What part of the U.S. code requires Donald Trump to vacate the White House if he loses in November? President Trump has made some... remarkable and entertaining... remarks about his willingness to leave the White House if he should loose the POTUS election in November. This got me thinking. I'm not a lawyer or a politician, but I have been trained all my life to simply &quot;know&quot; that the White House is where the POTUS lives. Period. The idea that somebody might not leave it is... well... it's unique. Is there a portion of the U.S. code requires a past-president to vacate the White House? I suspect it's technically owned by the United States Government and, as landlord, said government has the right to evict whomever it wants ... but even the image of The Donald hanging on by his fingernails while sunglass-laden G-men holding, not a warrant, not a subpoena, but an eviction notice drag him out. It would make a good play. But I digress. Is there a law that states the building must be vacated? (As a bonus question, is it possible to invoke squatter's rights for the White House?) Please note that my question is, I believe, a duplicate of this question, except that the answers don't address the legality that the question implies. If I need to abandon this question for that one, I'm happy to, but I don't have enough rep to bounty that question and point out that no answer describes any law enforcing anything.
18 USC 1752: (a) Whoever— (1) knowingly enters or remains in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority to do so; [...] shall be punished as provided in subsection (b). (b) The punishment for a violation of subsection (a) is— (1) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than 10 years, or both, if— (A) the person, during and in relation to the offense, uses or carries a deadly or dangerous weapon or firearm; or (B) the offense results in significant bodily injury as defined by section 2118(e)(3); and (2) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than one year, or both, in any other case. (c) In this section— (1) the term “restricted buildings or grounds” means any posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted area— (A) of the White House or its grounds, or the Vice President’s official residence or its grounds; [...] An ex-president does not have &quot;lawful authority&quot; to occupy the building. They may be not only removed, but also arrested and criminally prosecuted. &quot;Squatter's rights&quot; or other eviction protections would come from the District of Columbia's local laws, over which federal law takes precedence. So they would not apply here.
Embezzlement is criminally prohibited by 18 USC 666, and this DoJ manual page on what is embezzlement cites the answer in Moore v. United States, 160 U.S. 268 that Embezzlement is the fraudulent appropriation of property by a person to whom such property has been entrusted, or into whose hands it has lawfully come. It differs from larceny in that the original taking was lawful, or with the consent of the owner, while in larceny the felonious intent must have existed at the time of the taking Following other case law, the elements of the crime are there was a trust or fiduciary relationship between the defendant and the private organization or State or local government agency; the property came into the possession or care of the defendant by virtue of his/her employment; the defendant's dealings with the property constituted a fraudulent conversion or appropriation of it to his/her own use; and the defendant acted with the intent to deprive the owner of the use of this property. This page lists over 32,000 disbursements; filtering just for rent give over 2,400 disbursements, a number of which are recent and made to some business with Trump in the name (Trump Tower LLC etc). The conversion would have to be fraudulent to be embezzlement. There actually is not any evidence provided that a transfer violated FEC regulations (we have dates, amounts, and recipient), so we would have to speculate about what else is true. There are processed disbursement images up to 10/21/2020 such as this receipt for 3 charges for food and lodging paid to Trump Hotel Collection. In fact this payment was made by Donald J Trump for President, Inc. although the search term was the aforementioned PAC: I will overlook that anomaly. This is the FEC page on that committee (you have to follow the committee number because the name was also used in the 2016 campaign but was terminated). There vast numbers of filings linked there, but nothing that I saw indicates that Trump is in any sense an employee of the organization, so there is no actual evidence that there were any &quot;Trump actions&quot;. First, it would have to be shown that there were Trump actions. Second, it would have to be show that the action was fraudulent. Technical misappropriation is not fraudulent. This FEC page describes the safe harbor provisions for misappropriation. This page specifically addresses embezzlement. Although they use the word &quot;embezzlement&quot;, they do not purport that misappropriation constituted embezzlement as defined above, to point out that civil penalties may result from violation, see 11 CFR Part 104. Ultimately, the legal propriety of the disbursements depends on its purpose: here is what the FEC say about illegal conversion for personal use (food for daily consumption, mortgage or rent for personal residence, tuition...). The available evidence does not even suggest embezzlement.
The president is not permitted to blackmail the Supreme Court, but what you've described isn't blackmail. Blackmail is a threat to expose someone's crimes. You're probably thinking of something more like extortion, which is outlawed under 18 U.S. Code § 875: Whoever, with intent to extort from any person, firm, association, or corporation, any money or other thing of value, transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to injure the property or reputation of the addressee or of another or the reputation of a deceased person or any threat to accuse the addressee or any other person of a crime, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both. There are three problems with your theory I see right away: With the facts: As you noted, the President's statements were &quot;seemingly unrelated,&quot; which is essentially an admission that there's no indication one has anything to do with the other. Under those circumstances, you can't establish that he's making any kind of threat. With the statute: &quot;Extortion&quot; is generally understood to refer not merely to a threat to do something unpleasant. Instead, extortion is inducing another person to turn over property by the wrongful use of force, violence, or fear. There's no property at play here, and it's not unlawful to study changes to the court (nor would it be unlawful to actually make changes to the Court, which the president doesn't even have power to do anyway). With the First Amendment: The President has a First Amendment right to advocate for changes to gun laws, and for changes to the composition of the Supreme Court. That right does not evaporate when it is informed by the court's conduct. So the Biden situation is not really a good fit with the hypothetical you've described, which presents a much stronger factual basis from which to find a threat. Because it also appears you're using wrongfully inducing fear of economic injury to obtain another person's property, and because you have no right to do so, you would be liable for extortion, while the President would not. EDIT: Although the top-line questions has been reframed, I'll just note that the answer remains basically the same. Bearing in mind that the president has no power to force any Supreme Court justice into retirement, one might rephrase the question this way: &quot;If the Court rules that a constitutional amendment has Meaning X, can the president threaten to support a constitutional amendment?&quot; The answer should be obvious: The president is free to support policies to change the constitution, at any time, for any reason.
If the Senate took the extreme measure of attempting to abolish the Supreme Court, there's nothing in the Constitution that requires them to confirm any of the President's nominees. However, attempting to dismantle one of the three branches would be nothing short of a coup d'etat. The president has some options here: He [the President] may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses [of Congress], or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper. -- Article 2, Sec. 3 Basically, this means that, in an extraordinary circumstance (total defiance of the entire Senate would easily qualify), the President can lock the Senate in their chamber until they straighten their heads out. And when I say "lock them in", I don't mean that figuratively. The Constitution requires that a majority of each house be present to constitute a quorum to do business. The President could order up to 51 Senators to convene, and if they refused, could order the FBI or whoever to physically arrest them and drag them to the capitol building. This was actually done in Wisconsin by Gov. Scott Walker in 2011 when 14 Democrat Senators fled the state to avoid the quorum needed to vote on a controversial bill that they couldn't block. It would be messy for sure, and as far as I know, has never been done with the U.S. Senate. But there is precedent for it. Additionally, the President could use his vacancy power and just appoint a justice. Legally, he would have to wait for the Senate to be in recess, and the Senate would likely arrange things so that never happens. However, if there were no justices left, he could just appoint a Chief Justice (the Constitution provides that there be at least one justice). Even if he did this in the most "in-your-face" illegal way, with both middle fingers extended, the only judge that can tell him he did wrong is the guy he just seated. Of course, the Senate would move to impeach that judge, and probably the President too for having appointed him illegally, but you need a supermajority of both houses to remove them from office. If you had such a supermajority, then the game is over at this point; there's no way the President would step down in such a situation (who would force him?) and we're in a civil war because we don't have a functional government anymore. In reality, this isn't an "interesting twist in constitutional law that the Founding Fathers may not have considered." It's that if Congress ever went totally off the rails like that, the President, or the people would have to step up and hope they could end the standoff peacefully without resorting to violence, because this is the kind of thing that revolutions are fought over.
There appears to be no general federal statute addressing the legality of a male entering a female-labeled bathroom, or vice versa, within federal jurisdiction. There are various regulations that touch on bathrooms, for example the OSHA regulations pertaining to sanitation require that "toilet facilities, in toilet rooms separate for each sex, shall be provided in all places of employment in accordance with table J-1 of this section", but "Where toilet facilities will not be used by women, urinals may be provided instead of water closets". These are regulations imposed on employers, and there is no provision for enforcement by employers, for instance no clause saying that the employer must call the police, or in any way intervene or sanction an employee, if a person enters a bathroom of "the wrong sex". It is apparently not a crime, as reflected anywhere in the US Code, for a male to enter or remain in a female bathroom, or vice versa. Building managers have some discretion regarding the operation of federal facilities, for example courthouses, which could extend to requesting a male to not enter a female bathroom or vice versa, but there isn't a practical way to determine what departmental regulations exist that would allow eviction of a bathroom-cross-user. Federal law does not protect against sex/gender discrimination in public accommodations. As for Maryland law, the owner of private property has the right to control his property up to the point that state law take that control from him, and therefore in principle he could call the police to remove a person trespassing in a bathroom (this article addresses the trespass angle in North Carolina). Maryland does not appear to have any case law or statutory exception to trespass laws related to labeling of bathrooms, so enforcement actions would be at the discretion of the owner. At the lower end of the political hierarchy, Baltimore has an ordinance requiring single-use bathrooms to be gender neutral, and a proposal exists to enact a state law with this effect. In other words, there does not appear to be any direct, enforceable legal requirement regarding bathroom entry and sex. Trespass laws could be used, but are at the discretion of the property owner (who might be civilly sued for his actions, but the police don't decide the merits of a discrimination suit before evicting a trespasser).
Yes, the President can certainly veto such a law. Per the US Constitution (emphasis added): Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it. This can have a very real effect: legislators are under no obligation to vote the same way on a veto override as on the original bill. The reason the President needs to supply written objections in the first place is that it lets legislators reconsider, see if they're swayed, or see if they think this is a matter where a Congressional majority needs to be respected even if they disagree (they can change their mind in either direction). They can also get a sense of public reaction. And because the threshold for this is "present and voting," it's possible that just more legislators show up. Even if legislators won't be swayed, it still matters for pocket vetoes. That's where the President neither signs the bill nor returns it within 10 days; normally this is equivalent to signing, but if Congress adjourns in the meantime, it means the bill does not become a law. Because "Congress adjourns" is a necessary part of a pocket veto, it's impossible to override the veto (you can't do it if you're not in session). And even when this doesn't apply either, it matters for politics. Example of a futile veto: Public Law 100-4. Passed 406-8 in the House, 93-6 in the Senate. Vetoed; veto was overridden 401-26 in the House and 86-14 in the Senate (note that at least 7 Senators who voted for the bill voted not to override the veto). Example of an effective veto: While technically there was a conference report agreed to by both houses, and it doesn't seem to have had a roll-call vote (my guess is it was agreed to by unanimous consent; side note: many, many laws don't have roll-calls to check on, because they're passed by voice vote or unanimous consent), H.R.10929 from the 95th Congress was passed in the House by a vote of 319-67 and in the Senate by 87-2. After President Carter vetoed it, the House voted on whether to override the veto. The motion to override was defeated 191-206: after the veto, they couldn't even get a simple majority to override the veto of the bill which had been passed by an overwhelming supermajority. I mentioned it above, but the two-thirds threshold is "present and voting." As a general rule, any time you see a fraction of something needed for a vote to succeed in a deliberative assembly, then unless it specifies some other denominator, it's talking about the fraction of members present and voting. Relevant CRS report on override procedure.
Owners can't be evicted from their own property. That's one of the fundamental rights of real estate ownership. You may have a contractual basis for a lawsuit that either leads to payment or provides for forfeiture of their share, but that relies on the details of your specific case and will require specific legal advice from your own lawyer.
Anti-discrimination laws in the U.S. have exceptions for someone who rents a room in a landlord's own residence, but generally speaking, for other purposes, there is not a distinction in U.S. or Florida law. People who stay at a place with the permission of the owner for a very brief period of time and not pursuant to a lease, such as someone who gains use of a particular seat in a movie theater pursuant to a purchased ticket, is, however, not a tenant with the full rights of a tenant, and is instead a licensee who does not have a property right to use that space, only a contract that can be terminated by the property owner or their agent at will, potentially with breach of contract damages if this is done without justification, but not with liability for violating a tenant's rights. In some cases, someone whose housing, at least part of the time, is for the convenience of the employer, like a medical resident who uses a sleeping room at a hospital, or a member of the crew of a ship who sleeps on the ship incident to their duties, may have reduced rights relative to housing when their employment is terminated for cause, although this is only sometimes clearly enunciated in statutes or case law and the law would not be terribly consistent in this area.