Fearmongering?
Friends,
Apologies for sending you a second letter today, but like many of you, I’ve been going over Chief Justice John Roberts’s presidential immunity decision, trying to understand the distinction it sets out between “official” acts of a president, which are immune from prosecution, and “unofficial” acts, which are not immune. And I wanted to share with you a particularly troubling aspect.
Having served in the Justice Department soon after Richard Nixon sought to use the department to go after the people on his “enemies list,” I was struck by Roberts’s assertion that a “president may discuss potential investigations and prosecutions with his Attorney General and other Justice Department officials …” and that “the Attorney General, as head of the Justice Department, acts as the President’s ‘chief law enforcement officer’ who ‘provides vital assistance to [him]…”
Since Nixon, the Justice Department has been careful to keep the president and the White House strictly out of decisions over whom to prosecute. But Roberts’s language would immunize Trump from criminal prosecution, were he to become president again and seek to use the Justice Department to prosecute his enemies — exactly what dictators do.
In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that “The Republican appointed-majority in this opinion has … opened the door to a President exercising wide dictatorial powers without any ultimate legal accountability for his actions.”
In his opinion for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts accused Sotomayor and the two other Democratic-appointed justices who joined her in dissent of “fearmongering on the basis of extreme hypotheticals….”
But is this really fearmongering? Trump has repeatedly called for the imprisonment of his political opponents, often singling out members of the January 6 committee.
Over the weekend, Trump circulated two posts on his social media website that presumably reflect his thinking.
One singled out Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming congresswoman, and called for her to be prosecuted by a type of military tribunal reserved for enemy combatants and war criminals, which would strip Cheney of her right to due process. “Elizabeth Lynne Cheney is guilty of treason,” the post said. “Retruth if you want televised military tribunals.”
The other post included photos of 15 former and current elected officials that said, in all-capital letters, “they should be going to jail on Monday not Steve Bannon!” The list included President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Senators Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer and former Vice President Mike Pence, and members of the House committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, including Ms. Cheney and the former Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger, another Republican, and the Democratic Representatives Adam Schiff, Jamie Raskin, Pete Aguilar, Zoe Lofgren, and Bennie Thompson, who chaired the committee.
The posts were still up on Trump’s Truth Social profile yesterday afternoon.
Liz Cheney responded with her own social media post, saying “Donald — This is the type of thing that demonstrates yet again that you are not a stable adult — and are not fit for office.”
The Trump campaign responded to Cheney with a statement claiming that “Liz Cheney and the sham January 6th committee banned key witnesses, shielded important evidence, and destroyed documents” related to their investigation.
I don’t believe Sotomayor and her fellow dissenters from yesterday’s opinion were engaging in fearmongering on the basis of extreme hypotheticals. Do you?
No they were not fear mongering. They were sounding the alarm loud and clear, and well they should. Time for everyone to pitch in, in some way. Voting is not enough this year.
Now is the time to realize that the gloves are off. This isn't even about Trump now. He's just a tool of the real powers behind him.
Consider each of the laws the Supreme Court has made this session.
The Chevron decision should be called the "free the oligarchs" decision. It means that not only is all regulation protecting consumers, citizens and the environment from corporate and private predation be removed. It also fulfills the longer term goal of the arch-conservatives of destroying the law in general. Every regulatory decision will now have to go to a Congress with a 14% approval rating. It also leads to their goals of ending Social Security, Medicare and the IRS so they don’t have to pay taxes anymore.
The decision to overturn Roe should be called the "Evangelical Bribe". Overturning it showed the complete dishonesty and agenda of the court. If you listen to them, their goals include a nationwide ban on abortion, banning contraception, banning gay marriage, banning interracial marriage, religion in public schools.
The immunity decision is the worst. It is to prepare for a king. They know that Biden will never grab the power they have given, but they also know that Trump will. We know that Trump knows no law and now this is to tell him that there is no law above him. We know his nature. It's evil.
This court is not just radical, but with these decisions they have dropped their mask and shown their goal. It's not about Trump anymore. It's about the forces that want to destroy America and have a king. Trump, for all his evil, is just a face on it. They figure they have a good king for their plans. Behind this is something bigger than Trump. The gloves are off. This is about a large scale, long planned, conservative effort to take over of America and if you want America to continue you better plan for a fight, because they have planned for decades, and the skirmishes are over. They have started a war on America. You have no choice now but to pick a side. Fight or be a slave.
President Biden wants to take the high ground. I understand that, but I do recall that the main message of Machiavelli that if your opponent lowers themselves morally, you must be able to match that immorality or you will lose. I’m not sure taking the high ground will work. The idea of waiting for the election to determine the outcome of this would be nice, except the SCOTUS is not done and fully plans to insure the outcome of the election.
If you don’t think the SCOTUS can prevent the Jan. 6 hearing, don’t bet on it.