The rogue state
ROGER FITCH ESQ • FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 2020
Trump running wild following the burlesque of his impeachment trial ... Retribution underway ... Regulatory bodies left inoperable ... Judges attacked ... Corruption rife - and no consequences ... Presidential pardons ... Political meddling in Roger Stone's trial ... SCOTUS to decide discrimination on the basis of religious beliefs ... A Supreme Court for the rich ... Roger Fitch on the case
Following a sham senate trial in which some of his most lawless behaviour was excused by a slim majority of America's own "unrepresentative swill", an emboldened Donald Trump is running wild, while badgering away in his quest for re-election.
He has heaps of money to spend, a friendly Fox News grooming his supporters 24/7, and a sympathetic supreme court prepared to take a "pro-partisanship turn", should he need it. Emily Bazelon has more.
Former cabinet members may characterise him as a moron, an idiot, and a man with the understanding of a 5th or 6th grader, but the president has cunning people behind him, with devious designs.
One such practice is governing with unconfirmed acting officials (some appointed unlawfully). Another is failing to fill vacant positions on important agency boards and regulatory commissions, thus leaving them "inquorate" and unable to perform their functions. The FEC, for instance, can't investigate Trump's many campaign finance violations.
Since his senate acquittal, Mr Trump's megalomania and vindictiveness have become more pronounced, and his innate thuggery has led to post-impeachment purges of those who testified against him. There are, however, legal limits on Trump's reprisals against impeachment witnesses or other public servants, and it's a federal offence to retaliate against whistleblowers, more here.
Even so, with impeachment over, retribution has begun. Ferreting out unreliable or apostate political appointees is the special task of the former Heritage Foundation staffer, lobbyist and rightwing journalist Virginia Lamp Thomas. The wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, Ginni Thomas has often immersed herself in partisan Republican operations: in 2000, she actively assisted the George Bush election team while her husband considered Bush v Gore.
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Trump at another Taj Mahal
Trump has dialed-up his shameful and unprecedented ad hominem attacks against courts and prosecutors: in his assault on justice he may have outdone Nixon. It's not just lower court judges like Amy Berman Jackson, who presided over the Roger Stone case, but individual supreme court justices, and even jurors.
While in India (and visiting the real Taj Mahal, quite different from his eponymous twice-bankrupt casino), Mr Trump glimpsed a misleading "chyron" on Fox News, and instanter decided Justice Sotomayor would henceforth have to recuse herself from cases involving him - Justice Ginsburg, too.
Alarmed, the federal judges' association called an emergency meeting to discuss how to deal with America's rogue president, a man who attacks the judiciary and whose attorney-general flouts court orders and disregards bedrock American law.
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There are many ways to fight corruption: Donald Trump's solution is to make it legal. Recently, he achieved a corruption milestone that will make him the envy of kleptocrats everywhere: 3000 conflicts of interest. That's besides the 19 policy changes that help (incidentally, of course) his businesses.
Still awaiting examination are the Trump chaos trades. More here on Trump's apparent manipulations of markets for the benefit of insiders.
America now has corruption with no consequences, and it's a windfall for its most audaciously dishonest president.
Occasionally, this corruption may take the form of presidential pardons. Or anticipatory reciprocity: birds of a feather look after one another. Thus it sometimes happens that a crooked Republican may be kind to a bent Democrat.
"The Blag" - corrupt governor pardoned by Trump
It was no doubt in this spirit that Donald Trump responded with compassion to the pleas of the former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. The Blag was in prison for multiple federal offences, including trying to sell the vacant senate seat of Barack Obama, the object of Trump's obsessive fascination.
One could look upon it as a pardon in exchange for a "thing of value", though only in Trump's America would a convict's political endorsement be so regarded.
At the same time, Mr Trump forgave other eminent white collar villains, who, aside from war criminals such as Eddie Gallagher and hagiographic biographers (e.g, Conrad Black), are the ones most likely to benefit from presidential mercy. With the instinctively venal Trump, other considerations may also play a part. Certainly, the latest batch all had "connections".
Some of those pardoned were not political and may have merited pardons, although publicly supporting Mr Trump seemed an advantage; it certainly helped if the president heard about you on Fox News.
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In the midst of all these pardons, the administration's interference in the Roger Stone trial stunned Washington. Donald Trump had tweeted that Stone's proposed sentence was too long, so it had to be reduced, and a DoJ sentencing memo was withdrawn and replaced with another, all within hours.
All four prosecuting US attorneys withdrew, and one left DoJ altogether, more here, while over 2000 former DOJ officials signed a petition that called for Barr's resignation.
Stone has now been sentenced, and Trump may well pardon him. Any pardon, however, may run up against the fact that Mr Trump has been impeached, and arguably, cannot afterwards pardon anyone whose behaviour was implicated in his impeachment
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Obama's court appointments may have flipped the DC circuit to the Democrats, but a fortuitous Republican majority panel enabled former White House Counsel Don McGahn to unexpectedly win his DC circuit appeal against a congressional subpoena.
According to the shocking 2-1 decision, McGahn doesn't have to testify at all, executive privilege or otherwise, and the case was dismissed. This seemingly applies to all employees of the executive branch, an astonishing outcome.
Barring en banc reconsideration, McGahn's case sets up a supreme court review where the Republican majority will undoubtedly pile on. It involved legal standing (that of congress), and the supreme court is not above manipulating standing to achieve desired outcomes.
Linda Greenhouse has written about DoJ's machinations to prevent or remove standing for petitioners affected by and opposing government actions.
There are other subpoena cases before the supreme court; New York's brief in one of them is here.
There are distressing decisions rolling out of the supreme court, such as the cross-border shooting case. The court decided that it's all right for US border patrol agents to fatally shoot citizens of Mexico, so long as they die on the Mexican side. National security, and all that ...
A major case yet to be decided is the "freedom of religion" case: i.e, whether a licence to discriminate must be accorded to those who ground their discrimination on religious beliefs. Dean Chemerinsky and Linda Greenhouse commented.
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Supreme Inequality
A new book examines the historical tendency of the supreme court to serve the rich rather than the humble, and a recent case seemed to confirm this, when the court blessed Mr Trump's "wealth test" for immigrants by striking down lower court injunctions preventing its implementation pending appeals.
Strangely, the fact one has applied for a green card may now be a basis for denying it.
Think about that.
