Could Hillary Clinton Still Become President?

Newsweek raised more than a few eyebrows last week with a story that claimed that all is not lost for those still dreaming of a Hillary Clinton presidency.

The article referenced an essay by leftist Harvard University professor Lawrence Lessig arguing that proof of Russian meddling would effectively lead to the nullification of the election, thereby removing President Trump and Vice President Pence from office.

It was a silly liberal fantasy, but after first citing Lessig last October, Newsweek did it again as the Mueller witch hunt continues to drag on.

Hillary Clinton could still become president if Russia probe finds conspiracy evidence https://t.co/0kMrSXsaNB pic.twitter.com/j6P256oI0J

— Newsweek (@Newsweek) January 18, 2018

The following is excerpted from “Hillary Clinton Could Still Become President if Russia Probe Finds Conspiracy Evidence”:

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Lawrence Lessig, the Roy L. Furman professor of law and leadership at Harvard Law School, penned an essay for Medium in October outlining a series of hypothetical scenarios that could take place should the ongoing probe find that the Trump campaign actually conspired with Russia to influence the results of the election.

If Trump did conspire with Russia, the president “should resign, or, if he doesn’t, he should be impeached,” Lessig wrote in his essay. Vice President Mike Pence would also have to either resign or get impeached, which would make House Speaker Paul Ryan the president of the United States, Lessig wrote at the time.

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Given that there is “no mechanism in American law for a new election,” nor “a mechanism for correcting the criminal results of the previous election,” Ryan ought to nominate “the person defeated by the treason of his own party, and then step aside, and let her become President,” Lessig went on to say.

On Wednesday, Lessig told Newsweek this scenario was still a possibility.

“This is one way it could happen,” Lessig said. “But that’s very different from saying I think it will happen, or should happen, or [that] the evidence is there for it to happen.”

But could it really happen?

Not according to the Daily Caller, which extinguishes any lingering hopes from the Clinton cult that she will magically assume the White House throne that Putin and Trump stole from her.

Fact check: Could Hillary Clinton still become president? https://t.co/6KsHSicQ8h pic.twitter.com/ezShq2XJbv

— Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) January 21, 2018

Via the Daily Caller, “FACT CHECK: Could Hillary Clinton Still Become President?”:

Newsweek claimed Thursday that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could still become president.

Verdict: False

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Newsweek promoted a hypothetical scenario written by a law professor, but the professor himself considers aspects of the scenario “unimaginable,” as do other legal experts.

Fact Check:

Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig wrote a blog post in October describing a scenario in which Clinton could still become president.

If Russian collusion charges prove true, here’s the complicated chain of events that would have to unfold, according to Lessig:

President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence step down or get impeached. House Speaker Paul Ryan – being third in the line of succession – becomes president, appoints Clinton as his vice president and then immediately resigns.

Clinton becomes president.

Lessig says if the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, the Republican leaders ought to pave the way for Clinton. “He should nominate the person defeated by the treason of his own party, and then step aside,” Lessig writes about Ryan […]

What the article doesn’t say is that Lessig himself considers it a remote possibility. The idea that Ryan would step down is “unimaginable in Washington today” and entirely unprecedented, he writes in his blog post.

Lessig says it’s not really a constitutional matter, but rather a political scenario in which the Republican Party decides to cede power. “We’ve passed the moment when this crime could have been constitutionally corrected,” he writes.

“It’s not a legal case,” Seth Barrett Tillman, an American lecturer at the Maynooth University Department of Law in Ireland, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “He’s making a quasi-moral legal case.”

Legal experts, including Lessig, agree that Republicans would be unlikely to step down. “There’s no plausible scenario in which any Republican leader enables that outcome,” James Copland, director of legal policy for the right-leaning Manhattan Institute, told TheDCNF.

So there you have it, Hillary dead-enders: the toad is just not going to become a princess, no matter how hard that you wish that Mueller was Prince Charming.