The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

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malchior
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The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by malchior »

CREW won the release of a secret memo that explained how Barr covered up sections of the Mueller report in court and the decision to not pursue an indictment of Trump for obstruction. Today Biden's DOJ filed an appeal in part of that ruling to protect the confidential decision process that Barr used. Nothing more democratic than hiding how the DOJ covers up the President's crimes. :roll:

Edit: Some people think they are protecting an investigation of Barr. I'll hold my breath on that one.

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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by Isgrimnur »

Isgrimnur wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 10:25 pm Newsweek
Portions of the Mueller report that had been redacted by the U.S. Department of Justice must be published, according to a Wednesday ruling by a federal judge.
...
"Based on the Court's review of the unredacted version of the Mueller Report, the Court concludes that the Department has failed to satisfy its burden to demonstrate that the withheld material is protected by the deliberative process privilege," Judge Walton wrote in his Wednesday ruling.

Walton ordered the DOJ to publish previously redacted information involving Mueller's "deliberations about decisions not to prosecute" certain individuals. According to the ruling, that sort of information is not classified as privileged.
I believe it to be about preserving a club in the bag for their own use.
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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by pr0ner »

Isgrimnur wrote: Mon May 24, 2021 11:15 pm
Isgrimnur wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 10:25 pm Newsweek
Portions of the Mueller report that had been redacted by the U.S. Department of Justice must be published, according to a Wednesday ruling by a federal judge.
...
"Based on the Court's review of the unredacted version of the Mueller Report, the Court concludes that the Department has failed to satisfy its burden to demonstrate that the withheld material is protected by the deliberative process privilege," Judge Walton wrote in his Wednesday ruling.

Walton ordered the DOJ to publish previously redacted information involving Mueller's "deliberations about decisions not to prosecute" certain individuals. According to the ruling, that sort of information is not classified as privileged.
I believe it to be about preserving a club in the bag for their own use.
This makes a lot more sense to me.
Hodor.
malchior
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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by malchior »

pr0ner wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 8:04 am
Isgrimnur wrote: Mon May 24, 2021 11:15 pm
Isgrimnur wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 10:25 pm Newsweek
Portions of the Mueller report that had been redacted by the U.S. Department of Justice must be published, according to a Wednesday ruling by a federal judge.
...
"Based on the Court's review of the unredacted version of the Mueller Report, the Court concludes that the Department has failed to satisfy its burden to demonstrate that the withheld material is protected by the deliberative process privilege," Judge Walton wrote in his Wednesday ruling.

Walton ordered the DOJ to publish previously redacted information involving Mueller's "deliberations about decisions not to prosecute" certain individuals. According to the ruling, that sort of information is not classified as privileged.
I believe it to be about preserving a club in the bag for their own use.
This makes a lot more sense to me.
I'm not saying different. The club for their use is the problem. The pattern that has emerged is that the Presidency over the years has drawn an evermore protective cloak of secrecy over itself ostensibly to keep politics out of DOJ decisions. However, in the process we have no way to know if they are making political decisions, bad decisions, or have the opportunity for public accounting of the decisions. The effects have been expanding and are strongly adjacent to the strong arming that kept most department heads from testifying in front of Congress through the Trump administration.

Edit: The real problem is this has become a necessary plank for its independence but it is working to also protect bad behavior. My thesis is we can't solve the independence problem so we should take the other road which is to at least expose the bad behavior to sunlight. Imperfect but this is tied into our authoritarianism issues.
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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by malchior »

Also, another take on it that is an interesting read even though it is a reference to a damnable twitter thread.

The boil down is that there is a Catch-22 here also that policy on obstruction charging is laid out in the redacted portion of the memo. If released, it'd essentially force DOJ to potentially explain/clarify how it does/does not make obstruction charging decisions for President's *and* ordinary citizens. It cuts them multiple ways. The DOJ doesn't want that argument brought into the public domain. In preserving the secrecy it may limit the damage. There are definitely balancing interests here but this is also tied to the shield that protected one of the most corrupt President's in history. We all have an interest to understand this.

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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by malchior »

One more thread post because this is rightly IMO the talk of the town. The thread below is worth a read but the conclusion she comes to is that Mueller balking at making a charging decision lead us down this very bad road.

Another lawsplainer calls this Frankenstein's OLC memo. Essentially arguing that the DOJ is trying to hide that DOJ policy doesn't allow the OLC to make charging decisions but essentially the memo did that. They tried to hide this by having a DOJ/OLC partnership but the judge saw through the ruse and ordered the release of the memo for that reason.

My take: Garland may be just trying to salvage the institutional reputation of the DOJ by bottling the genie back up. The risk is that by trying to sweep the bad conduct under the rug he may make the situation worse.

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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by malchior »

I don't know if Trumpists fatally corrupted the DOJ or it was on its way by itself but we're fucked. We obviously elected Biden to pick an AG who'd be such an institutionalist that he'd defend Trump's abuses as some executive privilege.

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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by Yojimbo »

So, this is more evidence of a "uniparty" to me. This kind of thing happens - continuity of obfuscation (Trump/Obama admin fighting Gun Walker probes for example).

In an actual two party system where the parties were opposed to one another this kind of thing should not be happening.

Its as if these people have a kinship or common interest that supersedes their public political alignments.
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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by malchior »

It is a bigger issue than "just" uniparty to me. That's a factor but I see this more about institutions. Strong institutions are absolutely necessary for a strong democracy but the Presidency in particular has built up an apparatus over time that's been grabbing power. I actually vacillated between focusing on the DOJ institutional shenanigans here or the Imperial Presidency. My belief is they are the facets of the same core issue. The Presidency and consequently the executive branch agencies are taking more and more power where they can.

In the above few instances, Garland has decided to protect the prerogatives of the DOJ by trying to minimize the exposure of bad behavior of several of the last few AGs in the Trump administration. He may be worried about protecting the institutions appearance which indeed is important but I think this is a bad tradeoff since it embeds and normalizes the rot. We needed to surface it and stop it from happening in the future which is a different way to fix the image of the institution.
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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

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All the Presidents' Lawyers covered this topic this week. Ken pointed out that the DOJ actually threw the previous administration under the bus in that they admitted tear gas was used (previously denied) and that removing the protestors was so the President could go for a photo op (as opposed to the official version of the protestors were removed and the President decided to go for a photo op). He still thought their arguments weren't great but inline with what you could expect from the Institution that is trying to protect itself.
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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by ImLawBoy »

Seeing this as evidence of a "uniparty" is head-in-the-sand type stuff. Sure there are areas where the two major parties' interests align, and especially so in this instance, but using one instance (or even a handful of instances) of alignment to claim uniparty in the face of the myriad deep and substantial differences between the parties misses the bigger picture. This old libertarian talking point carried a lot more weight in the 1990s during the Clinton presidency when both parties were trying to be law and order types and advocating for smaller government/fewer regulations.
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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by malchior »

stessier wrote: Thu Jun 03, 2021 1:26 pm All the Presidents' Lawyers covered this topic this week. Ken pointed out that the DOJ actually threw the previous administration under the bus in that they admitted tear gas was used (previously denied) and that removing the protestors was so the President could go for a photo op (as opposed to the official version of the protestors were removed and the President decided to go for a photo op). He still thought their arguments weren't great but inline with what you could expect from the Institution that is trying to protect itself.
Yeah I heard this then as well. I think he and I are well-aligned. They admit to some bad stuff around the edges but digging in to reserve institutional rights' and protect the institution's reputation. In the end it leaves me feeling like we aren't the type of country where I can expect bad behavior by people in power of all stripes is held to account. And that only serves to reduce trust in institutions IMO. We'll see but there is a decent amount of delusion about this. So many people on Twitter are thinking Garland has some master plan that rings out a lot like 'trust in Mueller'. And part of this mess hangs on Mueller ironically.
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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by Zarathud »

The GOP is opposed to the Democrats. We do not have a lack of opposition — we have a lack of sanity and policy amount Republicans.

The belief that Republicans and Democrats are the same party or interests is lunacy. South Park tried to make it a bad joke, but there are real differences.
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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by malchior »

There are very real differences. The party platform for the GOP -- well when they had one -- is one of the most authoritarian in the advanced economies. The Democratic one is slightly to the right of Labour in the UK. However, the GOP stymies policy and law formation to an extent that Democrats often govern under GOP policy auspices. In effect, the GOP sets most long-term policy when they are in power and then the Democrats execute on it since it's the law. There is also some true alignment on other issues and the institutional forces I wrote about above. This is confused as uniparty or both parties are the same when it is just a symptom of the deep dysfunction.
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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by Yojimbo »

ImLawBoy wrote: Thu Jun 03, 2021 1:32 pm Seeing this as evidence of a "uniparty" is head-in-the-sand type stuff. Sure there are areas where the two major parties' interests align, and especially so in this instance, but using one instance (or even a handful of instances) of alignment to claim uniparty in the face of the myriad deep and substantial differences between the parties misses the bigger picture. This old libertarian talking point carried a lot more weight in the 1990s during the Clinton presidency when both parties were trying to be law and order types and advocating for smaller government/fewer regulations.

Well, you all sound like this is more a deep state (bureaucracy immune system attacking anything try to shed daylight) issue than a uniparty thing. Maybe you are right, but I wonder if encouraging "stronger intuitions" isn't the exact wrong thing to do. Once a government is strong enough to resist the ongoing will of the people it often leads to misery and mischief.
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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by malchior »

Yojimbo wrote: Fri Jun 04, 2021 12:48 pmOnce a government is strong enough to resist the ongoing will of the people it often leads to misery and mischief.
It's a risk. There is a legitimate trade off but the bottom line is the strong institution is a critical component. If we had a functioning government, we'd look at Trump-era abuses and say woah we need to stop that in the future. As a thought experiment if this were a 'green field' we'd build out a transparency mechanism that preserved the institutions need for some privacy weighed carefully against the public need to know. In effect, the design goal would be a strong institution with enough transparency so that we can trust it.

That is honestly part of what an IG is supposed to do but even they started getting subverted. Trump certainly shouldn't have been able to fire IGs. That's a clear gap. Knowing that, we need IGs to be truly independent, have enough authority to investigate wrong doing, and have a way to transparently tell the public about it in an appropriate way. But we aren't even talking about that because we have bigger problems with fundamentals.
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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by malchior »

I'm fed up. It's not uniparty but this system is hopelessly corrupt.

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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Yojimbo wrote: Thu Jun 03, 2021 11:08 am So, this is more evidence of a "uniparty" to me. This kind of thing happens - continuity of obfuscation (Trump/Obama admin fighting Gun Walker probes for example).

In an actual two party system where the parties were opposed to one another this kind of thing should not be happening.

Its as if these people have a kinship or common interest that supersedes their public political alignments.
Two parties, one ruling class. It's like in-fighting among family members. Brothers can be the most vicious enemies but the family rolls on. Actual fratricide is frowned upon.
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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by Isgrimnur »

NPR
The Justice Department said Saturday that it no longer will secretly obtain reporters' records during leak investigations, a policy shift that abandons a practice decried by news organizations and press freedom groups.

The reversal follows a pledge last month by President Joe Biden, who had said it was "simply, simply wrong" to seize journalists' records and that he would not permit the Justice Department to continue the practice.
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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by malchior »

So to sum up, whenever someone is President they are a King who can slander and harm people and the government will protect them, allow them to continue to harm their victims, and *we* get to pay for it. The best part is Biden slammed the DOJ for this case during the campaign. I mean it's good that he isn't interfering but Garland is an institutionalist protecting an institution that was corrupted. This is another pretty discouraging development.





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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by stessier »

All The Presidents' Lawyers covered the DOJ's defense of this on the pod this week and Ken made a compelling case that it's the right move for both legal and policy reasons.
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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by malchior »

stessier wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 2:20 pm All The Presidents' Lawyers covered the DOJ's defense of this on the pod this week and Ken made a compelling case that it's the right move for both legal and policy reasons.
I listened to it. I get what he was saying but I think if there was a line to draw - this would be the case. The way I see it the judge gave the DOJ an out on it and they could have accepted that narrow out here specifically because of the conduct involved. I also differ a little philosophically from Fed on this. While he is hardly an institutionalist anymore he still has some of that mindset. I personally am opposed to some of what he was talking about in regards to protection of lawsuits against the President. We've layered 'the office' in too much armor for my tastes. I do understand there is a trade off from nuisance lawsuits like perhaps Obama was facing but I think this falls well on the wrong side of the trade off. Worse it undermines faith in the DOJ too much in my opinion and it's just plain wrong that *we* are potentially paying to protect him for this reprehensible behavior.
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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by Zarathud »

If you let Republicans sue a Democratic president over alleged lies, they will bankroll endless litigation.

I hate it, but it’s like giving a nuclear weapon to Trumpers.
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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

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Meanwhile, we have this new banana republic stuff. I'll wait for the GOP to call this behavior out as equally bad as the supposed FBI overreach. :roll:

IMO this deserves deep investigation as well. The DOJ is badly compromised. Trump et. al. essentially wrecked an institution that was primed for overreach over the years. This is hand in hand with the democratic backsliding. If we don't repair it/clean it up this will come back to bite us quickly.

Edit: I'm pretty worked up about this. We pretty much live in an authoritarian-adjacent state now. It's not Russia or Hungary by any means but the DOJ opened a leak investigation into elected political opponents of the President in another branch of the Government. Someone signed off on this absolute bullshit and also the related gag orders. It's about as appalling as we could have imagined.

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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by malchior »

This is incredibly important. This is probably the worst political abuse of the DOJ in our nation - the only thing close is Watergate - and I can't help but wonder WTF they were thinking trying to sweep this under the rug. I'll say it again. I'm fed up. If you aren't incredibly concerned then you aren't paying enough attention. The stuff coming out of the DOJ is simply appalling. Trump and Barr might be gone but all the people involved are still in the DOJ in leadership positions. The DOJ needs to be cleaned out like the Aegean stables at this point or as Michelle Goldberg of the NY Times just said on Ari Melber's show we need an effort to de-Trumpify the DOJ and other agencies.

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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

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Add in Trump's counsel to the people being spied on by the DOJ. All the people at the top are somehow saying they knew nothing about all these leak subpoenas.

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This is speculative at the moment - I'd really hope Garland doesn't subscribe to such an extreme viewpoint on Presidential power. I suspect they hope they never have to even consider this if say the lawsuits are dismissed for standing for instance.

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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by Octavious »

What really scares me now is the shit going on in Florida. Now they are forcing the colleges to survey the staff to see how liberal they are and possibly cut funding. That fucker is Trump 10.0
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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

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That's the problem here. Garland is shoring up the DOJ for the next authoritarian who could very well be DeSantis or Trump again. Why should we have confidence in them when a litany of abuses come out and the response is the watchdogs will look at the worst? This isn't an acute disease. The whole institution is infested. We needed a deep clean and we're getting dirt swept under rugs. We're fuct.
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DOJ Will Not Prosecute Trump Officials After IG Referred Findings of False Testimony on Census
The Biden administration has declined to prosecute former Trump administration officials, including former Commerce Department Secretary Wilbur Ross, after an inspector general confirmed they provided false testimony regarding the origins of the proposed citizenship question on the 2020 census.

The Commerce IG launched its probe in 2019, following a request from lawmakers. The investigators did not make their report public, citing Privacy Act concerns, but said in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., that Ross and other officials played a “substantive role” in proposing the addition of the citizenship question to the census. The proposal caused significant controversy as critics said it would deter non-citizens from participating in the count at all and it was eventually struck down by the Supreme Court.

Ross twice told Congress the addition of the citizenship question was based solely on a request from the Justice Department, but the IG found Ross “misrepresented the full rationale” behind the decision. Its findings follow publicly disclosed emails that clearly demonstrated the role Ross, the White House and other Commerce officials played well before Justice became involved. The Supreme Court noted the political influence when ordering the removal of the question.

“Evidence shows there were significant communications related to the citizenship question among the then-Secretary, his staff, and other government officials between March 2017 and September 2017, which was well before the DOJ request memorandum,” the IG said. “Evidence also suggests the department requested and played a part in drafting the DOJ memorandum.”

The IG said it presented its findings to Justice’s Public Integrity Section of the department’s Criminal Division, but the department declined to pursue prosecution. Under the Trump administration, Justice similarly declined to prosecute Ross and others after Democrats voted to hold them in contempt for refusing to turn over documents related to citizenship question decision making.
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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

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One more - Merrick Garland is also being put to another big test - the DOJ is weighing whether to defend Mo Brooks for his role in 1/6. He has until the 27th to make the decision.
When Mo Brooks took his oath of office as a U.S. representative, he swore to support and defend the Constitution. His official duties certainly don’t include what Mr. Brooks is accused of doing in a civil lawsuit pending in Washington federal court: helping to incite a mob to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Representative Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat, sued Mr. Brooks, an Alabama Republican, and others for damages suffered as a result of their roles in the Capitol riot. Mr. Brooks has asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to certify that his actions on Jan. 6 were those of a government employee acting within the scope of his employment. The Justice Department must say if it will defend Mr. Brooks by July 27.

If the attorney general were to certify and the court agreed, Mr. Brooks would be dismissed from the lawsuit under a federal statute. The United States would be substituted as a defendant instead.

Mr. Garland’s choice is important in its own right, but it also carries ramifications for cases targeting possible official wrongdoing in the Trump era, including by the former president himself. Mr. Garland should emphatically reject Mr. Brooks’s request to make this certification, because our nation deserves a full accounting for those involved in the storming of the Capitol and any other assaults on our democracy.

<snip>
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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by malchior »

Unfortunately Garland is powerless to review the Barr DOJ's corruption. What a shame. We'll see how it pans out for Democrats when they roll into the mid-terms if the current pattern of continuing to enforce zero accountability for Trump era abuses holds.
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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

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You're suggesting the voters will vote Republican to punish the Democrats for their inaction? That seems...unlikely.
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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by malchior »

stessier wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 10:30 am You're suggesting the voters will vote Republican to punish the Democrats for their inaction? That seems...unlikely.
I suggested no such thing. I am suggesting they won't show up in a year when the GOP is tilting the field in their favor to begin with. We are seeing trust in the system and belief in democracy plummet right now. If we roll into midterms and the DOJ is still defending Trump era abuses and has held no one beyond these schlubs accountable for 1/6 it could easily be an albatross. Especially since people often don't show up for mid-terms in the first place.
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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

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malchior wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 10:33 am
stessier wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 10:30 am You're suggesting the voters will vote Republican to punish the Democrats for their inaction? That seems...unlikely.
I suggested no such thing. I am suggesting they won't show up in a year when the GOP is tilting the field in their favor to begin with. We are seeing trust in the system and belief in democracy plummet right now. If we roll into midterms and the DOJ is still defending Trump era abuses and has held no one beyond these schlubs accountable for 1/6 it could easily be an albatross. Especially since people often don't show up for mid-terms in the first place.
Ah.

I don't think their actions will inspire people to come out and vote. And if it did, I think the other side would be equally inspired to vote against what is happening, so it is a wash.
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Re: The Imperial Presidency is still Imperial

Post by malchior »

stessier wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 10:51 am
malchior wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 10:33 am
stessier wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 10:30 am You're suggesting the voters will vote Republican to punish the Democrats for their inaction? That seems...unlikely.
I suggested no such thing. I am suggesting they won't show up in a year when the GOP is tilting the field in their favor to begin with. We are seeing trust in the system and belief in democracy plummet right now. If we roll into midterms and the DOJ is still defending Trump era abuses and has held no one beyond these schlubs accountable for 1/6 it could easily be an albatross. Especially since people often don't show up for mid-terms in the first place.
Ah.

I don't think their actions will inspire people to come out and vote. And if it did, I think the other side would be equally inspired to vote against what is happening, so it is a wash.
I mean maybe...but mid-terms are tough to begin with and my continuing belief is the Democrats simply don't understand the fight we are in. It's not just bad politics, it is corrosive to law and order. But guess we'll see. I was hoping that we'd see abuses illuminated and righted. I thought they understood that faith in the system is failing despite experts everywhere talking about how this is a major issue. Instead, they returned to the old track like Trump never happened.

Heck, Garland's mentor Lawrence Tribe has written several articles (most recent here) about the topics I'm talking about because they could very well be hastening the end of this democracy.
Attorney General Merrick Garland confronts a choice that is more than just career-defining. He must answer a question arising out of one of the lawsuits surrounding the Jan. 6 insurrection that is pivotal for the rule of law in the United States. That question is whether officials of the US government, bound by oath “to support [the] Constitution,” and, in the case of the president, to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” can be said to be acting within the bounds of their elective offices even when they foment violent insurrection against the laws that ensure the peaceful transition of power. If the attorney general decides to treat such action as merely one way of discharging official duties, then self-government will become a mirage, and those who are guilty of trashing it will have been placed beyond the reach of legal accountability to those they injure. That would mean that popular sovereignty is dead and the twin principles that no one is above the law and that every legal wrong deserves a remedy might as well be tossed into history’s dust heap.

The Biden administration and Garland have repeatedly voiced dedication to those principles and to democracy’s survival. That’s why many of us were dismayed when Garland approved the filing of a brief supporting former president Donald Trump’s implausible claim that he was merely performing an “official duty” to preserve his personal reputation and credibility as president when he assaulted the integrity and truthfulness of E. Jean Carroll, who had accused him of rape before he became president. Supporting that bold claim meant that Carroll’s suit was in reality a suit against the United States. It was therefore a suit that called on the Justice Department to intervene on Trump’s behalf under a law enacted by Congress in 1988 called the Westfall Act. And, worse yet, the suit would have to be dismissed because the United States hadn’t waived sovereign immunity.

It was unsurprising to see then-Attorney General William Barr take that position. But why did Garland feel obliged to stick with it even after the Jan. 6 insurrection on the US Capitol should have made absolutely clear the danger of its implications? To be sure, demonstrating the department’s independence from politics is important. But once the department has strained the president’s job description to include defaming a private citizen to protect that president’s image, it’s a perilously short step to the shocking position that a president’s job extends to fomenting a coup to hold onto power after losing an election.

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