UPDATE, 6:23 p.m. Eastern: To offer a different interpretation, reader WKRP took the view that McQuade was not suggesting that President Trump be stripped of his citizenship, but that he be removed from office if he obtained the presidency via fraud. If indeed that's what McQuade meant, she found a roundabout means of saying so. But this writer acknowledges this as a plausible alternative interpretation of her remark.
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It's a commonplace for President Trump's antagonists to suggest that he be impeached, or prosecuted for crimes. So if a Trump hater wants to make headlines, she's going to have to come up with an ingenious new way in which the president can be punished.
Let us, accordingly, give Barbara McQuade credit. She's dreamed up a diabolical new device to make the President a pariah: strip him of his U.S. citizenship!
Appearing on Joy Reid's AM Joy on MSNBC this morning, McQuade, a former U.S. attorney appointed by Obama, said:
"When immigrants procure their citizenship by fraud, we strip them of their citizenship. When a President procures his presidency by fraud, should we consider doing the same?"
Jonathan Capehart, guest-hosting for Reid, concurred: "that's a very, very good point, Barbara."
McQuade was apparently referring to the fact that prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have asserted that President Trump was behind the payoffs Michael Cohen made to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.
Question: What will the next Trump hater come up with to top McQuade's suggestion that President Trump be stripped of his citizenship? Tar-and-feathering? Riding out of town on a rail? Keel-hauling? I'm assuming drawing-and-quartering is off the table—at least for now.
Partial transcript below:
MCQUADE: This is a very significant matter. This isn't just a regulatory offense, when you're talking about campaign-finance violations. It could be that President Trump procured the presidency by fraud. If you look at that filing by the Southern District of New York, they talk about the seriousness of this offense. Democracy is all about giving full information to voters so they can cast a ballot for the candidate of their choice. And by lying and covering up about his past on the eve of the election and violating the laws designed to create transparency, they say that President Trump clouded the process for the American voters.
When immigrants procure their citizenship by fraud, we strip them of their citizenship. When a president procures his presidency by fraud, should we consider doing the same?
CAPEHART: That's a very, very good point, Barbara.
