Ask Etty Kett

Advice for the Day One dictator

Dear Etty,

I know a bunch of people who would like to be ambassador to Uruguay, and as President of the United States I'm definitely entitled to give one of them the job. But I can't give it to all of them. So I had this brilliant idea that I could auction it off to the highest bidder, like give me a billion dollars and I'll name you ambassador to Uruguay?

Only my lawyers think I might get into trouble for that, and to be honest I've had some bad experiences with stuff like this recently. Like I had this charitable foundation where I used to get people to make me payments so I wouldn't have to pay income taxes on them, because I'm smart that way, and this stupid state attorney general, a colored lady by the way, this is what affirmative action gets you, said I was violating the law on charities and closed the whole foundation down and made me pay a big fine. And then this actress I banged years ago wrote a whole story about having sex with me and could have published it in the middle of my presidential campaign and I had my other lawyer pay her a hundred thirty large to keep it to herself and then when I was paying him back I kind of structured the payments to make them look like normal legal fees and now I'm stuck with a 34-count criminal conviction from yet another colored prosecutor for falsification of business records for which I can't even pardon myself since it's not in a federal court.

So I thought it would be best if I just took the money straight, like a billion-dollar check, and deposit it, not in the superPAC or whatever, but right in my own account. Will that work?

Blessed in Bedminster

Dear Blessed,

You're in luck, thanks to the Supreme Court's finding in Trump v. United States! Naming ambassadors is a core constitutional power of the presidency, so you have absolute immunity for exercising it however you feel like, and there's no reason why you shouldn't accept a gratuity for doing it, as found in Snyder v. United States, as long as you don't take the money until after you name them to the post (if you take the money first, that could qualify as taking a bribe, which would be a definite no-no). 

It's true that you don't officially have power to pardon anybody in a state court, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Who's going to stop you? It's like taking foreign emoluments or declassifying documents—it might not be legal, but there's nobody with power to enforce it. Bragg's not going to walk into the East Wing and book you. Just stay out of New York. Enjoy!

***

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Dear Etty,

Back in the day, I used to joke about how I could shoot some guy dead in the street outside Trump Tower and it wouldn't bother my voters at all, but now I'm in the White House again there are some people I really need to kill, like these FBI guys who were literally spying on me and my capos like they thought they were some kind of intelligence agency, or the Republican congresslady on that committee, or that guy who was president in the last administration. Not that I'd actually take out my piece and mow them down, I understand that wouldn't be an official act in the sense of Trump v. United States. But since I'm commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy, why can't I just put them on trial for treason, with televised military tribunals, and have them all executed? They've tried to do this to me, I think, or something like it.

Fretful

Dear Fret,

You have such great showbiz instincts! Too bad you can't be president of Russia. 

Here in the good old US of A your plan seems unfortunately iffy. You and your intended defendants are all civilians, so none of you have any role to play in courts-martial, which is what a military tribunal is, even though you and the secretary of defense get to make the general rules. And even if you could arrange something, it would take judges, and you know how problematic judges are.

I think your best option is to go back to the original idea and order a SEAL team to rub them out. That would absolutely be an official act, so you'd at least have a presumption of immunity according to the Trump decision, and that seems pretty safe in the current situation. It does have its downside, in that the SEALs probably won't do what they're told, since it would be an unlawful order, and they're not allowed to obey those, but maybe they'd do it anyway, and you'd be free and clear either way.

***

Dear Etty,

I don't know if you've been following the news, but it seems my capos have given me this thing called a Schedule F that lets me fire all the career civil servants, tens of thousands of them, and replace them with my own people. No tests, no qualifications, I can just make them take a loyalty oath and put them on the payroll like Scavino and Epshteyn, everywhere from the EPA to the FDA to the Justice Department. Is that cool or what!

I don't even have to worry about who to hire, the boys are taking care of that for me, but I've been thinking I ought to be able to generate some profit out of it, like they should be giving me some of those GRATUITIES ;-) in return for giving them the gig. Hiring them is an official act, right? My question is, how much should I charge?

Dreaming Big

Dear Dream,

That's sure making America great again! Like the 1830s! Don't be shy—they'll be making plenty off gratuities from the people they're supposed to be regulating, for giving them permission to pollute the streams and take shortcuts in the airplane factories and adulterate the baby food and the like, so they'll absolutely owe you.

President Andrew Jackson riding the pig of fraud and corruption.