove the president. They should create a fitness committee that can be formed by either a court order, or by a Congressional committee. The fitness committee members can be ex-presidents, retired supreme court justices, and former AGs or Secretaries of State. Nobody on the committee can currently hold a government position. The committee has the power to require physical or psychological examinations with doctors of their choice with the option of publicly publishing the results. Examinations for serious mental illness that may impair the ability to conduct the office of president appropriately can ordered. They can also hire other examiners to examine other areas of the president if there are questions. With a 2/3 vote of the committee, the 25th amendment is invoked. The president is not allowed to return to office until any criminal investigations or trials are done and if removed for medical or psychological reasons, they cannot return to office until the same doctors who examined them clear it.
As for constitutional amendments, it may require a constitutional amendment to clarify that the president is not above the law and can be indicted in office. Anyone indicted of a felony in office, regardless of the position, is immediately suspended. If they are convicted, they are automatically removed. If charges are dropped or they are found innocent, they can return to office. This applies to all positions, including the courts.
Another would be to change the requirements to be president. To become president, a person must have a record of public service. I would propose something along these lines.
1) 4 years total public service at a certain level or higher. It can consist of a mix of things.
2) Qualifying service:
a) Hold elected office in a potion with a responsibility for at least as many people as the smallest congressional district in the country. Anyone holding an office more important than a mid-sized city mayor.
b) Holding flag rank in one of the US military services.
c) Holding a federal cabinet position vetted and approved by the Senate.
Another criteria should also be that someone holding the presidency must be able to pass and maintain the highest level of security clearance.
If we had the office requirement in 2016 Trump would have gotten nowhere because he would have made a dog's breakfast of any office he had held and he wouldn't have been the enigma he was. His mess of a presidency is making his re-election unlikely at this point (though the Democrats can't let up, they need a 1980 type win to bury this BS for good).
Constitutional amendments need to be written to be timeless. We have tax returns today and we might always have them, but they didn't exist for a long part of this country's history and maybe they won't exist again someday. We can't predict what will happen in the future. So specifying tax returns in any amendment is probably a non-starter, but I do think that requiring some form of financial transparency to hold high office is not a bad idea.
