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Comment by Panzer04 | Hacker News Reader

If the president doesn't step down when ordered to do so lawfully, its up to the individual participants in government to obey the law and not the president. It's not that complicated.

That the American government has reached a position where it's somehow questionable whether the government and its departments should answer to congress or the president is ridiculous.

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Army already proven they will commit war crime with little to no pushback.

DOJ already proven they will facilitate murder and prosecute the victim.

People around president are basically worst then himself, just less insane and more coherent.

The individual participants in government demonstrate every day that they do nothing in response to Trump's literally daily illegal actions. When Trump tells SCOTUS to 'get lost' or when he cancels elections or when he declares martial law in response to some made up provocation; or when he refuses to leave office;

When any or all of these things occur, and the heads of the FBI, and ICE ( his personal police force ), and the DOJ and the military all put up a united front in support of him - what are the names of the people you are referring to who will have the physical ability to take any action against Trump?

edit: typo 'canceks'

The FBI, ICE, and the DOJ simply have no authority to decide who the President is. If an FBI agent calls up their local IRS office and asks them to redirect tax revenues to a Trump-controlled account, they're going to say no.

A military coup is always possible, but I see no reason to believe that Trump has done any of the consolidation that would be required to make that work. Military coups generally install a member of the military as the new leader.

If trump is no longer president and the military chooses to follow his orders anyway, we have a rouge military. The military that follows orders from the chain of command fights the rouge, and it at worst escalates to civil war.

That's pretty much why military is so rank and file and is trained to remain non-partisan in uniform. That scenario above is how we devolve the entire structure into fighting amongst one another. The military is under command of the Commander-in-Chief, not who they think is CiC.

There is more than one path to the crisis. The more likely one is when Trump tells SCOTUS he is not bound by their decisions. And when the Senate fails to convict upon the ensuing impeachment, where is democracy?

Edit: Tge == The

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