What If Trump Dies before Inauguration?

Soldiers and family members stand by the coffins of 25 of the 96 victims of the April, 2010 plane crash 

by Mary W Maxwell, PhD (Politics)

Think about the Smolensk crash. So there was the president of Poland and most of his top officials, and the First Lady, aboard a plane on April 10, 2010. He was going to attend the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre.

Katyn is the name of the forest where the Soviets killed thousands of Polish army officers in 1940. Those guys were likely to become Poland’s leaders, post-war, but they never made it. They were shot dead.

The anniversary trip, 6 years ago, was a repeat of the tragedy. The plane crashed. Surely it was sabotaged? I mention this sad event for two reasons. First, to remark that we are all used to leaders getting killed nowadays. It happens.

Second, to alert everyone to the fact that the situation has changed. On this go-round – I am referring to an assassination of Trump – we shall have our ducks lined up in advance as to whom we should punish.

(I’m talkin’ drawing, quartering, disemboweling, whatever, or maybe just starving them to death. Actually under the law of outlawry you are forbidden to feed the outlaw.)

I mean we need to have our anger ready in advance, in hopes that the potential assassins will get the message that we are not going to do our usual Ho-hum routine. Our ho-hum days are over, thank you.

No Need To Panic

If Trump dies, Americans wouldn’t need to get their knickers in a knot about “who will rule the nation.” A president never “rules the nation” anyway, even though it may look that way. His/her role is actually small, constitutionally.

Still, a president is symbolically important and his/her death could cause panic. But the devolution of power to the next-in-line is firm and should not cause worry.

Let’s spell out what would happen if Trump dies after January 20, Inauguration Day, 2017. I choose that date because — at the moment — Trump is not the “president elect.” He hasn’t been elected by the electors — they will cast their ballots on December 19, 2016.

For this article I make the assumption that Trump will be elected and inaugurated. (If he died between now and December 19, the electors would find someone else to vote for. Whom? Almost anybody; please see my article here and here.

What the US Constitution Says about Succession

Originally, in 1787, the Constitution said that if the office of president went vacant, the job would devolve onto the vice president. It also said that if that new president subsequently vacated the office, Congress could decide what other officer of the government could step up to the job. (I quote: “declaring what Officer shall then act as President.”)

Congress acted on this grant of power by passing a law in 1792 to designate the president pro tem of the Senate as the lucky chap (if it ever became necessary) and the Speaker of the House as second choice.

In 1886 Congress again passed a law, changing the order to: the Cabinet members in the order in which the position was historically established — Secretary of State first. The two Congressional leaders’ place in the pecking order disappeared.

Again in 1947, Congress passed a Succession Act, this time restoring the two Congress positions but in reverse order – Speaker of the House first. (That is, when both prexy and vice prexy were not available.)

Harry Truman had just become president in 1945 and he had no vice president under him. Was it his right to appoint one? Possibly, but he chose not to. The problem awaited a constitutional amendment to put it to rest.

In 1963 Lyndon Johnson stepped into the White House following Kennedy’s assassination. He remained VP-less until the next election when Hubert Humphrey was elected vice president. That was in 1964.

The 25th Amendment to the US Constitution

In 1967 LBJ gave support to a 25th Amendment to the US Constitution. More than the required 38 states passed it. It said that a president with no VP could personally appoint one (!), and that the VP would assume the presidency if that office became vacant.

Nixon was elected president in 1968 with Spiro Agnew as his widely disliked VP. Soon Agnew was forced to resign, supposedly for financial sins committed while he was governor of Maryland. But Agnew’s book “Go Quietly, or Else” reveals that he was forced out by threat of death.

That left Nixon in office with the chance to appoint a VP. He appointed Gerald Ford who had long been in Congress as the representative from Michigan. Then Nixon was forced out of the presidency and Ford became an unelected president.

Moreover, Ford, the unelected president, could then appoint an unelected VP. The fact that he chose Nelson Rockefeller suggests that the “entire deal” was planned by Rockefeller.

That includes: LBJ’s declining to run for re-election in 1968, Nixon’s win that year, Agnew’s ouster, the appointment of Ford as VP, and then Nixon’s ouster.

Calling It the Rockefeller Amendment

The 25th amendment is known as “the Rockefeller amendment.” For Nelson to have actually stepped up from the vice-presidency to the presidency, someone would have had to kill Ford. Do you recall that, in 1975, Squeaky Frome shot at him but failed?

It’s a wonder the well-resourced Nelson (older brother of David) did not manage to force Ford out in some way other than death.

Certainly Ford was about as black-mailable as you can get. He, along with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, are reported by survivors of mind control and ritual abuse, to have run a major sex-abuse business on the island that separates Canada and the US, namely Mackinaw Island.

Back To Trump

It is hard to know if Donald Trump is controlled by extremely powerful people. By powerful here I mean the power to hire hit men, and especially the power to make up stories in the media that guide the thinking (or should I say the non-thinking) of the public.

If he gets inaugurated on January 20 – and I hope he does – we have two ways to protect him from that point on – and even from today on.

As I said regarding the Katyn-related plane crash in Smolensk Poland in 2010, it is very sad for a nation to feel helpless after the deed is done. So it is imperative that we get the word around that these powerful forces are in the habit of getting rid of anyone who frustrates their amazing criminal activities.

If Trump gets shot or drowned (or both, à la Dr Jeff Bradstreet!) we should be prepared to refuse to accept any FBI interpretation of that event as other than an assassination. OK?

The other way we can protect Trump is to not let him stand alone with his high-minded plans and promises, but get right in there and start to do those sorts of thing now. Increase his power base.

This would also make it less compelling for “them” to kill him, as he would leave a whole raft of “sons” to inherit his tasks.

Helping Your Democrat Friends

It appears that many people are not happy at the November 8 election results and are trying to find non-lethal ways to throw Trump’s victory overboard. I must admit that if Hillary had won on November 8, I would be wracking my brains for ways to stop her.

If Trump Dies Between January 6 and January 20?

As we saw, the Constitution provides that the “election” is the day the Electors’ ballots are opened – it will be January 6. The date of the Inauguration is always January 20, indeed the Constitution fixes it at noon on that date.

Should the president elect die while he or she is president elect, we must look to Constitutional amendment XX which was ratified in 1933. It says, simply enough, “If at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice president Elect shall become President.”

The man who is being called Vice-President Elect is Michael Pence, governor of the mid-country state of Indiana. I know nothing about him, but was pleased to read that  the Washington Post –“WaPo” – calls Pence an anti-science person.

Where did WaPo get that idea? It says that both Vice-President Elect Pence and Trump have a “great track record” of anti-science statements. For example:

“Often, they have repeated dangerous misconceptions about science, such as the nonexistent link between vaccines and autism.”  —  Washington Post, November 10, 2016.

Love it.

— Mary Maxwell lives in Adelaide. She is author of “A Balm in Gilead: Curing Autism and Awakening the Physicians” — freely downloadable at maryWmaxwell.com

photo credit - cnn.com