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Yes, it is going to be interesting and potentially disastrous if the Supreme Court undermines the security of the country in order to push a political agenda that would undermine the rule of law. If so, what the scripter of the majority decision says better be the most deceptive genius to date. This one man has shown how to bring the strongest country to its demise with just manipulation of the very institutions designed to stop a man like him.
I like to think that the independence afforded SC justices by virtue of lifetime appointments does lead generally to decisions independent of partisan considerations; and further that most attempt to interpret laws according to the legal and judicial procedures and precedents pursuant to their training and experience. (Of course there are exceptions.) So I would be optimistic that law and precedent will prevail if / when this matter comes before the highest court.
They wouldn't be taking that state legislature case if they weren't going to take a wrecking ball to the overall electoral system we've had since 1887 (passage of the 17th Amendment). Anyone else notice they don't recognize amendments beyond the Bill of Rights, and only care about them as long as they can distort them in their radical political direction?
"They wouldn't be taking that state legislature case if they weren't going to take a wrecking ball to the overall electoral system"
That's what I'm afraid of also. If they do, how will we ever unwind this sabotage?
Expanding the court looks like the only way, filling the new seats with sane jurists, and negating these absurd decisions. But will there even be a chance to do that after they get through tearing down the old system and rigging it in their direction, a la Hungary*?
* The U.S. radical right's hero is Viktor Orban of Hungary, even going so far as to hold their big annual conference in Hungary this year, to learn about the autocrat they admire so much. Orban & Co. have transformed Hungary into a one-party state by changing election laws and the constitution, packing the courts, emasculating government departments that might oppose them, and controlling the press. Sound familiar?
Krugman readers may recall a few years ago, when the takeover in Hungary was happening, he posted several guest pieces about how the transformation from democracy to autocracy there was happening.
"Expanding the court looks like the only way, filling the new seats with sane jurists"
Yes, but that would require a Democratic president and a pretty strong Democratic majority in the House and Senate. If the Republicans are successful in their current attempt to eviscerate our traditional democratic election process we will never again even have a Democratic administration.
"Expanding the court looks like the only way, filling the new seats with sane jurists"
Yes, but that would require a Democratic president and a pretty strong Democratic majority in the House and Senate. If the Republicans are successful in their current attempt to eviscerate our traditional democratic election process we will never again even have a Democratic administration.
yes, and we're just never going to see that again, i'm afraid. the whole 60-vote cloture thing, all by itself is major sabotage.
"Expanding the court looks like the only way, filling the new seats with sane jurists"
Yes, but that would require a Democratic president and a pretty strong Democratic majority in the House and Senate. If the Republicans are successful in their current attempt to eviscerate our traditional democratic election process we will never again even have a Democratic administration.
Which is exactly what I meant by the second sentence and the reference to CPAC and Hungary as evidence that's their playbook.
The long, slow demise is underway. It began back in the '70s with uncle Ralph Reed and that bunch. It continued apace with Gingrich The Newt as Speaker, and uncle Billy Clinton making a Right turn, playing ball with the Republicans-turned-Repugnants. And don't forget Ronny Ray-guns. "There you go again, Mommy..." Repugnants see him as a savior. What an insipid, disingenuous P.O.S. Himself and Ollie North and the others. Oh, and don't fail to bow toward NRA HQ. The Trumpster is a culmination of a Movement toward Ignorance--- deliberate ignorance, WILLFUL ignorance, violent ignorance; winning at all costs; an unethical society; and a takeover by brainwashed dolts with no integrity. Abyssinia, anyone? Sudetenland? Soviet satellite states???? Any takers?????? Orban, indeed! Hear, hear!
Too many US voters are as dumb as frikkin' rocks. Don't even attempt to think through the issues. "Republicans are good for money. I like money. I will vote Republican." That's as far as it goes. People I KNOW actually talk to me just like that. I shit you not.
The US supreme court on Thursday rejected Donald Trump’s bid to let an independent arbiter vet more than 100 classified documents that were seized from his Florida home as he confronts a criminal investigation into his handling of sensitive government records.
The justices, in a brief order, denied Trump’s emergency request that he made on 4 October asking them to lift a federal appeals court’s decision that prevented the arbiter from reviewing more than 100 documents marked as classified that were among the roughly 11,000 records seized by FBI agents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach on 8 August.
There were no publicly noted dissents by any of the nine justices to the decision, which came two days after the justice department urged them to deny Trump’s request and keep the classified documents out of the hands of the arbiter, known as a special master.
Trump went to court on 22 August in a bid to restrict justice department access to the documents as it pursues a criminal investigation.
"The people familiar with the investigation said agents have gathered witness accounts indicating that, after Trump advisers received a subpoena in May for any classified documents that remained at Mar-a-Lago, Trump told people to move boxes to his residence at the property. That description of events was corroborated by the security-camera footage, which showed people moving the boxes, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation."
"Multiple witnesses have told the FBI they tried to talk Trump into cooperating with the National Archives and Records Administration and the Justice Department as those agencies for months sought the return of sensitive or historical government records, people familiar with the situation said."
"Trump grew angry this spring after a House Oversight Committee investigation was launched, telling aides they’d 'screwed up' the situation, according to people who heard his comments. 'They’re my documents,' Trump said, according to an aide who spoke to him."
Excerpts from "Letters from an American" newsletter dated Oct.12.
"Trump lawyer Christina Bobb, a former commentator on the right-wing One America News Network, signed a letter on June 3 certifying that Trump had returned all the records marked 'classified,' 'based upon the information that has been provided to me.' But the August 8 search of Mar-a-Lago turned up more than 100 more."
"Bobb has hired a criminal defense attorney and is cooperating with the Department of Justice. She told investigators that Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran had drafted the letter and told her to sign it; she insisted on the disclaimer. Now Corcoran, too, has an incentive to work with the Department of Justice and to tell the truth, rather than doubling down on a lie."
"No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as a right; not asked as a favor."
I seem to recall T bragging about his intelligence and offering as evidence that an uncle of his was a faculty member at MIT. That seems to be a typical "standard" by which some voters these days support absolute idiots. IOW, standards have disappeared.
The Justice Department asked an appeals court on Friday to end a special master review of thousands of documents that the F.B.I. seized from former President Donald J. Trump’s Florida estate, arguing that a federal judge had been wrong to intervene in its investigation into Mr. Trump’s hoarding of sensitive government records.
In a 53-page brief for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, the Justice Department broadly challenged the legal legitimacy of orders last month by Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who blocked investigators from using the materials and appointed an independent arbiter to sift them for any that are potentially privileged or Mr. Trump’s personal property.
In its new filing, the Justice Department asked the appeals court to reverse her order for the remaining 11,000 or so records.
“This court has already granted the government’s motion to stay that unprecedented order insofar as it relates to the documents bearing classification markings,” the filing said. “The court should now reverse the order in its entirety for multiple independent reasons.”
In its new filing, the Justice Department challenged her orders on multiple grounds.
First, it argued that she had no jurisdiction to intervene, pointing to the 11th Circuit panel’s own analysis when it removed documents with classified markings from the special master’s review.
The three judges — including two Trump appointees — had said none of the legal factors that would justify judicial intervention were met in this situation. In particular, they noted that Judge Cannon herself had said one condition — whether the F.B.I. had acted in “callous disregard” of Mr. Trump’s rights — had not been met in this instance, and cited a precedent saying that factor was “indispensable” for creating a basis for a judge to step in.
The full appeal may not be heard by the same judges who ruled on the earlier stay motion. But the Justice Department urged the judges on the new panel to follow their colleagues’ reasoning and overturn her orders on jurisdictional grounds alone.
The department also argued that even if she did have did have sufficient jurisdiction, Judge Cannon was wrong to block criminal investigators from reviewing or using any of the seized records.
The government repeated its earlier arguments that it needed access to the documents marked classified both “to assess the full scope of the risk to national security posed by the improper storage of these records,” and because they may be “evidence of obstruction of justice” in light of the Trump team’s false claim to have fully complied with the subpoena.
In this filing, it argued that investigators needed access to the unclassified documents as well. It said they could be evidence of another potential crime — unlawfully removing or concealing government documents — and could provide clues into the mishandling of the materials with classified markings because the various documents were intermixed.
In its filing, the Justice Department said Mr. Trump’s public claims that he had declassified the materials were both “unsubstantiated” and “irrelevant” to whether the materials were privileged or should be reviewed by a special master.
“Even if plaintiff were to offer direct claims, supported by evidence, that he declassified any of the seized records, any potential executive privilege claims would still fail,” it wrote, citing Supreme Court rulings against former President Richard M. Nixon in 1974 and 1977.
Donald Trump’s assertions of executive and attorney-client privilege over certain documents that the FBI seized from his Mar-a-Lago resort appeared to lack evidence sufficient for him to rule in the former US president’s favor, the special master reviewing the records suggested on Tuesday.
The special master, senior US district court judge Raymond Dearie, complained during a conference call in the case that the log of documents Trump is trying to withhold from the justice department did not give enough information about the validity of the privilege claims.
Dearie encouraged Trump’s lawyers to elaborate on why they believed the documents could be excluded from the justice department’s criminal investigation into the potential willful retention of national defense information, removal of government records and obstruction of justice.
“It’s a little perplexing as I go through the log,” Dearie said. “What’s the expression – ‘Where’s the beef?’ I need some beef.”
The discussion on the conference call was the latest development in the ongoing review that is examining whether any of the 11,000 documents without classified markings seized from Mar-a-Lago are legally privileged and cannot be used by prosecutors in the criminal investigation.
The conference call touched only on privilege disagreements concerning a small subset of the seized materials that remains, for now, in the special master’s purview. The justice department has since appealed the appointment of the special master in its entirety.
The dispute could foreshadow what could be a messy argument between Trump’s lawyers seeking to limit what documents can be used in the criminal inquiry, and the justice department, which is trying to keep as many records in play.
The Guardian has previously reported that Trump is seeking to withhold from federal prosecutors letters and signing sheets with the National Archives, among a number of documents that were scooped up by the FBI that appear germane to the criminal investigation.
On the call, Dearie specifically asked Trump’s lawyers to give him a better sense of how one document, for instance, could both be subject to executive privilege – a designation applying to presidential records – and simultaneously be a non-governmental, personal document.
“Unless I’m wrong, and I’ve been wrong before, there’s certainly an incongruity there,” Dearie said, appearing to cast doubt on the notion that a document could carry both characterizations.
The special master also asked Trump’s lawyers to provide more details on documents they asserted were protected by attorney-client privilege, as he suggested that some of the documents in question had been seen by a third party, which would make the communications no longer confidential.
Dearie also grew frustrated that the two sides were unable to resolve more disagreements among themselves, at one stage criticizing the government for not saying whether one of the documents, concerning the 2017 special counsel investigation, had been sent to the justice department.
Donald Trump signed a legal statement alleging voter fraud in the 2020 election despite being told the numbers underpinning the case were false, a federal judge said on Wednesday. The disclosure was made by the US district judge David Carter, who ordered John Eastman, a former Trump lawyer, to provide more emails to the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
Eastman was one of Trump’s attorneys when the former president and his allies challenged his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.
The legal document was part of a lawsuit by Trump’s team challenging the results in Georgia, a state Trump narrowly lost to Biden, in which they claimed a Georgia county had improperly counted more than 10,000 votes of dead people, felons and unregistered voters.
In an 18-page opinion, Carter said that the former president had “signed a verification swearing under oath” that the inaccurate fraud numbers were “true and correct” or “believed to be true and correct” to the best of his knowledge.
“The emails show that President Trump knew that the specific numbers of voter fraud were wrong but continued to tout those numbers, both in court and to the public,” the judge wrote, adding: “The Court finds that these emails are sufficiently related to and in furtherance of a conspiracy to defraud the United States.”
Carter previously ruled that Eastman and Trump had probably committed a felony by trying to pressure his then vice-president, Mike Pence, to obstruct Congress.
Carter said eight emails that would normally be shielded under those protections must be given to the committee, after he found that the communications were in furtherance of a crime - one of the few times those legal safeguards can be lifted.
Carter found that four emails show that Eastman and other lawyers suggested that the “primary goal” of filing lawsuits was to delay Congress’s certification of the 2020 election results, and further said that four other emails “demonstrate an effort by President Trump and his attorneys to press false claims in federal court for the purpose of delaying the January 6 vote”.
Carter wrote: “President Trump and his attorneys ultimately filed the complaint with the same inaccurate numbers without rectifying, clarifying, or otherwise changing them.”
Trump and his allies filed over 60 lawsuits challenging the 2020 election, with some complaints alleging voter fraud without evidence to support those claims. Those cases were overwhelmingly rejected by judges, some of which Trump appointed to the federal courts.
The January 6 select committee last week voted to subpoena Trump in its investigation. It is expected to issue a report in the coming weeks on its findings.
Comments
That's what I'm afraid of also. If they do, how will we ever unwind this sabotage?
* The U.S. radical right's hero is Viktor Orban of Hungary, even going so far as to hold their big annual conference in Hungary this year, to learn about the autocrat they admire so much. Orban & Co. have transformed Hungary into a one-party state by changing election laws and the constitution, packing the courts, emasculating government departments that might oppose them, and controlling the press. Sound familiar?
Krugman readers may recall a few years ago, when the takeover in Hungary was happening, he posted several guest pieces about how the transformation from democracy to autocracy there was happening.
Yes, but that would require a Democratic president and a pretty strong Democratic majority in the House and Senate. If the Republicans are successful in their current attempt to eviscerate our traditional democratic election process we will never again even have a Democratic administration.
Too many US voters are as dumb as frikkin' rocks. Don't even attempt to think through the issues. "Republicans are good for money. I like money. I will vote Republican." That's as far as it goes. People I KNOW actually talk to me just like that. I shit you not.
Following are excerpts from a current report in The Guardian, edited for brevity:
"Multiple witnesses have told the FBI they tried to talk Trump into cooperating with the National Archives and Records Administration and the Justice Department as those agencies for months sought the return of sensitive or historical government records, people familiar with the situation said."
"Trump grew angry this spring after a House Oversight Committee investigation was launched, telling aides they’d 'screwed up' the situation, according to people who heard his comments.
'They’re my documents,' Trump said, according to an aide who spoke to him."
Link
"Trump lawyer Christina Bobb, a former commentator on the right-wing One America News Network, signed a letter on June 3 certifying that Trump had returned all the records marked 'classified,' 'based upon the information that has been provided to me.' But the August 8 search of Mar-a-Lago turned up more than 100 more."
"Bobb has hired a criminal defense attorney and is cooperating with the Department of Justice. She told investigators that Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran had drafted the letter and told her to sign it; she insisted on the disclaimer. Now Corcoran, too, has an incentive to work with the Department of Justice and to tell the truth, rather than doubling down on a lie."
when we ask him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as a right; not asked as a favor."
-Theodore Roosevelt
In situations where Trump faces legal consequences, I'm afraid you may be right.
I'm not certain that that's actually true. It seems to me that there's a pretty clear set of Trumpian standards for today's Republican politicians.
U.S. Asks Court to End Special Master Review of Files Seized From Trump
Following are excerpts from a current report in The New York Times, severely edited for brevity:
‘Where’s the beef?’: special master says Trump’s Mar-a-Lago records claims lack substance
Judge Raymond Dearie suggested assertions of privilege by
the ex-president lack evidence for a ruling to be made in his favor
Following are excerpts from an article in The Guardian, heavily edited for brevity:
Judge: Trump signed statement alleging voter fraud knowing it was false
Document was part of lawsuit challenging results of 2020 election in Georgia
Following are excerpts from a current report in The Guardian, heavily edited for brevity: Emphasis added in above report.