When Cassidy Hutchinson testified to the J6 Committee under oath last week (a sin for present day Republicans), the committee revealed written attempts to get Hutchinson to “do the right thing” and to “remain loyal”. The tweets, likely sent under direction of her former boss Mark Meadows, made philosophical observations about what a shame it would be for a nice young woman like her to… etc. The witness tampering, and obstruction of investigations of extreme national importance, is ongoing.
Witness tampering is a felony that carries a twenty year prison sentence. The punishment is twenty years because the crime is such a serious threat to the rule of law. If you can freely intimidate all witnesses and get their memories to disappear in all relevant areas, the administration of justice stops dead. You have the rule of the mob, free to intimidate anyone who calls them a mob.
The only thing political about not prosecuting witness intimidation is a paralyzing fear that the other side will somehow use the prosecutions politically.
During Trump’s first impeachment trial, the former president (who won reelection in a landslide, necessitating the peaceful, legal, patriotic protest of January 6th…) tweeted thinly veiled threats against people who were testifying truthfully about his attempts to get the president of Ukraine to announce a fake investigation into Joe Biden’s son. He threatened witnesses publicly and in real time, as they were testifying in public hearings on television. He also swiftly took revenge on witnesses and family members of witnesses for testifying truthfully. He took his revenge lap right after impeachment failed, days after jury foreman Mitch McConnell announced he was working closely with the president’s defense team (Patsy Baloney, Federalist Society superlawyer and future White House counsel among them) to get the impeachment farce quickly dismissed.
For years prior to that hearing, and up to the present day, Trump’s standing order to anyone in his party receiving a Congressional subpoena is to tell Congress to shove its subpoena, and they’ll fight it out in courts until the clock runs out. That’s a novel and brazen approach to lawful, compulsory subpoenas, sir. The DOJ, headed first by Jeff Sessions and later by the supremely unprincipled Bill Barr (hell of a bagpipes player, I’ve heard) was clearly fine with all of their boss’s obstructive tactics, even the plainly illegal ones (someone has to prosecute crimes or they’re just partisan allegations of crimes). Trump’s handpicked political operatives at DOJ were all on team MAGA, all shared the same goal of turning the clock back to the days before that Commie Supreme Court desegregated the schools, allowed women the final choice about whether to give birth, gave civil rights to homosexual perverts, due processprotections to (presumed guilty)ordinary people arrested for crimes and gave the state’s blessing to the vile practice of miscegenation, race-mixing.
Fabulous piece of shit Jared Kusher comes to mind. A C student in his private school, he attended Harvard after his billionaire father, Charles, made a two million dollar donation to that institution. Now Jared is smart! Charles Kushner was involved in some illegal activity, he juggled money between companies he owned and signed false papers on behalf of partners to make larger than legal political contributions (to Democratic candidates, funnily enough). They had him dead to rights, the state’s main witness being his brother-in-law.
Charles Kushner didn’t get where he is by coloring between the fucking lines. He hired a professional scumbag to set up a meeting between a hooker and his brother-in-law. The hooker was good, picked the witness up and brought him to a hotel room rigged for video recording. Charles brought the tape to his sister and told her if her husband didn’t dummy up the video would be all over the fucking internet. His sister may have been wearing a wire, the case against Charles Kusher was now about a much bigger deal: witness tampering.
We know the prison sentence for the felony of witness tampering is twenty years. Billionaires, however, usually get a steep “best people” discount on the rare occasions they’re sentenced for crimes. Charles was sentenced to two years, served fourteen months, presumably because his behavior was so good. Jared never forgave fellow piece of shit Chris Christie for prosecuting his innocent father. Charles eventually got a pardon from Trumpie, no doubt one of the many Jared had his nose buried in while the planned coup d’etat was being feverishly enacted all around him while he was so busy working on a stack of pardons that he had no idea of any plans. He told J6 investigators he was too busy working on pardons to listen to people like Patsy Baloney whining about Trumpie’sproposed, allegedly illegal plans.
Pardon me for this rant. I’ve extended every benefit of the doubt to Joe Biden, not my first pick among the Democratic candidates, nor even my tenth. Under thehorrific circumstances, I think he’s doing a decent job. I extend the benefit of the doubt to Merrick Garland, a methodical, capable prosecutor probably building a complex and difficult racketeering case (RICO) against Trump and his myrmidons, as he tries to restore public faith in the impartiality of the DOJ. I’ve heard RICO cases are not hard to win, but are also, unless perfect, not hard to get thrown out on appeal. Clearly it would be a fatal disaster if Trump was about to be locked up as a political mob boss, appealed and had the case overturned. Seen that way, it is understandable, and smart, that Garland is building a careful, airtight case against a criminal syndicate.
But if Garland doesn’t bring prompt prosecutions against people we know are actively committing the felony of intimidating witnesses to cover the gigantic criminal ass of the most prodigious liar the world has ever known, what the fuck? What the fucking fuck, Merrick?
The Federalist Society method for radical social change is a page from any democracy to authoritarianism legal playbook. You need to change the laws to protect the interests of your patronsby moving power to institutions you already control. You take the legal result you want, have legal scholars create a doctrine that will support a ruling in your favor, promulgate that doctrine in the media (the “Independent State Legislature Doctrine” for example [1]) as you find the perfect legal case to apply that doctrine to and strike down a hated law or regulation. Select the ideal federal district where the carefully chosen case can be brought, ideally a place where any appeal will be heard by a panel of Federalist Society members. Preserve all arguments, no matter how far-fetched, for appeal and wind up at the Supreme Court, controlled by your members. Have numerous Federalist Society scholars submitamicus (“friend of the court”) briefs, giving legal support for the desired ruling.
If the case calls for throwing out state law to have your desired result, you have a doctrine ready (unregulated gun rights too sacred to be left to the states). If it calls for overriding federal law, use a different doctrine (Christ says life begins at fertilization, federal government has no right to contradict the Messiah, only states can do that). Heather Cox Richardson provides detail on two chilling examples (see footnotes). The rulings are often legally and logically ridiculous, but no worries, the ends justify the means, plus, we have the votes. Plus, nothing infuriates the libs like an irrational,inappealable in-your-fucking-face “fuck you”.
They are openly playing a brutal game, as they move the country toward a Christian fascist autocracy. We are to understand that no matter how popular a given position is among voters, whatever fix Congress might make, whatever the unanimous upholding of a law might say about its necessity to a free democracy, the final say is left to the Federalist Society majority on the highest court in the land. They just ruled, 6-3, that the Clean Air Act does not give the Environmental Protection Agency the right to regulate things like carbon emissions that pollute the air, presumably because that exact phrase was not used in the law creating the EPA (just a guess) [2]. Media reports this devastating anti-climate ruling as “SCOTUS hamstrings Biden’s plans to combat Climate Change,” as thoughthe 79 year-old Biden is the only victim of this criminal ruling. The only beneficiaries of the ruling are outfits like Exxon, Koch Industries and Halliburton, major drivers of “Biden inflation” as they reap record profits by raising gas prices to near-record levels.
I read Shelby County v. Holder during the 2020 election. That was the 5-4 “conservative” ruling that overruled a 98-0 Senate vote to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act and the strongly expressed support of the previous Republican president. The Federalist Society knows that their side loses any election in which there is massive voter turnout, so making voting more difficult is a big win for them. John Roberts was careful not to touch the law itself, he merely made it impossible to enforce that law, short of going to court again and again in every jurisdiction that might violate the law with new voter suppression methods. The law prevented chicanery to suppress the vote among minority populations, and required preclearance for new laws to make voting harder in jurisdictions that had previously resorted to such chicanery. Roberts waved a judicial wand to make the history of voter suppression disappear, because the Voting Rights Act had fixed it. See, no need for enforcement!
Roberts cited voting statistics from formerly openly racist districts to show that there was equal access to the polls for whites and Blacks, then voting in numbers reflecting their relative size in the population. Proof that there was no further need to enforce the Voting Rights Act. He falsely claimed that Congress had wrongly relied on forty year old data when reauthorizing the Act. There were numerous hearings and a mountain of current data presented before gigantic majorities in both houses of Congress reauthorized the law and George W. Bush held a signing ceremony where he underscored the importance of this law to our democracy.
But, you know, that all smells too much like democracy, “majoritarian tyranny,” for persecuted mega-donors like “Mr. Dark Money”, Charles Koch. So, as soon as Shelby County was decided, numerous Republican-controlled states immediately enacted laws to suppress the vote. Just as many anti-abortion “trigger laws” went into effect as soon as the Unappealable Six struck down Roe v. Wade in a masterpieceof judicial illogic.
There is only one solution to this illegitimate, inconsistent, rabidly partisan court. It, along with the rest of the federal bench, was packed with committed Federalist Society zealots by the unprincipled Mitch McConnell, using his power to obstruct Obama and the idiot Trump who kept his promise to the Council on National Policy (in return for them blessing his candidacy) to select judges only from Federalist Society lists of its top ideologues. The illegitimately packed Supreme Court must now be rebalanced and there is no constitutional reason not to expand the court. Biden has shied away from this fight, kicking the can down the road by appointing a bipartisan panel to explore the issue before letting it quietly die. Biden has many other fights on his plate, against unified Republican opposition and two bought and paid for Democratic defenders of the obstructionist filibuster. He also doesn’t have the votes, with Manchin and Sinema scrupulously “neutral” on allowing any legislation to come up for a vote in the Senate.
Now the president calls for a filibuster carve out to allow the Senate to codify Roe 51-49. As if any such law would not be quickly litigated by the Federalist Society and struck down by the Federalist Society Six — three of which were appointed by razor thin majorities after McConnell’s filibuster carve out for Supreme Court justices. Biden didn’t call for a carve out to make federal rules for federal elections, to protect voting rights as state after state made laws that would not have passed the pre-Shelby County Voting Rights Act. He didn’t call for a carve out for legislation to mitigate Climate Catastrophe. He doesn’t have the votes now, I understand, but, come on, man, part of your fucking job is inspiring confidence in people who voted for you. How are Democrats supposed to pick up Senate seats, to allow his administration to get anything done, when Mr. Biden is hesitant to speak truth to power? Power concedes nothing without a demand, as Frederick Douglass, Trump’s facebook friend, noted many moons ago.
[1] from the great Heather Cox Richardson:
The court also said today that it will consider making even greater changes to our country. It will hear Moore v. Harper, a case about whether state legislatures alone have the power to set election rules even if their laws violate state constitutions.
The case comes from North Carolina, where the state supreme court rejected a dramatically partisan gerrymander. Republicans say that the state court cannot stop the legislature’s carving up of the state because of the “independent state legislatures doctrine.” This is a new idea, based on the clause in the U.S. Constitution providing that “[t]he times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations.” Those adhering to the independent state legislature theory ignore the second part of that provision.
Those advancing the independent state legislature theory also point to another clause of the Constitution. It says: “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors.”
Until now, states have interpreted “legislatures” to mean the state’s general lawmaking processes, which include shared power and checks and balances among the three branches of state government. Now, a radical minority insists that a legislature is a legislature alone, unchecked by state courts or state constitutions that prohibit gerrymandering. This interpretation of the Constitution is radical and new. It caught on in 2015, when Republicans wanted to get rid of an independent redistricting commission in Arizona.
This doctrine is, of course, what Trump and his allies pushed for to keep him in power in 2020: Republican state legislatures throwing out the will of the people and sending electors for Trump to Congress rather than the Biden electors the majority voted for.
That doctrine would also give to state legislatures the power to control who can vote, and how and where they can do so. It would strip power from elections commissions and secretaries of state, and it would take from state courts the power to challenge gerrymandering or voter suppression. Republicans currently control 30 state legislatures, in large part thanks to the gerrymandering and voter suppression in place in a number of those states.
Revered conservative judge J. Michael Luttig has been trying for months to sound the alarm that this doctrine is a blueprint for Republicans to steal the 2024 election. In April, before the court agreed to take on the Moore v. Harper case, he wrote: “Trump and the Republicans can only be stopped from stealing the 2024 election at this point if the Supreme Court rejects the independent state legislature doctrine (thus allowing state court enforcement of state constitutional limitations on legislatively enacted election rules and elector appointments) and Congress amends the Electoral Count Act to constrain Congress’ own power to reject state electoral votes and decide the presidency.”
And yet in March, when the Supreme Court let the state supreme court’s decision against the radical map stay in place for 2022, justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, and Brett Kavanaugh indicated they are open to the idea that state courts have no role in overseeing the rules for federal elections.
In the one term Trump’s three justices have been on the court, they have decimated the legal landscape under which we have lived for generations, slashing power from the federal government, where Congress represents the majority, and returning it to states, where a Republican minority can impose its will. Thanks to the skewing of our electoral system, those states are now poised to take control of our federal government permanently.
Today, the court’s decision in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency reversed almost 100 years of jurisprudence by arguing that Congress cannot delegate authority on “major questions” to agencies in the executive branch. At stake were EPA regulations that would push fossil fuel producers toward clean energy in order to combat climate change. The vote was 6 to 3, along ideological lines. That the court agreed to hear the case despite the fact that the rules being challenged had been abandoned suggested they were determined to make a point.
That point was to hamstring federal regulation of business. The argument at the heart of this decision is called the “nondelegation doctrine,” which says that Congress, which constitutes the legislative branch of the government, cannot delegate legislative authority to the executive branch. Most of the regulatory bodies in our government are housed in the executive branch. So the nondelegation doctrine would hamstring the modern regulatory state.
To avoid this extreme conclusion, the majority on the court embraced the “major questions” doctrine, which Chief Justice Roberts used today for the first time in a majority opinion.
That doctrine says that Congress must not delegate “major” issues to an agency, saying that such major issues must be explicitly authorized by Congress. But the abuse of the Senate filibuster by Republican senators means that no such laws stand a hope of passing. So the Supreme Court has essentially stopped the federal government from responding as effectively as it must to climate change. And that will have international repercussions: the inability of the U.S. government to address the crisis means that other countries will likely fall behind as well. The decision will likely apply not just to the EPA, but to a whole host of business regulations.
As recently as 2001, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected the nondelegation argument in a decision written by Justice Antonin Scalia, who said the court must trust Congress to take care of its own power. But now it has become law.
A big part of the practice of writing is sitting down to think something through. You write, then you read what you wrote, then you think, then you rewrite, then you readit all again. Why are you writing? For me it’s to understand and make my thoughts and feelings as clear as possible, to myself and to the reader.
We know what we are trying to say, most of the time, but the beauty of writing is that it allows us to keep rewriting, refining, fixing flaws in our presentation, focusing our intentions as sharply as possible, so that others can hopefully grasp them in all their nuance. The writer needs to give the reader enough background for meaning and context, while keeping in mind that background can swallow everything if too detailed.
Yesterday I posted an excerpt of a piece by Jennifer Rubin in which she quoted a governor named Hutchinson giving an ostensibly thoughtful answer in support of the Supreme Court forcing women and girls in his state to give birth to their rapists’ babies. Moments later another Hutchinson, a young woman named Cassidy, assistant to Trump’s final Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, gave live testimony at an emergency hearing before the J6 Select Committee. Today the nation is abuzz over her two hours under oath. I found her testimony electrifying.
She testified that Trump, Meadows, Stone (pardoned felon), Giuliani, Flynn (pardoned felon) and others planned the march to the Capitol on January 6th. Stone and Giuliani appear to have been the point men with the white supremacist militias involved in the siege of the Capitol. Meadows told his assistant a few days beforehand that things could get really bad on January 6th. Several of these Trump loyalists, Flynn, Giuliani (Bannon — pardoned before conviction for felony, Eastman, Kerik— pardoned felon) established a command center, or war room, in a hotel near the White House. Meadows wanted to go to the war room on January 5th, asked his young assistant to order a car for him, but she urged him not to go. He phoned in instead.
Trump became angry on January 6th that his crowd was being frisked and put through magnetometers (“mags”) because many were heavily armed. He is famously obsessed with crowd size and insisted the mags be removed so his followers could fill the Ellipse, for the cameras, and march on the Capitol from there. He didn’t care that they were armed, he was certain they intended him no harm.
We know his supporters had not obtained a permit to march to the Capitol on January 6th. Now we also know that the march was planned anyway. An illegal march, with insufficient police presence, to stage a show of force to “stiffen the spines” of men like Mike Pence. Good luck stiffening that guy’s spine, by the way. The illegal march to “Stop the Steal” culminated in a deadly riot. But why keep dwelling on it?
A small number of Trump’s defenders showed up today, two loyal Secret Service men in particular, to cast doubt on Cassidy Hutchinson’s account of a few moments of that stressful day. They claim theywant to testify under oath to dispute Ms. Hutchinson’s account of Trump’s temper tantrum when his driver would not drive him to the Capitol to lead the armed protest there. Ms. Hutchinson testified that Tony Ornato (promoted by Trump from lead agent to Deputy Chief of Staff) told her (with his Secret Service colleague Engel, the other agent involved, present), that Trump had tried to grab the steering wheel of his armored limo and lunged to grab Engel by the throat when he refused to yield to the president’s command to drive to the Capitol. Engel will presumablytestify that this claim about the admittedly enraged Trump grabbing himis bullshit.
In law there’s an old maxim falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus (“false in one thing, false in everything). Presumably if the Secret Service men swear under oath that what she said is not what they told her (sworn “he said, she said” — a draw), and certainly not what happened, they have established, to some, that she is a liar whose entire testimony should be seen in that light.
There is no law against a president, or anyone else, angrily throwing his lunch against the wall, as Hutchinson reported Trump did after Bill Barr betrayed him by telling AP the truth about the absence of widespread voter fraud. Even if he did throw it, there are probably witnesses willingto testify that no ketchup dripped down the wall, and even if it did, so what?
If warnings were given to witnesses to remain loyal, or have bad things happen, like what happened to former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yavonovich, Colonel Alexander Vindman, Michael Cohen, so what? Loyalty is a good thing and it would be a shame if anything happened to a disloyal person who was confronted by a group of righteously angry people with guns or a noose, if you catch my drift.
The “slippery” question of Trump’s intent is not very slippery in light of his consistent behavior, and the evidence presented so far in the January 6th Select Committee hearings. He has obstructed justice since he was a young man, suckling at the hideous tit of the evil Roy Cohn, who begat ratfucker Roger Stone. He was not exonerated by Mueller for at least ten specific instances of obstruction of justice related to shutting down or obstructing the Mueller “witch hunt”.
Trump cannot lose, will not tolerate it, each of his bankruptcies were actually genius uses of the legal system to keep his untold billions. Every loss in court, a strategic victory. He surrounds himself with people ready to do whatever is necessary to protect the Big Baby.
As we wait for the next explosive revelations from the J6 investigation, the Congressman and others who asked Trump for pardons after January 6th have been mostly quiet about that. After all, the real story is a planned COMMIE takeover of the US and the godless attempt to rob from the rich to feed the unworthy poor! Biden inflation, Biden mental unfitness, Biden lies, Biden weakness!
There are two sides, at least, to most stories, but the side that claims an armed riot to stop the ceremonial finalization of Trump’s election loss is perfectly legal and fine, and nothing to see, has a much weaker story, one they’d rather avoid going into. Instead they stick to praising a radicalized Supreme Court and gearing up for a sprint in the last leg of a marathon toward American fascism.
When retired three star general, convicted perjurer, QAnon and martial law promoter Mike “Lock Her UP!” Flynn was asked, under oath, what he thought about the peaceful transfer of power, his answer was one word “fifth.”
It’s going to take a while, may come too late, may involve a Supreme Court ruling on presidential pardons to criminal co-conspirators, but several of Trump’s capos are going to be tried, convicted and locked up, at least until another Republican president can spring them with an unappealable, totally non-corrupt, pardon.
Todd: Whatever you thought of Roe, that decision never forced anybody to do anything they didn’t want to do. This decision now will force a woman to carry a pregnancy that they perhaps didn’t want to do. Does that at all make you uncomfortable, that we know — you’re forcing somebody to do something they don’t want to do? Roe didn’t do that. This ruling does.
Hutchinson: Well, no, I think it’s a very appropriate ruling. Obviously, when you’re looking at the government and the power of the government forcing someone to carry a child to term, you’ve got to think that through. And legislators are thinking that through.
“Forcing someone to carry a child to term.”
Hutchinson’s blithe attitude toward policies that will wreak havoc on women’s lives sums up the utter lack of respect for women’s autonomy and personhood that is so pervasive among Republicans. It seems as far as Hutchinson is concerned, that 13-year-old rape victim is nothing more than a vessel.
It’s all a big diversion from Biden’s many failures, weak Biden’s many impeachable high crimes and misdemeanorsincluding lying, unprovoked war in Ukraine, out of control inflation and skyrocketing gas prices…
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) with the next installment of his fast-paced seminar on exactly how Ginni Thomas’s dark money network has come to rule the Supreme Court, 6-3, every time.
Turns out, who’d have guessed, that most of those secret tax deductible billions in dark influence money (to staff thefederal judiciary while securing massive tax breaks for billionaires)isfossil-fuel money.Can you say Koch, Exxon and Halliburton?
The genius of the conversion of the religious right to the Republicanpartywas harnessing a widespread religious belief to a party platform. Vote for us and Jesus will stop weeping at the mass murder of embryos and fetuses, hallelujah! Say what you will about the cynical motives of the GOP,that maneuver brought them a gigantic block of faithful voters.
Then you bring in the branding and mass marketing people. Being anti-abortion is not a negative position, it is pro-life. The life it protects is not the victim of rape, not the woman whose pregnancy endangers her life, not the family with children who cannot afford to raise another child at that time.The only sacred life in the equation is the fertilized egg, on its way to becoming a fetus. We know this because GOD said so!!!
Hard to argue with motherfuckers who actually believe that God commanded them to do whatever the hell they’re doing, to save the immortal souls of the “unborn”. But in a democratic society where the establishment of a religion is prohibited by the First Amendment [1], we need to argue with them, by every legal means necessary.We need five more seatsin the Senate and keep control of the House, for starters.
Here is one excellent argument:
I Was Raped by My Father. An Abortion Saved My Life.
My shame was never about the abortion. I will forever be grateful that my pregnancy was terminated. I am fortunate that my body was spared an additional trauma imposed by my father — one that today would be forced by some state legislatures and courts. No child should be pressured or expected to carry a pregnancy and give birth or to feel remorse, guilt, doubt or unease about an abortion under any circumstances, let alone rape or incest. . .
. . . Abortion bans represent more than isolated state lawmaking or states’ rights — they represent an attack on the fundamental principles of liberty, freedom and autonomy. As Justice Blackmun noted in a 1986 majority opinion that reaffirmed Roe, “few decisions are more personal and intimate, more properly private or more basic to individual dignity and autonomy” than the decision to terminate a pregnancy. Abortion bans that provide no exceptions for rape and incest are a particularly cruel and immoral type of lawmaking.
[1]
EstablishmentClause. The First Amendment’s EstablishmentClause prohibits the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.”. This clause not only forbids the government from establishing an official religion, but also prohibits government actions that unduly favor one religion over another.
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