Where were the lawyers for the rule of law when Alvin Bragg was concocting a jury-rigged, election year prosecution against an unpopular (in NYC) political enemy? Where were they when Joe Biden proudly proclaimed that he'd invent every way he could to evade the SCOTUS ruling upending his racially-rigged affirmative action system designed to kneecap whites and Asians? Where were they when Bob Mueller's grand jury investigation was leaking to the press for all it was worth (while failing to indict its principal target)? Where were they when HLS and the rest of the University were coddling open-air anti-Semitism -- something they (very belatedly) no longer deny?
Most regrettably, "rule of law" has become little more than a slogan hijacked for partisan advantage, and yesterday was, as it has so often become, the Democrats' turn.
Sorry, this was a political rally thinly if gushingly disguised as a patriotic one.
Are you prepared to defend the president’s executive actions on the merits, or are you going to engage in various whataboutisms until the sun expands to swallow the earth?
Thank you for not contradicting anything I said. And "whataboutism" is a common, useful and effective way of teaching, among other things, law. Professors often will ask the class, "Yesterday we discussed the correct outcome in the case that featured facts A, B, and C. Today I want you to consider this: What about if we had that same case only this time with A, B, and X? And then what about if we added Y?"
Sneering at whataboutism is simply a mechanism for avoiding the often taxing question of how one might give a principled application of the same standards in a different but less congenial context.
1. We are in the comments of an article about a protest of the current president's executive actions against law firms. I think it is fair to critique a comment relitigating Biden-era grievances without any reference to what is happening now in that context.
2. Just because I found those warmed-over objections to legitimate prosecutorial action unworthy of response does not mean I agreed with them.
Calling a commenter's remarks "ridiculous propaganda" and acting as if you were his overlord is probably not optimally designed to bring about a substantive reply. But I'll say this much: I did not put forth a "defense of Trump," as you would know if you read what I wrote instead of what you apparently want to believe I wrote. I noted, and will repeat, that the indignant call for application of the rule of law should apply in both directions, and there are non-frivolous reasons to believe that that has not happened.
You mischaracterize President Biden's response to the Supreme Court's decision striking down affirmative action. You also mischaracterize affirmative action as being "Biden's", and you mischaracterize the intent and effect of affirmative action. Your mischaracterization of Biden's statement (which can be verified as mischaracterization by a reading of Biden's actual statement on the matter) is indeed ludicrous propaganda.
Then, your notion, the standard you want to set, that a former office holder cannot be prosecuted during an election year, ever, for anything, without rule of law suffering as a result, would have made it possible for Senator Menendez to evade prosecution by resigning though still running to regain office.
Meanwhile, in fact, rule of law did not at all suffer from Menendez or Trump being prosecuted.
And it is illustrative that you don't demand to know where these protesting lawyers were when Menendez was being prosecuted. Like Trump, Menendez was convicted in an election year, during which he was running for office.
We aren't even yet mentioning that Trump should have faced trial prior to election over the three other indictments produced in response to his acts.
And, your ridiculous demand to know where the people at this protest were in the past -- as though their current grievances couldn't possibly be valid unless you approved of how they lived their lives up until now -- marks you as fatuously arrogant, worthy perhaps of having a clown horn honked in your vicinity.
You clearly have not been paying attention. Robert Mueller was a Special Counsel. His investigation, ordered by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, was not a Grand Jury. The investigation final report, while it did not find evidence of collaboration with Russia, was nonetheless damning. "The investigation resulted in charges against 34 individuals and three companies, eight guilty pleas, and a conviction at trial." (Wikipedia) According to Attorney General Bill Barr, the report pointed to ten episodes of potential obstruction of justice by President Trump.
Just to add to that: Both Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein are friends of mine and have been for years One of Trump's most repulsive acts in his first term was constantly ridiculing Sessions because Sessions followed long pre-existing ethics rules in DOJ and refused to fire Mueller because he (Sessions) was ethically barred from participating in the investigation in any form.
Noted! No indication given that this Grand Jury's proceedings leaked. Of course, when a Grand Jury indicts, the results are published. And witnesses are generally permitted to reveal their own testimony -- thereby disclosing the existence of the Grand Jury.
Regarding the investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign's relations with Russians and/or Russian agents, what kind of American thinks it is acceptable for a U.S. campaign manager to sell private U.S. voter data to a Russian agent, for a president to then dangle pardons to that campaign manager so he won't cooperate with law enforcement, and for the president to then pardon the campaign manager who sold private U.S. voter info to a Russian agent?
The only reason Mueller did not indict Donald Trump, Jr. was that the relevant statute requires prosecutors to prove that the defendant knew he was violating the law. Note what a shabby picture that paints of Don, Jr. -- working on an American campaign, but not knowing U.S. law well enough to avoid compromising activities.
As is clear from multiple investigations --- and not only the Mueller investigation -- it is beyond all doubt that Russia attacked our 2016 elections. What kind of person in the U.S. presidency would obstruct the investigation into Russia's attacks on our elections? Trump did that, you of course realize.
You claim to be interested in lessening antisemitism, yet one of the things known about Putin's "troll farm" attacks on our society during the 2016 election included that troll farm's tactic of deliberately exacerbating social tensions -- and they, Russian trolls did it with Jews, in various ways, for instance on the one hand "commenting" as though in support of David Duke, to David Duke and his followers, and on the other hand "commenting" as though in support of Laura Loomer to her and her followers. So one message Trump could have sent -- by NOT obstructing the Mueller investigation -- would have been that he won't tolerate outside actors like Putin exacerbating sore points in U.S. society.
And let's not forget: throughout his 2016 campaign, Trump lied to the U.S. public, claiming he had no business whatsoever in Russia, whereas in reality at the time he was trying for a Moscow tower for which he needed Putin's approval. In that context, Trump was calling Putin a "strong" leader, and Obama (who was sanctioning Putin) "weak." Of course, once Putin knows Trump is lying to the U.S. public about something, he can say to Trump, "Do as I tell you, or I will cause this secret you don't want known, to become known to the American public." As Mueller noted, Trump's obstruction could well have prevented him, Mueller, from uncovering either a conspiracy with Russian agents, or some other criminal activity.
To condemn the Mueller investigation as unneeded and/or unproductive of good results is unpatriotic.
Just noting......there was a similar rally yesterday in front of the S. Ct. building in Washington, DC.
What is demonstrated by the prior comments is that there are some folks who are so pro-Trump that they cannot understand issues relating to the rule of law. (You want to be opposed to abortion, in favor of ceasing to aid Ukraine? OK, you are entitled to your opinions.
But when Pres. Trump calls for the impeachment judges merely because he doesn't like the rulings, we should all be horrified. President Trump says he's a big supporter of the 2nd amendment. That's nice. But how about the part of the constitution dealing with due process? What about the separation of powers outlined in the constitution. He took an oath to defend the constitution, and I read the oath as contemplating the ENTIRE constitution.
"The problem is Trump’s persona, and specifically his numerous and serious character defects. He’s self-involved and juvenile to an astonishing degree, and not particularly honest either. He refused to accept that he lost the last election even though virtually all the polling (including from friendly polls) predicted he would, and his own quite conservative Attorney General, Bill Barr, and numerous other allies, told him he had. He then egged on a bunch of nonsensical rioters in body paint and buffalo horns who sought to disrupt (or prevent altogether — you can’t get a straight story) the counting of the electoral votes on January 6, and thus the peaceful and lawful transfer of power that is perhaps the single most cherished hallmark of the many noble gifts America has given the world.
"I was never in doubt that the rioters would fail. American democracy was never at risk to the faux panic-stricken extent the Left wants us to believe. But none of that mitigates the stain Trump’s reckless vanity smeared on our history. Whether he’s a criminal or not — something that remains to be determined — he has forfeited public trust and proven himself unfit for office."
I get it that there are those for whom no level of criticism or Trump will be sufficient. That's life. But as I tried to do as both a federal prosecutor and a law professor, seeing that there's more than one side to a story is a virtue not a defect.
"American democracy was never at risk to the faux panic-stricken extent the Left wants us to believe."
And yet, the government is being dismantled through unconstitutional and anticonstitutional methods, persons who under the Constitution may not be denied liberty without due process of law are being denied liberty without due process, the emoluments clause is wiped along Trump's buttocks cleavage as he sells access to himself and the White House via his meme coins, the Republican House majority only exists because of racist gerrymandering of southern states, Trump has now spent more than five years undermining confidence in our free and fair elections, in these and thousands of other describable ways, the U.S. is experiencing democratic backsliding. It isn't just that the democracy is "at risk" it's that Trump and his cabal have already degraded it.
How many of these lawyers support aided or did deals with Quatar which is financially responsible for the cancerous growth of Hamas propaganda masquerading as scholarship in our universities and public schools?
Where were all the demonstrating lawyers during the campaign of lawfare that was designed to keep Trump from running and winning and which was predicated on indictments based on constitutionally dubious theories? They were all missing in action
Does the issue of district court judges issuing nationwide injunctions and who Schumer bragged were the line of resistance for the Democrats and judges aiding and abetting illegal Immigrants bother anyone? What about the notion that an immigration court has the statutory and constitutionally valid power to deport immigrants who like to kill Jews? One wonders about the values of these lawyers who attended demonstrations on May Day a day not associated with loyalty to the Constitution of the United States .
One wonders if any of the demonstrating lawyers would offer their services to the victims of a violent crime committed by an illegal immigrant or engage in pro bono litigation against the NGOs that fund the Hamas sleeper cells in our universities
Where were the lawyers for the rule of law when Alvin Bragg was concocting a jury-rigged, election year prosecution against an unpopular (in NYC) political enemy? Where were they when Joe Biden proudly proclaimed that he'd invent every way he could to evade the SCOTUS ruling upending his racially-rigged affirmative action system designed to kneecap whites and Asians? Where were they when Bob Mueller's grand jury investigation was leaking to the press for all it was worth (while failing to indict its principal target)? Where were they when HLS and the rest of the University were coddling open-air anti-Semitism -- something they (very belatedly) no longer deny?
Most regrettably, "rule of law" has become little more than a slogan hijacked for partisan advantage, and yesterday was, as it has so often become, the Democrats' turn.
Sorry, this was a political rally thinly if gushingly disguised as a patriotic one.
This is such an exhausting rhetorical bit.
Are you prepared to defend the president’s executive actions on the merits, or are you going to engage in various whataboutisms until the sun expands to swallow the earth?
Thank you for not contradicting anything I said. And "whataboutism" is a common, useful and effective way of teaching, among other things, law. Professors often will ask the class, "Yesterday we discussed the correct outcome in the case that featured facts A, B, and C. Today I want you to consider this: What about if we had that same case only this time with A, B, and X? And then what about if we added Y?"
Sneering at whataboutism is simply a mechanism for avoiding the often taxing question of how one might give a principled application of the same standards in a different but less congenial context.
1. We are in the comments of an article about a protest of the current president's executive actions against law firms. I think it is fair to critique a comment relitigating Biden-era grievances without any reference to what is happening now in that context.
2. Just because I found those warmed-over objections to legitimate prosecutorial action unworthy of response does not mean I agreed with them.
The one thing you don't achieve with all your ridiculous propaganda, is a defense of Trump.
Yes or no: Did he illegally alter his business records?
Yes or no: Did he violate campaign finance laws in the process of illegally altering his business records?
Bonus question: Did Trump direct the criminal conspiracy for which Michael Cohen spent time in prison?
Calling a commenter's remarks "ridiculous propaganda" and acting as if you were his overlord is probably not optimally designed to bring about a substantive reply. But I'll say this much: I did not put forth a "defense of Trump," as you would know if you read what I wrote instead of what you apparently want to believe I wrote. I noted, and will repeat, that the indignant call for application of the rule of law should apply in both directions, and there are non-frivolous reasons to believe that that has not happened.
You mischaracterize President Biden's response to the Supreme Court's decision striking down affirmative action. You also mischaracterize affirmative action as being "Biden's", and you mischaracterize the intent and effect of affirmative action. Your mischaracterization of Biden's statement (which can be verified as mischaracterization by a reading of Biden's actual statement on the matter) is indeed ludicrous propaganda.
Then, your notion, the standard you want to set, that a former office holder cannot be prosecuted during an election year, ever, for anything, without rule of law suffering as a result, would have made it possible for Senator Menendez to evade prosecution by resigning though still running to regain office.
Meanwhile, in fact, rule of law did not at all suffer from Menendez or Trump being prosecuted.
And it is illustrative that you don't demand to know where these protesting lawyers were when Menendez was being prosecuted. Like Trump, Menendez was convicted in an election year, during which he was running for office.
We aren't even yet mentioning that Trump should have faced trial prior to election over the three other indictments produced in response to his acts.
And, your ridiculous demand to know where the people at this protest were in the past -- as though their current grievances couldn't possibly be valid unless you approved of how they lived their lives up until now -- marks you as fatuously arrogant, worthy perhaps of having a clown horn honked in your vicinity.
You clearly have not been paying attention. Robert Mueller was a Special Counsel. His investigation, ordered by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, was not a Grand Jury. The investigation final report, while it did not find evidence of collaboration with Russia, was nonetheless damning. "The investigation resulted in charges against 34 individuals and three companies, eight guilty pleas, and a conviction at trial." (Wikipedia) According to Attorney General Bill Barr, the report pointed to ten episodes of potential obstruction of justice by President Trump.
Wikipedia is a credible source of information?
Just to add to that: Both Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein are friends of mine and have been for years One of Trump's most repulsive acts in his first term was constantly ridiculing Sessions because Sessions followed long pre-existing ethics rules in DOJ and refused to fire Mueller because he (Sessions) was ethically barred from participating in the investigation in any form.
Well, one us has not been paying attention. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/muellers-grand-jury-russia-probe/story?id=49032822
Noted! No indication given that this Grand Jury's proceedings leaked. Of course, when a Grand Jury indicts, the results are published. And witnesses are generally permitted to reveal their own testimony -- thereby disclosing the existence of the Grand Jury.
"No indication given that this Grand Jury's proceedings leaked," says the man who didn't know until today that there was a grand jury at all.
Regarding the investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign's relations with Russians and/or Russian agents, what kind of American thinks it is acceptable for a U.S. campaign manager to sell private U.S. voter data to a Russian agent, for a president to then dangle pardons to that campaign manager so he won't cooperate with law enforcement, and for the president to then pardon the campaign manager who sold private U.S. voter info to a Russian agent?
The only reason Mueller did not indict Donald Trump, Jr. was that the relevant statute requires prosecutors to prove that the defendant knew he was violating the law. Note what a shabby picture that paints of Don, Jr. -- working on an American campaign, but not knowing U.S. law well enough to avoid compromising activities.
As is clear from multiple investigations --- and not only the Mueller investigation -- it is beyond all doubt that Russia attacked our 2016 elections. What kind of person in the U.S. presidency would obstruct the investigation into Russia's attacks on our elections? Trump did that, you of course realize.
You claim to be interested in lessening antisemitism, yet one of the things known about Putin's "troll farm" attacks on our society during the 2016 election included that troll farm's tactic of deliberately exacerbating social tensions -- and they, Russian trolls did it with Jews, in various ways, for instance on the one hand "commenting" as though in support of David Duke, to David Duke and his followers, and on the other hand "commenting" as though in support of Laura Loomer to her and her followers. So one message Trump could have sent -- by NOT obstructing the Mueller investigation -- would have been that he won't tolerate outside actors like Putin exacerbating sore points in U.S. society.
And let's not forget: throughout his 2016 campaign, Trump lied to the U.S. public, claiming he had no business whatsoever in Russia, whereas in reality at the time he was trying for a Moscow tower for which he needed Putin's approval. In that context, Trump was calling Putin a "strong" leader, and Obama (who was sanctioning Putin) "weak." Of course, once Putin knows Trump is lying to the U.S. public about something, he can say to Trump, "Do as I tell you, or I will cause this secret you don't want known, to become known to the American public." As Mueller noted, Trump's obstruction could well have prevented him, Mueller, from uncovering either a conspiracy with Russian agents, or some other criminal activity.
To condemn the Mueller investigation as unneeded and/or unproductive of good results is unpatriotic.
Just noting......there was a similar rally yesterday in front of the S. Ct. building in Washington, DC.
What is demonstrated by the prior comments is that there are some folks who are so pro-Trump that they cannot understand issues relating to the rule of law. (You want to be opposed to abortion, in favor of ceasing to aid Ukraine? OK, you are entitled to your opinions.
But when Pres. Trump calls for the impeachment judges merely because he doesn't like the rulings, we should all be horrified. President Trump says he's a big supporter of the 2nd amendment. That's nice. But how about the part of the constitution dealing with due process? What about the separation of powers outlined in the constitution. He took an oath to defend the constitution, and I read the oath as contemplating the ENTIRE constitution.
For those who think I'm making a defense of Trump rather than pointing out that standards of honest governance should be applied across the board, I will simply note that I said the following three years ago on my own Substack, https://ringsideatthereckoning.substack.com/p/between-the-trump-infected-republicans?utm_source=publication-search, well before any of Trump's current stunts:
"The problem is Trump’s persona, and specifically his numerous and serious character defects. He’s self-involved and juvenile to an astonishing degree, and not particularly honest either. He refused to accept that he lost the last election even though virtually all the polling (including from friendly polls) predicted he would, and his own quite conservative Attorney General, Bill Barr, and numerous other allies, told him he had. He then egged on a bunch of nonsensical rioters in body paint and buffalo horns who sought to disrupt (or prevent altogether — you can’t get a straight story) the counting of the electoral votes on January 6, and thus the peaceful and lawful transfer of power that is perhaps the single most cherished hallmark of the many noble gifts America has given the world.
"I was never in doubt that the rioters would fail. American democracy was never at risk to the faux panic-stricken extent the Left wants us to believe. But none of that mitigates the stain Trump’s reckless vanity smeared on our history. Whether he’s a criminal or not — something that remains to be determined — he has forfeited public trust and proven himself unfit for office."
I get it that there are those for whom no level of criticism or Trump will be sufficient. That's life. But as I tried to do as both a federal prosecutor and a law professor, seeing that there's more than one side to a story is a virtue not a defect.
You are fatuous. You actually said:
"American democracy was never at risk to the faux panic-stricken extent the Left wants us to believe."
And yet, the government is being dismantled through unconstitutional and anticonstitutional methods, persons who under the Constitution may not be denied liberty without due process of law are being denied liberty without due process, the emoluments clause is wiped along Trump's buttocks cleavage as he sells access to himself and the White House via his meme coins, the Republican House majority only exists because of racist gerrymandering of southern states, Trump has now spent more than five years undermining confidence in our free and fair elections, in these and thousands of other describable ways, the U.S. is experiencing democratic backsliding. It isn't just that the democracy is "at risk" it's that Trump and his cabal have already degraded it.
I gotta wonder if these protesters cheered Eastman being disbarred, or Trump’s other lawyers being pushed out of the profession?
How many of these lawyers support aided or did deals with Quatar which is financially responsible for the cancerous growth of Hamas propaganda masquerading as scholarship in our universities and public schools?
Where were all the demonstrating lawyers during the campaign of lawfare that was designed to keep Trump from running and winning and which was predicated on indictments based on constitutionally dubious theories? They were all missing in action
Does the issue of district court judges issuing nationwide injunctions and who Schumer bragged were the line of resistance for the Democrats and judges aiding and abetting illegal Immigrants bother anyone? What about the notion that an immigration court has the statutory and constitutionally valid power to deport immigrants who like to kill Jews? One wonders about the values of these lawyers who attended demonstrations on May Day a day not associated with loyalty to the Constitution of the United States .
One wonders if any of the demonstrating lawyers would offer their services to the victims of a violent crime committed by an illegal immigrant or engage in pro bono litigation against the NGOs that fund the Hamas sleeper cells in our universities