Monday, November 28, 2016

Invoking The 25th

Following up on the post below, Trump took to Twitter to put forward the much-debunked theory that he would have won the popular vote, too, if it wasn’t for those meddling illegal voters.

President-elect Donald J. Trump said on Sunday that he had fallen short in the popular vote in the general election only because millions of people had voted illegally, leveling the baseless claim as part of a daylong storm of Twitter posts voicing anger about a three-state recount push.

“In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally,” Mr. Trump wrote Sunday afternoon.

The series of posts came one day after Hillary Clinton’s campaign said it would participate in a recount effort being undertaken in Wisconsin, and potentially in similar pushes in Michigan and Pennsylvania, by Jill Stein, who was the Green Party candidate. Mr. Trump’s statements revived claims he made during the campaign, as polls suggested he was losing to Mrs. Clinton, about a rigged and corrupt system.

I have a serious question for anyone out there who is a lawyer familiar with the Constitution; specifically with the 25th Amendment.  That’s the one that provides for an orderly transfer of power if the president is unable to fulfill his duties due to death, resignation, or disability.  Section 4 of the amendment provides for the Vice President and the cabinet to determine that the president is incapable of doing his job.

Is there a provision in the 25th Amendment for what to do if the president is incapacitated due to mental disease or defect?  Who makes the determination?  What’s the breaking point?  Then what?

One bark on “Invoking The 25th

  1. Wikipedia has a useful article on the 25th and some historical precedents such as the stroke suffered by President Wilson and his wife’s hiding his condition. The process is somewhat complicated and assumes that the officers involved are of good character and do their jobs. Lots of luck in our present nightmare! It’s bad television plots from here on in I’m afraid.

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