Thread by @tomiahonen

Should a criminal run for office?

Let's do a short thread

In next few years we find Trump had:

Cheated systematically on his taxes (Weisselberg)
Extorted (blackmailed) Qatar (Tom Barrack)
Sent Giuliani to extort Ukraine
Sold presidential pardons (Roger Stone)
And of course...

And we find Trump decided he will not accept election result, so he organized a terrorist attack on DC, his insurrection, in his coup d'etat attempt to subvert democracy, and be appointed King instead.

That is 'par for the course' if you vote for a CAREER CRIMINAL as President

Would we want a law that forbids criminals from running for office?

No, not really. And if such laws were made they might well fall at SCOTUS for good reason

What we want, is POLITICAL PARTIES to prevent criminals from USING THEIR VOTERS for criminal purposes

That is LEGAL WAY

So AFTER Trump is convicted. It would make sense for Political Parties (DEMs and GOP) to adopt candidate requirements:

Must release 12 years of all tax returns, federal, state and local

Not by themselves, but request official public release from tax authority documents.

Also must request public release of official high school and college transcripts - by the institutions

And must request FBI release record of total criminal history incl parking tickets, whatnot. Everything

And all these must be released before attend first debate by that party

Then if candidate cancels on any scheduled debate, will lose all delegates, to be awarded proportionately to all others in race. And be excluded from the remainder of that year's nomination

Now. This would not ELIMINATE criminals, but would help make next Trump FAR LESS likely

PS

So the smart thing politically, is after Trump is in prison and GOP is starting to come to its senses, is to pass the laws that create public disclosure of IRS & tax & FBI documents (in 30 days) according to procedure DIRECT TO PUBLIC, not to candidate or that campaign :-)

PSPS

So process is: Must be registered political candidate for National office (President, VP, Senator, Congress)

Must personally request IRS, FBI etc to release

ONLY in that case, release is in 30 days

BUT release MUST BE TO PUBLIC, not to candidate or his campaign first

So obviously nobody else can request such personal information. Like the party cannot demand this info

But when requested, the government authority must release all such info to public, not to the candidate. This is how openness will be served

Is the candidate's choice if wants