Can trump be sued, etc.

[matt819]

Trump has told vendors not to fill orders from Michigan. He’s told New York they don’t need as many ventilators as they say they do. To say nothing of the fact that he did nothing for two months while the virus raged.

I know we all fantasize here about trump going to jail. And I hope that the next Democratic president, hopefully in January of next year, will explore those options.

I have to admit that I really hate these kind of speculative questions, but I am falling into the trap, so here goes. Given many of trumps actions over the past few weeks regarding the virus, is it possible that he could be held personally liable for actions that have resulted in death, where it might be shown that those deaths would not have occurred had he taken a different a different course of action.

I know many others have commented on the previous, but I hope someone, somewhere, is keeping a very, very long list of actions that must be investigated by the next administration.

[rurallib]

1. I sure hope so! Stephanie Miller brought up the idea of a Congressional Crime Committee

to study the criminal actions during this period.

[Aquaria]

2. He can't be sued

But those with standing in a state could sue the federal government for a Due Process Clause violation if they are denied federal resources that other states would get, within reason.

The Due Process clause of the Fifth Amendment forbids the federal government from denying federal resources to any citizen that could deprive them of life, liberty or property without a reasonable cause.

So if both Illinois and Iowa suffered disastrous floods from the Mississippi River, the federal government couldn’t withhold FEMA assistance from Illinois but grant it to Iowa, simply for how the state voted in 2016. They could deny the assistance to Arkansas, though, because it may be on the same river, but wasn’t flooded. That’s a reasonable cause to deny the assistance, but denying Illinois over their vote isn’t.