Matt Gaetz nomination a litmus test for U.S. Senate

 President-elect Donald Trump's nomination of former Congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general is not as outlandish as it appears. Gaetz who would serve at the top law enforcement official in the country, resigned from the United States House of Representatives only days before a, purportedly, scathing ethics report was going to be release.

The investigation was no secret, Gaetz allegedly had sex with a teenager and used illicit drugs. The police had investigated the matter as well.

Gaetz's nomination is not because he is the best available person for the job, far from it.  He is being sent to the U.S. Senate to test just how far GOP senators will let the soon to be president go.  If the senate confirms Gaetz the sky is the limit for President Trump.  Gaetz is a litmus test . . . 

Can special counsel Jack Smith actually be prosecuted?

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Georgia) asked Jack Smith’s office to preserve all records of the historic classified document and election interference probes, a routine first step in congressional inquiries, law enforcement investigations and litigation, reported, reported the Washington Post.

Smith’s team included veteran national security prosecutors who had spent years at the Justice Department. They secured grand jury indictments charging Doanld Trump with hoarding classified documents after leaving the White House and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them, and illegally trying to overturn Biden’s 2020 election victory.

Since this week’s election, Smith has signaled that he plans to wind down the cases against Trump and focus on completing a final report to Attorney General Merrick Garland, rather than pushing ahead with the prosecutions until the inauguration and forcing a confrontation with the incoming administration.

Smith is assessing how he wants to proceed with the case now that Trump is expected to be sworn in as president on Jan. 20, the special counsel and his team told a federal judge in a filing Friday. Justice Department policy would not allow for the prosecution of a sitting president. U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan responded by granting Smith’s request to suspend all remaining deadlines in the case Friday.

Jordan and Loudermilk’s letter to Smith suggested that Smith’s office might respond to the election by purging records, warning, “The Office of Special Counsel is not immune from transparency or above accountability for its actions.” The lawmakers, both staunch Trump supporters, repeated an earlier request for Smith to turn over records about his communications with Garland, his hiring decisions and the court-approved search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in August 2022.

In its filing to Chutkan on Friday, Smith’s team said it needed to assess how to proceed with the case, which accused Trump of trying to interfere with the 2020 election results, now that he is returning to the White House.

Chutkan quickly granted that request and ordered prosecutors to file a report by Dec. 2 explaining how they want to proceed.

The case is still far from a potential trial, and Chutkan is determining what allegations in the superseding indictment may still be prosecuted after the Supreme Court ruled this summer that presidents enjoy broad immunity.

Smith’s options include preparing a final report for public disclosure or dismissing both cases so that they can be revived after Trump’s second term ends, said Barbara McQuade, a law professor at the University of Michigan and a former federal prosecutor.

If he terminates the criminal cases soon enough, Smith could deliver a final report detailing the findings of his two probes to Garland before Trump becomes the next president. A final report would allow Smith to “share with the public his evidence of Trump’s crimes,” McQuade said. “Members of Congress should be careful what they ask for.”

Smith could then resign as special counsel before Trump has a chance to make good on his promises to fire him.

Garland has previously said that he would make special counsel reports public if they reached his desk, though he has not indicated specifically what he would do if Smith gave him such a report now.

Were Smith to press forward into a Trump administration, the president or his attorney general could fire him and order the Justice Department to drop the prosecution.

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Creators: Report: White House Controlled 'Investigation' During Kavanaugh Confirmation

Matthew T. Mangino
Creators Syndicate
October 14, 2024 

The old adage that the cover-up is often worse than the crime is no more evident, as we have recently learned, than with the confirmation of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.

In 2018, Kavanaugh was nominated by President Donald Trump to fill the seat left vacant by the sudden retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kennedy was appointed by President Ronald Reagan. A Republican appointee, Kennedy consistently voted for such left-leaning causes as narrowing the death penalty, same-sex marriage and abortion. Kennedy's departure opened the door to appoint a conservative to the court with an eye toward eliminating women's reproductive rights.

However, after two women, Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez, came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct, it appeared Kavanaugh's appointment might be derailed.

In what appeared to be a magnanimous move, Trump called for a supplemental background investigation by the FBI. The investigation was to be done by the book. Unfortunately, there was no book on supplemental background investigations. The White House set the parameters for the "investigation."

Trump promised that the FBI would have "free rein" to investigate claims by Ford and Ramirez. He went on to say the FBI was "talking to everybody" and he wanted the FBI "to interview whoever they deemed appropriate, at their discretion."

As shocking as it might seem to some, Trump was not telling the truth when he described the 2018 "investigation" of Kavanaugh. The Kavanaugh "investigation" was really not an investigation at all.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a Senate Judiciary Committee member, released a recent report into the time leading up to Kavanaugh's confirmation. He found that messages to the FBI tip line regarding Kavanaugh were forwarded directly to the White House and never investigated. The FBI was instructed by the White House to talk to 10 potential witnesses and was not given the leeway to pursue corroborating evidence.

"On instructions from the White House, the FBI did not investigate thousands of tips that came in through the FBI's tip line," according to the Whitehouse report. "Instead, all tips related to Kavanaugh were forwarded to the White House without investigation. If anything, the White House may have used the tip line to steer FBI investigators away from derogatory or damaging information."

According to the Guardian, the FBI received more than 4,500 calls and electronic messages. Even when senators contacted the FBI directly with the names of people who claimed to have relevant information about Kavanaugh, the FBI did not contact them.

The FBI wrapped up their "investigation" within a week. They never even interviewed Ford or Kavanaugh.

Several senators went on to vote to confirm Kavanaugh based on the FBI investigation not finding any corroborating evidence to support Ford's and Ramirez's stories. The FBI didn't try to corroborate their stories, and if there was corroboration in any of the thousands of tips received by the FBI, no one saw it except maybe the White House.

This isn't a failure on the part of the FBI. The Trump White House, the report found, "exercised total control over the scope of the investigation, preventing the FBI from interviewing relevant witnesses and following up on tips. The White House refused to authorize basic investigatory steps that might have uncovered information corroborating the allegations."

If Trump had no qualms about lying to U.S. senators about something as fundamentally important as the confirmation for a lifetime term on the United States Supreme Court, what is the likelihood he'll be honest with the rest of us?

Here the cover-up made it possible to turn back the clock on women and their reproductive rights. Kavanaugh joined the high court, and in less than four years, the court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book The Executioner's Toll, 2010 was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on X @MatthewTMangino.

To visit Creators CLICK HERE

Chapter one in the autocratic playbook--'Criminalizing dissent'

An expert who studies authoritarianism and fascism said Donald Trump’s rhetoric about criminalizing dissent is familiar, and could carry serious implications for the country if he’s elected president, reported NBC News.

“This is out of the autocratic playbook. As autocrats consolidate their power once they’re in office, anything that threatens their power, or exposes their corruption, or releases information that’s harmful to them in any way becomes illegal,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian and professor at New York University who wrote the 2020 book “Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present.”

“He’s actually rehearsing, in a sense, what he would be doing as head of state, which is what Orban does, Modi is doing, Putin has long done,” she said, referring to the leaders of Hungary, India and Russia, respectively. “Just as there’s a divide now because of this brainwashing about who is a patriot and who is a criminal about Jan. 6, right? In the same way, telling the truth in any area — journalists, scientists, even people like me, anybody who is engaged in objective inquiry, prosecutors, of course — they become criminal elements and they need to be shut down.”

Some Harris voters say Trump is channeling dictators.

“He reminds me of Hitler and the rise to power,” said Dan Geiger, a retired Pittsburgh resident. “The more he lies the more it’s accepted by his faithful followers.”

Trump has suggested investigations involving his conduct are illegitimate under the law and vowed revenge against the prosecutors who oversee them. He has also claimed, with no evidence, that President Joe Biden directed those prosecutions, even the state indictments he has no authority over.

Upon early revelations of his New York indictment, Trump said the prosecutor “ILLEGALLY LEAKED” it. And the probe into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia? “They illegally spied on my campaign.”

Trump voters have mixed views on revenge

Trump rallied a raucous crowd Wednesday in Scranton, Pennsylvania, launching personal attacks on Harris and drawing jeers and boos from a sea of red MAGA-hatted supporters as he spoke of the “enemy from within” — government officials with whom he’s clashed. He mentioned as one example Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., which sparked a “lock him up!” shout from one supporter.

But some of Trump’s own voters told NBC News they disapprove of the revenge-based themes in his campaign while still planning to support him because of their concerns about the economy and immigration.

Walter Buckman, a Scranton native, said he’s supporting Trump because of his views on immigration and the economy. But the self-described Catholic is “absolutely not” on board with his rhetoric about exacting revenge and getting even.

“The way to get even with anybody is to change the economy. Getting even should not be in the playbook,” he said. “Is revenge a good thing? It’s not a good thing.”

Debbie Hendrix, a Pennsylvanian who attended the Trump rally donning a “MAGA” hat, said she’s excited to vote for Trump a third time. But even she is put off by his talk of retribution.

“I don’t agree with that. I think people like ‘Drain the swamp,’” she said, but in her view that doesn’t mean personally going after his critics. “I don’t think he should sink to their level.”

Sometimes, Trump launches the claim of illegality plausibly. In October 2023, he said advocates in Colorado are trying to “illegally remove my name from the ballot” over his role in Jan. 6, a case he fought and won at the U.S. Supreme Court. More recently, he has said people who get caught cheating in the election will be prosecuted, essentially restating existing law.

Fetterman: ‘A menu of dumb s---’

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., who is campaigning in conservative rural areas for Harris, said Trump is no stranger to “bizarre ramblings,” but warned that it doesn’t demotivate his voters.

“That’s just a menu of dumb shit that he always says,” Fetterman said. “I don’t even pay attention to those kinds of things. Most people don’t really take it at face value or whatever.”

It’s important for everyone who’s troubled by it to turn out and vote for Harris, he said, criticizing the “uncommitted” movement, supporters of perennial Green Party nominee Jill Stein, and others who abhor Trump but could waste their vote.

“If you are not 100% voting for Harris, then you are either directly or indirectly helping Trump,” Fetterman said. “Go ahead and try that again. That’s what happened in 2016 when people threw their votes away on that dope Jill Stein.”

Trump has responded to criticisms of his authoritarian rhetoric by repeatedly claiming Democrats are the real fascists and accusing them of “weaponizing” the government against him. His campaign didn't return messages seeking comment for this article.

If he’s elected, could Trump actually succeed at centralizing power for himself, in a system built on checks and balances that was often successful at restraining him during his first term.

“That’s the big question,” Ben-Ghiat said, adding that it depends partly on his ability to impose party fealty, intimidate critics and install competent bureaucrats who are effective at using levers of power to advance his personal aims.

“It is about criminalizing dissent,” she said. “There is a method to his madness in that he has taken people on a journey of indoctrination.”

To read more CLICK HERE

Be careful what you wish for, SCOTUS creates volatile campaign issues

 Professor Eric J. Segall of Georgia Sate University, writing at Jurist:

The conservative justices on the Roberts Court consistently lecture the American people about the importance of text, history, and tradition to constitutional litigation. They use the term originalism as a catch-all phrase for their alleged focus on prior law. They want the American people to believe that their preferred outcomes are based on legal sources external to their own ideological preferences.

As the Court starts the new term, however, we can see from last year’s important cases that the justices’ alleged commitments to originalism are illusory. Election concerns and pragmatic factors drove the Court’s important decisions not any open-minded journey through our Constitution’s text, history, and traditions. That pattern is always true no matter which political party controls the Court. But the liberal justices do not pretend they can fill the open spaces of constitutional law with answers derived exclusively from text, history, and tradition.

As a matter of governmental transparency and rule of law values, the justices should justify their country-defining decisions with reference to their values, politics, and experiences and not pretend that text, history, and tradition are the drivers of the results they reach. Last term’s cases starkly and dangerously illustrate the disconnect between how the Roberts Courts describes the methods they use to solve hard issues and the actual factors generating those decisions. A summary of those cases and their context demonstrates that politics not law were at the forefront of the justices’ considerations.

Abortion

Donald Trump’s and J.D. Vance’s meandering and changing statements about abortion reflect GOP awareness that they are on the wrong side of this issue in a post-Dobbs world. According to Whit Ayres, a GOP pollster and consultant, “when you’re talking about abortion, you’re playing on the Democrats’ turf just like when you’re talking about immigration and inflation, you’re playing on Republicans’ turf.”

The conservative justices understood the politics of the moment so were also “loath” to talk about abortion last term, just like the leaders of the Republican Party. That concern resulted in the Court’s dismissal on procedural and standing grounds of two huge cases because the justices were wary about issuing anti-choice opinions five months before a monumental election. The cases were dismissed prior to the justices’ reaching the merits, so it is likely both, one involving a suit by anti-choice doctors to make abortion drugs much harder if not impossible for women to obtain, and one dealing with emergency room procedures during difficult pregnancies, will return to the Court, but not in an election year.

Trump Cases

The dismissal of the abortion decisions, admittedly, is one step removed from cases directly impacting elections, although the effects of those two cases, had they been decided differently, would have hurt the GOP in November. The two Trump cases the Court heard this term demonstrated how much the six conservative justices were focused on the upcoming presidential election not text, history, or tradition.

Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment forbids any person “who having taken an oath . . . to support the Constitution . . . shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding “any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State.” Two conservative scholars—Professors William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen—wrote an important article arguing that President Donald Trump is disqualified from seeking the Presidency because of his involvement in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Subsequently, the Colorado Supreme Court agreed and ruled that Trump could not be on the Colorado ballot.

In a unanimous and fast-tracked ruling, the Court held that states have no jurisdiction to disqualify a President under Section 3, at least absent a federal law authorizing them to do so. The justices knew that Congress would not pass such an authorization, and the disqualification issue vanished from the scene, certainly helping Trump.

Why did the liberal justices go along, even if they disagreed about the breadth of the opinion? They knew that red states were not going to disqualify Trump, that they were out-voted anyway, and they were likely scared of future disqualifications of Democratic candidates by red states.

But the most important aspects of this case were the Court’s speedy resolution of the controversy and the complete absence of any serious discussion of text, history, and tradition. Instead, the justices focused on pragmatic and prudential concerns. When originalism does not align with the conservative justices’ values and politics, the Roberts Court consistently minimizes or ignores text, history, and tradition.

The second Trump case, involving the President’s immunity from criminal prosecution after he leaves office, was characterized by one noted commentator as the legal nadir of the Roberts Court, putting the President “above the law.” There can be little doubt that the result and the timing of the decision was designed to help the former President. They made Trump’s prosecutions as difficult and as delayed as possible.

The Court created three buckets of Presidential conduct. For core constitutional functions, such as the President’s pardon power, he possesses immunity. For acts taken pursuant to congressional authority, he has presumptive immunity. For unofficial conduct, he has no immunity.

This approach is reasonable and had the Court stopped there, the lower courts would have had to figure out in which bucket Trump’s efforts to steal the election belonged. But the Roberts opinion (with the liberals dissenting) went much further and held that, when judges try to figure out the relevant buckets, evidence of motive, other official acts, and discussions with top advisors cannot be considered by the courts. Pursuant to those gratuitous add-ons without any basis in text, history, or tradition, Presidents are now effectively immune for acts taken while they were President, no matter how criminal.

The Court’s fast-tracking of the disqualification case way back in February combined with their delay of the immunity case and its eventual holding (on the last day of the term) insured that Donald Trump would be on the ballot in November and that the pending criminal case against him brought by Jack Smith would not be concluded by the election, and that the disqualification question would not affect the election.

No constitutional text provides immunity for the President, the Court barely glanced at history, and the entire decision reads like living constitutionalism on steroids. In both the immunity and the disqualification cases, the justices barely glanced at the law and decided based on other concerns, mostly about the upcoming election. They acted exactly as one would expect Republican politicians to act.

Second Amendment

And then there were guns. Two years ago, the Court decided New York State Rifle & Pistol, Inc. v. Bruen, in which the Court overturned a 1911 New York law requiring a special license to openly carry a firearm and issued a new and bizarre analysis that has caused chaos and confusion in the lower courts. Part of the chaos included an unhinged Fifth Circuit decision invalidating a federal law disarming people who are under domestic relations protective orders. The defendant had a history of violent threats, including against the girlfriend who was the subject of the order.

The Court could not affirm that madness shortly before the election. Such a holding would have been a complete disaster at the polls, especially among women who are much too often the victims of domestic violence. Thus, in Rahimi v. United States, the Court reversed the Fifth Circuit and said the defendant in the case could be constitutionally prohibited from owning a gun. Only Justice Thomas dissented.

The Roberts Court used the issues of abortion, guns, Presidential immunity, and Trump’s potential disqualification to protect Republican politicians running for office. Text, history, and tradition simply did not matter to the originalists in these cases. Although the justices often hide behind legalese instead of the real drivers of their judgments, last term was one of the worst measured by pure hypocrisy. The conservative justices should stop pretending their important constitutional law decisions flow from legal sources or their originalism. They do not. The justices hiding that reality is a gross affront to transparency and the rule of law.

To read more CLICK HERE

Creators: Remember When the Trump Administration Started Executing Federal Inmates?

Matthew T. Mangino
Creators Syndicate
September 23, 2024

Imagine a candidate seeking reelection to the office of president of the United States who would systematically start executing condemned prisoners in the midst of an election. Using the death chamber to curry favor with a segment of the electorate is callous and unconscionable.

Are there no limits to what a political candidate will do to get elected? Let's look back at 2020. In the second half of that year, amid a pandemic and a reelection campaign, the Trump administration decided to start executing federal prisoners.

After 17 years without an execution, the federal government carried out 13 executions in a little more than six months. To put those numbers into context, there have been 14 executions in all death penalty states so far this year. In 2020, there were only seven executions in five states. In 2021, there were eight executions in the same number of states — all below the Mason-Dixon line.

The Trump administration conducted more executions in five months than any other presidency since the turn of the 20th century and carried out six executions during a presidential transition period, more than any other administration in the history of the United States. Prior to 2020, the federal government carried out only three executions in the modern era of the death penalty, most notably Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber.

Whether it was a ploy to bolster his tough-guy bona fides or a lowbrow pitch to his "law and order" constituency, then-President Donald Trump's bloodlust saw no boundary.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, those executed by the federal government included the first Native American ever executed by the federal government for the murder of a member of his own tribe on tribal lands.

The Trump administration oversaw the first federal execution in 68 years of an offender who was a teenager at the time the crime was committed.

The federal executions of 2020 included the first federal execution in 57 years for a crime committed in a state that had abolished the death penalty, as well as executions carried out against the wishes of the victims' families and the first lame-duck executions in more than a century.

As the president faced an unprecedented second impeachment trial, his machinery of death kept chugging along. After Trump incited his "law and order" supporters to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, resulting in death and mayhem, Lisa Montgomery was executed. She was the first woman executed in the federal system in nearly seven decades.

Montgomery committed a very heinous crime. In 2004, she cut an unborn fetus from the womb of the mother. According to NBC News, Montgomery's lawyers did not argue that she didn't deserve to be punished, but rather that the jury never fully learned of her severe mental illnesses as diagnosed by doctors. One day after Montgomery's execution, Corey Johnson, with an IQ of 69, was executed.

With only days left in his "reign," Trump had one more execution to carry out. A U.S. circuit court overturned a stay from a lower court to allow Dustin Higgs to recover from COVID-19. He was executed on Jan. 16, 2021, only days before Trump "unwillingly" left office.

There has not been a federal execution since. Executions in this country are almost exclusively in the South, the number of annual executions has dramatically declined since the 1990s, and the number of death sentences are at an all-time low.

Yet, if a candidate wants to flex his "law and order" muscles, the death penalty is an easy choice, and nobody has demonstrated that in a more frightening manner than Donald Trump.

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book "The Executioner's Toll, 2010" was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on X @MatthewTMangino.

To visit Creators CLICK HERE

Chief Justice Roberts pushed SCOTUS decision on immunity

Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern writing for Slate this week: 

On Sunday, New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak published a blockbuster article about the conservative justices’ efforts to shield Donald Trump from any consequences for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. This is what Supreme Court reporting needs to become: less credulous academic translating of a handful of judicial opinions and more cultivation of inside sources, procuring of confidential memos, and production of massive scoops. More to the point, their piece—about how the three Jan. 6 cases decided last year in favor of Donald J. Trump came together—contains several remarkable news bombshells, including the fact that Justice Samuel Alito had the opinion in the Capitol assault case, Fischer v. United States, taken away from him by Chief Justice John Roberts; that the liberal justices were working to try to get the majorities to moderate maximalist positions in all three cases; and that Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch would have pushed the immunity case to be decided after the 2024 election. But the biggest revelation here is that the character John Roberts plays as an affable centrist steward of the court’s reputational interests—created largely in the press and played to the hilt by him—is a total fiction. It was Roberts who decided that Trump and Trumpism would prevail in all three insurrection cases and he did not, in this instance, follow in the wake of the court’s aggressive conservative maximalists. He was the aggressive conservative maximalist. And he created majority opinions in his own image.

A singular revelation in the Times’ reporting is a memo Roberts produced in February of 2024, after a cross-ideological panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit handed down a decision rejecting Trump’s claims that he was almost wholly immune from criminal liability for actions taken during his time as president. In his confidential memo, the chief justice “offered a scathing critique” of that opinion, complaining that the lower court judges “failed to grapple with the most difficult questions altogether.” He inveighed that the Supreme Court should take the case—which would hold up Trump’s criminal trial slated for the summer—but also previewed how the justices would reverse the lower-level ruling. “I think it likely that we will view the separation of powers analysis differently” from the appeals court, he warned. From that point onward, it appears he was committed to a sweeping decision for the former president—and never seemed to wonder if a massive victory for Trump might imperil American democracy.

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Project 2025 proposes to go after prosecutors who fail 'to prosecute criminal offenses in their jurisdictions'

Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s far right policy agenda, proposes dismantling democratic institutions to reshape American life. Tucked in the middle of the nearly 1,000-page document lies a striking plan — to prosecute locally elected officials who do not adhere to the priorities of a potential second Trump administration, reported Truthout. Specifically, page 553 calls for the Department of Justice to “initiate legal action against local officials,” namely district attorneys, who fail to “prosecute criminal offenses in their jurisdictions.”

Donald Trump often threatens to prosecute his political opponents. This rhetoric offers a glimpse into why experts fear that Project 2025’s plan to leverage the DOJ could lead a new administration to broadly target elected officials.

“The DOJ section, specifically, is one of the scariest because it really outlines a way for the DOJ to be used as an enforcement arm of the White House,” said Brianna Seid, a lawyer in the justice program at NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice. “At the heart of it, it’s just very anti-democratic, and it presumes that a few actors at the federal level know what an individual community wants and should have a say in what an individual community wants.”

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Hey Judge Merchan, Trump's criminal interference with the last election should influence the outcome of the next election

Judge  Juan M. Merchan overseeing Donald J. Trump’s criminal case in Manhattan postponed his sentencing until after Election Day, a significant victory for the former president as he seeks to overturn his conviction and win back the White House, reported The New York Times. 

The irony of protecting the integrity of a candidate who has been convicted of trying overthrow an election should not lost in this decision. The last election, and Trump's criminal interference with that election are integral to the election coming up--Judge Merchan missed that point.

Judge Merchan rescheduled the sentencing for Nov. 26, citing the “unique time frame this matter currently finds itself in.” He had previously planned to hand down Mr. Trump’s punishment on Sept. 18, just seven weeks before Election Day, when Mr. Trump will face off against Vice President Kamala Harris for the presidency.

“This is not a decision this court makes lightly but it is the decision which in this court’s view, best advances the interests of justice,” Justice Merchan wrote in the four-page ruling, which noted that “this matter is one that stands alone, in a unique place in this nation’s history.”

Being convicted and sentenced for tampering with an election should be a relevant issue in the current campaign. Trump is not running for city council, he is running for President.  Merchan ducked the issue and a convicted felon running for president gets a break.

The judge appeared eager to skirt a swirl of partisan second-guessing in the campaign’s final stretch. Asserting that the court is a “fair, impartial and apolitical institution,” he said that “the integrity of our judicial system demands” that the sentencing be “free from distraction or distortion.”

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Creators: GOP House Members Eye Parallel Investigation of Assassination Attempt

Matthew T. Mangino
Creators Syndicate
September 3, 2024

On July 24, by a vote of 416-0, the U.S. House of Representatives established a bipartisan task force to investigate the attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump.

The House leadership appointed Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), for no other reason than he represents the district and lives in the county where the attempt occurred. In fact, he should probably be a witness in front of his own task force. He was present on July 13, when the attempted assassination occurred.

In 1981, following the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, Congress did not create a commission or task force to investigate. Reagan's would-be assassin, John Hinckley Jr., survived. The FBI and Secret Service did a detailed investigation of Hinckley's attempt and the Department of Justice prosecuted him. In 1982, Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity. He is a free man today.

Thirty days after the creation of the "Trump Task Force," nine of the 14 task force members toured the Butler Farm Show grounds and met with local law enforcement officials. The task force saw firsthand the 430-foot gap between the rooftop, where 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks took aim, and the stage from which Trump was speaking.

Immediately following the tour, Reps. Kelly and Jason Crow (D-Colo.), the top Democrat on the panel, sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. looking for details about the site selection and security planning the for the ill-fated rally, reported Politico.

The only real modern parallel to the task force is the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, better known as the Warren Commission, created in the aftermath of the tragic assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy's assassin was killed, and there would be no trial. The commission was headed by United State Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren and consisted of a six-member bipartisan panel including, among others, future President Gerald R. Ford.

According to The Washington Post, the commission presented their findings in a report to President Lyndon B. Johnson, within 10 months of the assassination. The Warren Report consisted of 26 hearing volumes. The commission found no evidence that either Lee Harvey Oswald or Jack Ruby was part of any conspiracy, domestic or foreign, to assassinate Kennedy. The Commission found no evidence of conspiracy, subversion or disloyalty to the U.S. government by any federal, state or local official.

At the time, the report faced no real opposition, had bipartisan support and, at least at its release, the full trust and faith of the American people. It did not remain that way. More than 60 years later, conspiracy theories abound.

On the 50th anniversary of the assassination, Donald E. Wilkes Jr. of the University of Georgia School of Law wrote, "We must, after 50 years, face the hair-raising, inescapable truth: The critics who warned us about the Warren Report were right all along. The Report was a sham which duped the American public while pretending to be based on a full, no-holds-barred inquiry."

Today, some conservative lawmakers are determined to run a parallel investigation into the attempt on Trump's life. Five conservative House members recently held an event in Washington — at The Heritage Foundation — vowing to push forward with their own probe into the assassination attempt. They questioned security decisions leading up to the shooting and encouraged whistleblowers to come forward.

The GOP-only shadow investigation will likely face an uphill battle as it tries to run its own investigation, reported The New York Times. In addition to the fact that the bipartisan task force holds superseding authority, the conservative probe will have to rely on whistleblowers and public information since it does not have subpoena power.

Unfortunately, a parallel investigation will do nothing but sow distrust and spur divisiveness in an era of unceasing misinformation and baseless theories of conspiracy.

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book The Executioner's Toll, 2010 was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on X @MatthewTMangino.

To visit Creators CLICK HERE

Crime rates are falling, data collection not improving

 Washington Post Editorial:

There’s encouraging news about crime rates in the United States. After a spike in both violent crime and property offenses after the pandemic-and-protest year of 2020, statistics show that crime is reverting to 2019 levels. That’s according to a newly released midyear report by the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan think tank, based on monthly offense rates for 12 violent, property and drug crimes in 39 cities that have consistently reported such data over the past six years.

Rates for 11 of the 12 offenses CCJ covered in its report were lower in the first half of 2024 than in the first half of 2023. One crime of any kind is too many, of course, and even five years ago the United States was unacceptably violence-prone. Still, those who are genuinely interested in eliminating crime, as opposed to exploiting the issue for political purposes, will take heart in the new trends and study them for hints about which anti-crime policies do and do not work.

Alas, many in politics are interested in exploiting the issue. Former president Donald Trump told a rally in March that “crime is rampant and out of control like never before,” and doubled down on that alarmist message by telling the Republican National Convention that “our crime rate is going up.” Political rhetoric interacts with the public’s long-standing tendency to believe the worst about crime, which is why Mr. Trump is not the only politician to play this game. Twenty-three out of 27 Gallup polls conducted since 1993 showed that at least three-fifths of American adults believed crime had risen over the previous year, though annual rates actually fell during most of that period.

It would be equally wrong to dismiss public concerns, however; they have a basis in reality. Even with the recent improvements, it is undeniable that crime, including the worst crime — homicide — spiked nationally in recent years. The trauma and insecurity that this caused lingers. In seven U.S. cities that provide data on carjacking, that offense remains 68 percent more frequent than it was in the first half of 2019, according to CCJ’s report. Shoplifting and car theft also remain at elevated levels.

Given the emotions that inevitably swirl around this subject, public opinion will probably never precisely reflect statistical reality. But at least the government could publish a sufficiently precise and up-to-date picture of statistical reality. Unfortunately, it does not, as another recent CCJ report explained. The lead federal source for national data, the FBI, issues annual reports each October based on numbers gathered up to 18 months previously and reported — voluntarily and with varying degrees of accuracy — to the bureau by some 18,000 police agencies. Crime rates are based on two different sources: The National Incident-Based Reporting System, which collects details on crimes reported to law enforcement, and the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey, which gathers data directly from individuals about their experiences with crime, whether these incidents were reported to police or not.

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Trump pursues desperate removal of hush money case to federal court

Former US President Donald Trump filed a motion to move his New York hush money case to federal court, an attempt that could overturn his conviction and delay his sentencing date until after the presidential election in November, reported Juris.

Trump’s legal team asked the US District Court for the Southern District of New York to take the case, claiming the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office “violated the Presidential immunity doctrine … by relying on evidence of President Trump’s official acts” while in office. The motion cited a recent decision by the US Supreme Court that ruled former US presidents are immune from criminal prosecution for their actions taken within their “official responsibility.”

The motion stated:

These ongoing harms must be stopped. The impending election cannot be redone. The currently unaddressed harm to the Presidency resulting from this improper prosecution will adversely impact the operations of the federal government for generations.

Trump’s attorneys also requested New York County Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan’s recusal from the hush money case. The motion cited public statements made by Justice Merchan’s daughter in 2019 that “indicat[ed] that [Justice Merchan] had been critical of President Trump’s use of Twitter during his Presidency.” Trump’s team argued that these statements “confirm judicial bias and hostility towards President Trump’s 2018 Tweets, which are a core issue in the pending Presidential immunity motion.”

Trump’s team claimed Justice Merchan had a “conflict of interest” in the case since he “made improper contributions to Democrat interests” in 2020. The former president’s attorneys further claimed issues of bias because Justice Merchan’s daughter worked on current Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2019 presidential campaign and her company worked on President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.

In March 2023, a grand jury returned an indictment charging the former president with 34 violations of falsifying business records in the first degree. Trump was convicted of all 34 felony counts in May. Trump had sent $130,000 in reimbursements to his attorney Michael Cohen for a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, and prosecutors argued that he falsified records to conceal the hush money payments to unlawfully influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

The former president filed a motion to dismiss the indictment and vacate the jury’s verdicts under the claim of presidential immunity, and the motion is currently pending before Justice Merchan. In July, Justice Merchan pushed Trump’s sentencing date in the case until September 18 so he could consider the presidential immunity claim. Trump’s team then requested the sentencing in his hush money case be postponed until after the November election, claiming the current scheduling would constitute election interference.

This is not Trump’s first attempt to remove the case from New York’s jurisdiction. A federal judge in 2023 rejected Trump’s first attempt, finding that the former president failed to show that the alleged conduct was related to his official responsibilities as the president. US District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein stated, “Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a president’s official acts. It does not reflect in any way the color of the president’s official duties.”

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Expelled former GOP congressman George Santos to enter guilty plea

George Santos, the former Republican congressman from New York undone by a mind-bending array of biographical lies and moneymaking schemes, has told prosecutors that he intends to plead guilty and avoid a federal trial that was expected to begin next month, according to two lawyers involved in the case and two other people with knowledge of the matter, reported The New York Times.

The plea, which is expected to occur on Monday in Federal District Court in Central Islip, N.Y., would spare Mr. Santos from a trial that almost certainly would have been a colorful spectacle.

Mr. Santos, whose trial on 23 felony charges was scheduled to begin on Sept. 9, could still change his mind. But this week, two lawyers representing multiple witnesses in the case were told by federal prosecutors that Mr. Santos had decided to plead guilty.

Two others with knowledge of the plans confirmed that he intends to plead guilty on Monday; one of the people said Mr. Santos is expected to give a statement in court acknowledging his crimes. The terms of his expected guilty plea and what sentence he might face were not clear.

Public court records show that an in-person hearing has been scheduled for Monday afternoon at the request of prosecutors and Mr. Santos’s lawyers. The records did not explain the purpose of the hearing. Mr. Santos and one of his lawyers, Joseph Murray, did not respond to requests for comment.

The expected plea was first reported by Talking Points Memo.

Mr. Santos, 36, was first indicted on 13 charges in May 2023 after a lengthy investigation into a series of financial crimes that federal prosecutors accused him of. Ten more counts followed in October.

Mr. Santos had initially pleaded not guilty to all counts, and, in an apparent effort to invoke former President Donald J. Trump, declared the prosecution to be “a witch hunt.” His apparent decision to change course comes months after two-thirds of his colleagues in the House of Representatives voted to expel him in December — making him only the sixth member of the House to be expelled in the body’s history.

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Trump's lawyers seek postponement of sentencing until after election

Attorneys for Donald Trump asked the judge overseeing the former president’s Manhattan criminal case to postpone his sentencing on 34 felonies, now set for Sept. 18, until after November’s presidential election, according to Politico.

In a letter to the court, Trump’s lawyers noted that the sentencing for the Republican presidential nominee’s conviction on falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to a porn star is currently scheduled to take place after the start of early voting.

And they argued that the sentencing should be delayed in order to allow Trump to weigh appellate options in response to Justice Juan Merchan’s upcoming ruling on whether Trump’s conviction should be tossed out in light of the Supreme Court’s July 1 decision on presidential immunity.

Merchan is set to rule on Sept. 16, two days before the scheduled sentencing, on whether the presidential immunity decision should have an impact on Trump’s conviction. If Merchan — as many legal observers expect — rejects Trump’s bid to overturn the conviction on immunity grounds, the judge should not proceed to sentencing until higher courts can review that ruling, Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote.

“[S]etting aside naked election-interference objectives,” they wrote, “there is no valid countervailing reason for the Court to keep the current sentencing date on the calendar.”

Trump’s lawyers bid is likely a long shot. Merchan already pushed the sentencing from July to September in order to weigh the immunity ruling, and noted in a recent filing that the Sept. 18 sentencing date “remains unchanged.”

But Trump has succeeded in some of his numerous attempts to delay aspects of the proceedings in the Manhattan case, including pushing back the start of the trial in the spring by three weeks due to a document dispute.

For his conviction on 34 felony counts, Trump faces a range of possible punishments, including community service, home confinement and up to four years in prison. Legal experts have said they believe it is unlikely Trump will be sentenced to prison, in part because he is a first-time offender. And even if he is sentenced to prison he is unlikely to have to serve time until after the appeals process has been exhausted, which could take at least several months — and if he’s elected president after being sentenced to prison, the sentence almost certainly would be suspended while he’s in office.

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'Smith’s case remains strong' after immunity ruling, 'mini-trial' should start soon

In the coming weeks or months, a federal district court will have the opportunity to apply the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on the scope of a former president’s immunity from criminal liability, reported Just Security. The decision has been accurately described, by Akhil Amar and others, as one of the worst in the Court’s history because of the leeway it gives a president to commit crimes and its expansion of exclusive executive authority. However, the Court’s ruling shields only some official presidential conduct from criminal prosecution. Unofficial acts are not covered by immunity, and not all official acts are absolutely immune. A key question in the January 6 case becomes which of the specific acts alleged in the indictment are immune under the Court’s new test and which aren’t. The Court gave important “guidance” (its term), but largely left that question for the trial court to answer in the first instance. The trial court’s process for answering that question will involve an evidentiary inquiry, and perhaps hearings, to assess alleged facts relevant to the legal test.

On our view, the Court’s decision leaves the core of the case against Trump intact. A fair application of the Court’s new immunity test to the indictment’s allegations yields a narrowed but still plainly viable prosecution. As we write, the trial court and the parties are preparing to grapple with this issue. On Saturday, August 3, Judge Tanya Chutkan—the trial judge presiding over the case—issued an order requesting the parties to propose a schedule for the remaining pretrial proceedings. The order also scheduled a status conference for August 16, at which the court may decide the path forward. The application of the immunity test will likely be a central part of that process.

In this essay, we discuss how the trial court should approach applying the Supreme Court’s ruling. We believe that as soon as possible following the status conference, Judge Chutkan should schedule an evidentiary hearing—a “mini-trial,” in which documents and witnesses are presented—to determine the scope of the immunity in this case. Our examination of the new immunity rule and the specific allegations against Trump indicate that Smith’s case remains strong and should survive that inquiry with key elements remaining unscathed.

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Trump's election subversion case heads toward evidentiary hearing

The stalled criminal case against Donald Trump for seeking to subvert the 2020 election is starting to move, reported Politico.

The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on presidential immunity — a breathtaking legal victory for Trump’s bid to sideline his criminal prosecutions — had kept the election-subversion case on ice for months. Even after the July 1 ruling, the high court’s rules required a one-month delay to give prosecutors the chance to ask the justices to reconsider the outcome.

On Friday, that window closed. The case was returned to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which took just minutes to send the matter back to the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who has been in a holding pattern since December awaiting the outcome of the immunity fight.

On Saturday, Chutkan took her first steps in the case in months, setting an August 16 hearing to consider setting a new schedule. She has asked for prosecutors and Trump to offer their own thinking on the matter in writing by August 9. The court session won’t force Trump off the campaign trail, since Chutkan said she won’t require him to be present.

Still, the flurry of actions signals new life for the gravest of the four criminal cases against Trump — and it comes at a time when other Trump cases have stalled. Special counsel Jack Smith charged the former president in August 2023 with four counts, alleging a sweeping conspiracy to disenfranchise millions of voters and pressure government officials to overturn the legitimate 2020 election results.

There appears to be no real prospect of a trial in the case before the November election, but some Trump critics have been eagerly awaiting the Supreme Court’s ministerial action of returning the case to the trial court, hoping that it results in a series of swift decisions from Chutkan that could again put Trump on the defensive.

The Supreme Court ruled that former presidents have immunity from prosecution for many of their “officials acts,” and it said that some of Smith’s allegations in the election case must be tossed out. But it’s not yet clear how, or whether, the special counsel can proceed with other portions of his indictment.

Some Trump critics have urged Chutkan to hold a hearing to assess the effect of the immunity ruling on the evidence Smith intends to present. That proceeding could feature witness testimony from key figures in the case.

Trump opponents hope this “mini-trial” would showcase Trump’s ties to the violence that unfolded on Jan. 6, 2021, and remind voters of the most chaotic day of Trump’s presidency, even if it doesn’t carry the same stakes as a jury trial.

In her one-page order, filed around 9:30 a.m. Saturday morning, Chutkan did not directly address the possibility of a “mini-trial” — often referred to by lawyers as an evidentiary hearing. However, she did signal that she’s aware the Supreme Court ruling leaves her with decisions to make about what part of the charges against Trump can proceed and what sort of evidence prosecutors will be permitted to introduce.

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Law & Crime: These cases will go away faster than you can say ‘President Trump’: For Trump’s legal team, it’s all about delay

Matthew T. Mangino
Special for Law and Crime News
July 8, 2024

The U.S. Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity is already having an impact on the pending criminal cases against Donald Trump. The former president’s lawyers are trying to apply the ruling in Trump v. United States to the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case. In a 10-page motion, lawyers have asked U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon to allow them to file additional briefings on immunity and to freeze nearly all pretrial activity until she resolves the issue.

“Resolution of these threshold questions is necessary to minimize the adverse consequences to the institution of the presidency arising from this unconstitutional investigation and prosecution,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in the July 5 filing.

The second look proposed by Trump’s legal team was made possible by the Supreme Court’s recent ruling. The high court found “at least a presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for a President’s acts within the outer perimeter of his official responsibility.” The Court ruled that the former president has absolute immunity with regard to his discussions with the Department of Justice about leveraging power to have states replace their legitimate electors and investigating sham allegations of election fraud.

The court found that the president is presumptively immune for allegedly “attempt[ing] to pressure the Vice President to take particular acts in connection with his role at the certification proceeding.”

What’s more, the majority of the justices found that Trump’s communication by tweet and public address on Jan. 6 may be protected.

“The president possesses ‘extraordinary power to speak to his fellow citizens and on their behalf,” the decision said. “[T]he President’s] communications are likely to fall comfortably with the outer perimeter of his official responsibilities.”

Trump’s lawyers will likely seek to toss all of the federal charges for subversion of the 2020 election. The Supreme Court has remanded the case to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to determine which allegations in Smith’s indictment would be barred under the decision, and the justices said that additional briefing will be needed for the trial court to do so.

The portion of Smith’s prosecution dealing with scheming with the Department of Justice to pressure Georgia to investigate the election is dead in the water. Trump’s team will use the court’s opinion to fight evidence in the case still standing after Chutkan completes her analysis — like meetings Trump had with his top advisers and Vice President Mike Pence.

Some portion of the fake electors case might survive the court’s scrutiny and also the classified documents case which occurred after Trump left the White House.

Smith’s prosecutions have taken a blow, but it’s certainly not a knockout. However, Trump’s strategy from the beginning in dealing with the various criminal charges was delay. To that end he has been successful. Smith’s prosecutions will not be tried before Election Day, and if Trump ultimately wins in November these cases will go away faster than you can say “President Trump.”

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. and the former District Attorney of Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, His book “The Executioner’s Toll, 2010” was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino

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Former GOP AG concerned about 'abuse of power'

 As the onetime White House counsel and attorney general under President George W. Bush, Alberto Gonzales was known as an energetic and sometimes controversial supporter of expansive presidential powers, particularly in the realm of national security. He’s also no fan of Donald Trump, reported POLITICO.

So what would he make of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling granting broad immunity to the president, including significant protection to Trump from prosecution in the Justice Department’s case alleging that he tried to steal the 2020 election?

In an interview with POLITICO Magazine conducted over the phone, and in an email follow-up after the assassination attempt on Trump, Gonzales largely sought to square the circle: Even as he suggested the Supreme Court’s ruling largely affirmed the need for a president to make tough decisions, he expressed dismay about how Trump might use the authority for malign purposes if he returns to the White House.

“Why would anyone think, given his record, that he would not abuse the power of the office?” Gonzales said. “I think everyone should have concerns about possible abuse if he becomes president of the United States again.”

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Surprise! Trump appointee Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed all charges in classified document case

Surprise!  Just in time for the GOP National Convention, United States Federal District  Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed all charges against Donald Trump in a case alleging the former president mishandled classified documents after leaving office, reported Jurist. The ruling centered on Senior Counsel Jack Smith, whose appointment to prosecute the case was ruled unconstitutional.

In November 2022, US Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith to serve as special counsel with oversight of two investigations related to Trump. Clear conflict-of-interest issues would have marred prosecutorial efforts by the Justice Department of current US President Joe Biden, Trump’s two-time opponent for the White House. In such politically sensitive cases, or where it would otherwise be in the public interest to do so, US law provides for the appointment of a special counsel — an independent officer who is authorized to investigate and, if appropriate, prosecute politically divisive allegations.

First, Smith was tasked with investigating whether Trump attempted to interfere with the 2020 election that ended his presidency, and the subsequent transfer of power to Biden. Second, he was to continue an investigation that had turned up multiple classified documents in various unsecured locations throughout Trump’s primary Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago. In the summer of 2023, Smith unveiled indictments in both investigations.

Trump moved to dismiss the classified documents indictment, arguing Smith’s appointment by Garland violated the Appointments Clause of the US Constitution, which states in relevant part that the president has the authority to:

…nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate … appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

The clause serves as a check on executive power by ensuring key government officials are vetted by both the executive and legislative branches, thereby preventing either branch from wielding unchecked authority to fill key positions. Notably, its use of the general term “all other Officers of the United States,” paired with the specific use of “such inferior Officers, as [Congress thinks] proper” leaves room for interpretation.

If Smith were considered among the “other” group, his appointment would have required presidential nomination and legislative consent. If he were in the “inferior” group, the requirements could be more flexible. Smith argued he qualified as an “inferior” officer, thus validating his appointment by the US Attorney General.

In Monday’s ruling, District Judge Aileen Cannon reluctantly, and only for limited purposes, accepted Smith’s claim that as special counsel he was an “inferior” officer, but found his appointment violated the clause regardless:

the Appointments and Appropriations challenges as framed in the Motion raise the following threshold question: is there a statute in the United States Code that authorizes the appointment of Special Counsel Smith to conduct this prosecution? After careful study of this seminal issue, the answer is no. None of the statutes cited as legal authority for the appointment … gives the Attorney General broad inferior-officer appointing power or bestows upon him the right to appoint a federal officer with the kind of prosecutorial power wielded by Special Counsel Smith. Nor do the Special Counsel’s strained statutory arguments, appeals to inconsistent history, or reliance on out-of-circuit authority persuade otherwise. … The bottom line is this: The Appointments Clause is a critical constitutional restriction stemming from the separation of powers.

Cannon suggested that for such an appointment to be valid, the Special Counsel would need to be nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, or Congress would need to pass new legislation consistent with the Appointments Clause.

Trump’s latest court victory follows a Supreme Court decision granting him sweeping prosecutorial immunity for acts considered to be in the outer bounds of his official duties as president. In May, he was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. US law does not prevent a convicted felon from holding the nation’s highest office. Trump has long maintained that all cases pending against him are the product of political persecution. Following the release of Monday’s decision, he wrote via social media that all cases pending against him should be dismissed:

The Democrat Justice Department coordinated ALL of these Political Attacks, which are an Election Interference conspiracy against Joe Biden’s Political Opponent, ME. Let us come together to END all Weaponization of our Justice System, and Make America Great Again!

The news comes days after Trump was shot in an apparent assassination attempt.

His chief opponent in the 2024 White House race, Biden, was separately accused of mishandling classified materials after his tenure as vice president to Barack Obama. The Justice Department announced its decision not to prosecute earlier this year. That case was also led by a special counsel, Robert K. Hur, who concluded prosecution would be inappropriate because the evidence failed to establish the president’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

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Congressman announces plans to reverse SCOTUS immunity ruling

Congressman Joe Morelle (D-NY) announced plans to attempt to reverse this week’s US Supreme Court ruling on former US President Donald Trump’s immunity claims, reports Jurist.

He said in a statement:

I am introducing a constitutional amendment to reverse the Supreme Court’s catastrophic decision and ensure no president is above the law. This amendment will do what they failed to do — prioritize our democracy. The Supreme Court decision will cause a seismic shift in the powers of the presidency unless we take immediate action to ensure accountability, integrity, and justice prevail.

In a split decision, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that former US presidents ar immune from criminal prosecution for actions taken within their constitutional purview, thus clearing a path for Donald Trump to challenge a federal indictment accusing him of conspiring to sabotage the 2020 elections.

The case, US v. Trump, centered on the former president’s alleged conduct on and leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, when supporters of then-President Donald Trump gathered outside the US Capitol as Congress met to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. As tensions escalated, some protesters breached the Capitol, resulting in property damage, clashes with law enforcement, and a significant delay in the certification process. The events raised widespread concerns about the security of democratic processes in the US and led to multiple prosecutions, including another case ruled on by the Supreme Court last week.

In August 2023, Trump was indicted on four counts related to the 2020 elections and the events leading up to Jan. 6. He was accused of having conspired to overturn the results of the election by pressuring electoral officials in swing states, pressuring federal officials to instill doubts in the electorate about the legitimacy of the vote, and ultimately, “exploiting” those of his supporters who had gathered in Washington DC on Jan. 6 “by redoubling efforts to levy false claims of election fraud and convince Members of Congress to further delay the certification.”

Trump pleaded not guilty and sought to dismiss the charges on grounds of presidential immunity. He asked the Supreme Court to determine whether the doctrine of absolute presidential immunity shields a former president from criminal prosecution for acts performed on the “outer perimeter” of their official duties.

In its ruling on Monday, the Supreme Court emphasized the imperative of protecting executive functions from the looming threat of prosecution in order to protect the president’s ability to act with agility amid rapidly developing crises. But the ruling specified that only constitutionally mandated presidential functions are protected on this basis, concluding that neither unofficial conduct nor functions shared between the executive and legislative branches are immune to prosecution.

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