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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 8 months

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The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas ruled yesterday that portions of Texas Senate Bill 1, adopted in September 2021, violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The court found that parts of S.B. 1 require officials to reject mail-in ballot applications and mail-in ballots based on errors or omissions that are not material in determining whether voters are qualified under Texas law to vote or cast a mail ballot.

“The District Court’s decision affirms what the Justice Department has argued for nearly two years: these provisions of Texas Senate Bill 1 unlawfully restrict the ability of eligible Texas voters to vote by mail and to have that vote counted,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “The Justice Department will continue to defend against unlawful efforts that undermine the right to vote and restrict participation in our democracy.”

“In requiring rejection of mail ballots and mail ballot applications from eligible voters based on minor paperwork errors or omissions, Texas Senate Bill 1 violates the Civil Rights Act,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “This ruling sends a clear message that states may not impose unlawful and unnecessary requirements that disenfranchise eligible voters seeking to participate in our democracy. The Justice Department will continue to use every available tool to protect all Americans’ right to vote and to ensure that their voices are heard.”

“The right to vote is one of the fundamental rights in our democracy,” said U.S. Attorney Jaime Esparza for the Western District of Texas. “This important ruling protects the rights of eligible Texas voters to cast a vote and have it counted consistent with federal law.”

The court issued a preliminary ruling yesterday in favor of the United States’ motion for summary judgment, which asserts that two provisions of S.B. 1 violate Section 101 of the Civil Rights Act by requiring rejection of mail ballots and mail ballot request forms because of paperwork errors that are not material to establishing a voter’s eligibility to cast a ballot. The first provision requires that early voting clerks “shall reject” mail ballot applications that do not include a Texas driver’s license or ID number that identifies “the same voter identified on the applicant’s application for voter registration.” The second provision provides that a mail ballot “may be accepted only if” the ID numbers on the carrier envelope or signature sheet identifies “the same voter identified on the applicant’s application for voter registration.”

Section 5.07 requires that early voting clerks “shall reject” mail ballot applications that do not include a Department of Public Safety (DPS) number or the last four digits of a Social Security Number (SSN) that identifies “the same voter identified on the applicant’s application for voter registration.” Section 5.13 provides that a mail ballot “may be accepted only if” the DPS number or last four digits of an SSN on the carrier envelope or signature sheet identifies “the same voter identified on the applicant’s application for voter registration.”

The United States presented evidence to the court that S.B. 1 has resulted in Texas election officials rejecting tens of thousands of mail ballot applications and mail ballots cast in elections since the bill was enacted in 2021. The Department asserts that these rejections violate federal law, denying Texas voters the statutory right to vote protected by Section 101.

Yesterday’s preliminary ruling from the court grants the Justice Department’s motion for summary judgment, which the Department filed in May 2023, in its entirety. The decision addresses the Justice Department’s sole pending claim in La Unión del Pueblo Entero v. Abbott, No. 5:21-cv-844 (WDTX), a case in which the United States and several private parties are challenging various aspects of S.B. 1. The court noted that the ruling will be followed in the coming weeks by a final written opinion and order. A group of private plaintiffs will be going to trial on the remaining claims in the case, which have not yet been resolved. That trial is scheduled to begin on Sept. 11.

Complaints about discriminatory practices may be reported to the Civil Rights Division through its internet reporting portal at www.civilrights.justice.gov or by calling (800) 253-3931.

Additional information about the Civil Rights Division’s work to uphold and protect the voting rights of all Americans is available on the Justice Department’s website at www.justice.gov/crt/voting-section.

#us politics #news #department of justice #office of public affairs #2023 #texas #biden administration #U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas #Texas Senate Bill 1 #Civil Rights Act of 1964 #merrick garland #Kristen Clarke #Civil Rights Division #Jaime Esparza #vote by mail #mail in ballots #La Unión del Pueblo Entero v. Abbott

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kp777 · 9 months

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By Jessica Corbett

Common Dreams

Aug. 10, 2023

"Why is the Biden administration trying to rob itself of a clear opportunity to protect American workers and the economy from being roiled by MAGA saboteurs?" asked the head of the Revolving Door Project.

A government watchdog on Thursday called out the Biden administration for attempting to kill a lawsuit filed in May by a union representing about 75,000 workers across U.S. agencies that challenges the federal debt ceiling law.

"Why is the Biden administration trying to rob itself of a clear opportunity to protect American workers and the economy from being roiled by MAGA saboteurs?" asked Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project.

A federal judge canceled plans to hear arguments for the National Association of Government Employees (NAGE) case when President Joe Biden and congressional Republicans who were holding the economy hostage announced a negotiated deal to suspend the nation's borrowing limit until 2025—signed into law in early June as the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA).

Biden then ordered his aides to create a working group intended to prevent similar crises in the future. As the White House said last month, "Now that the latest debt ceiling crisis is behind us, it is necessary to explore all legal and policy options to prevent Congress from ever again holding hostage the full faith and credit of the United States."

Now, as Government Executive reported earlier this week, even though "federal employees are still facing the prospect of delayed paychecks when the debt ceiling is reinstated in 2025," the U.S. Department of Justice "asked Judge Richard Stearns of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts to dismiss the case, suggesting the FRA has made the case moot and NAGE members lack standing because their claims are 'wholly speculative.'"

Hauser said that "the Justice Department's notion that the federal employees' claims of injury are 'wholly speculative, as they depend on a future chain of events that may never occur,' is absurd: The crisis is scheduled to recur precisely on January 1, 2025, as it has recurred repeatedly this century."

"In the meantime, uncertainty continues to trouble hundreds of thousands of federal workers, who have no guarantee of how their jobs, salaries, and pensions will be affected," he noted. "Indeed, the stance that [Attorney General] Merrick Garland's Justice Department is advancing creates an unfortunately sound case against workers considering taking a job in what has become an unstable federal government."

During the drawn-out fight earlier this year, as Republicans in Congress signaled their willingness to force the first-ever U.S. default despite warnings of a resulting economic catastrophe, Biden even suggested that while he wasn't planning to invoke the 14th Amendment—which states that the validity of the nation's public debt "shall not be questioned"—to end the current crisis, he would be open to challenging the debt ceiling law in the future.

"Rather than use the existing case as a means to that end, however, the administration is seeking to have it dismissed. The Justice Department declined to weigh in further on the merits of the case, reducing its argument only to the union's lack of standing," Government Executive explained, noting that a hearing on the motion to dismiss the case is set for August 29.

Hauser said that "after calling for just such a case to be brought, the Biden administration now fights it, demonstrating a truly remarkable willingness to shoot itself in the foot."

"The administration has every authority to take a different tack in this lawsuit and make space for the constitutionality of the debt limit to be worked out in the famously slow-moving U.S. legal system before the clock runs out on preventing the next crisis," he stressed.

The NAGE complaint names as defendants Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in their official capacities.

Biden is seeking reelection next year and is expected to face the Republican nominee; former President Donald Trump is currently leading a crowded field of GOP candidates in spite of his legal issues, including the recent indictment related to his efforts to overturn his 2020 loss, which led to the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

#debt ceiling #biden administration #constitutionality of the debt limit #doj

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89845aaa · 9 months

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ravenkings · 11 months

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When Donald J. Trump responded to his latest indictment by promising to appoint a special prosecutor if he’s re-elected to “go after” President Biden and his family, he signaled that a second Trump term would fully jettison the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence.

“I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Mr. Trump said at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., on Tuesday night after his arraignment earlier that day in Miami. “I will totally obliterate the Deep State.”

Mr. Trump’s message was that the Justice Department charged him only because he is Mr. Biden’s political opponent, so he would invert that supposed politicization. In reality, under Attorney General Merrick Garland, two Trump-appointed prosecutors are already investigating Mr. Biden’s handling of classified documents and the financial dealings of his son, Hunter.

But by suggesting the current prosecutors investigating the Bidens were not “real,” Mr. Trump appeared to be promising his supporters that he would appoint an ally who would bring charges against his political enemies regardless of the facts.

The naked politics infusing Mr. Trump’s headline-generating threat underscored something significant. In his first term, Mr. Trump gradually ramped up pressure on the Justice Department, eroding its traditional independence from White House political control. He is now unabashedly saying he will throw that effort into overdrive if he returns to power.

Mr. Trump’s promise fits into a larger movement on the right to gut the F.B.I., overhaul a Justice Department conservatives claim has been “weaponized” against them and abandon the norm — which many Republicans view as a facade — that the department should operate independently from the president.

[...]

As the Republican Party has morphed in response to Mr. Trump’s influence, his attacks on federal law enforcement — which trace back to the early Russia investigation in 2017, the backlash to his firing of then-F.B.I. director James B. Comey Jr. and the appointment of Robert S. Mueller III as special counsel — have become enmeshed in the ideology of his supporters.

Mr. Trump’s top rival for the Republican nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, also rejects the norm that the Justice Department should be independent.

“Republican presidents have accepted the canard that the D.O.J. and F.B.I. are — quote — ‘independent,’” Mr. DeSantis said in May on Fox News. “They are not independent agencies. They are part of the executive branch. They answer to the elected president of the United States.”

Several other Republican candidates acknowledged that Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents — as outlined in the indictment prepared by the special counsel, Jack Smith, and his team — was a serious problem. But even these candidates — including Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, and former Vice President Mike Pence — have also accused the Justice Department of being overly politicized and meting out unequal justice.

The most powerful conservative think tanks are working on plans that would go far beyond “reforming” the F.B.I., even though its Senate-confirmed directors in the modern era have all been Republicans. They want to rip it up and start again.

[...]

#this seems.............bad............#donald trump #politics #usa #news #article

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beardedmrbean · 5 months

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WASHINGTON — A divided federal appeals court on Monday ruled that private individuals and groups such as the NAACP do not have the ability to sue under a key section of the federal Voting Rights Act, a decision that contradicts decades of precedent and could further erode protections under the landmark 1965 law.

The 2-1 decision by a panel of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals based in St. Louis found that only the U.S. attorney general can enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires political maps to include districts where minority populations’ preferred candidates can win elections.

The ruling applies to federal courts covered by the 8th Circuit, which includes Iowa as well as Arkansas, the state from which the appeal was filed. Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota also are in the court's territory.

The majority said other federal laws, including the 1964 Civil Rights Act, make it clear when private groups can sue but said similar wording is not found in the voting law.

“When those details are missing, it is not our place to fill in the gaps, except when ‘text and structure’ require it,” U.S. Circuit Judge David R. Stras wrote for the majority in an opinion joined by Judge Raymond W. Gruender. Stras was nominated by former President Donald Trump and Gruender by former President George W. Bush.

The decision affirmed a lower judge’s decision to dismiss a case brought by the Arkansas State Conference NAACP and the Arkansas Public Policy Panel. The court had given U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland five days to decide whether to join the lawsuit.

Chief Judge Lavenski R. Smith noted in a dissenting opinion that federal courts across the country and the U.S. Supreme Court have considered numerous cases brought by private plaintiffs under Section 2. Smith said the court should follow “existing precedent that permits a judicial remedy” unless the Supreme Court or Congress decides differently.

“Rights so foundational to self-government and citizenship should not depend solely on the discretion or availability of the government’s agents for protection,” wrote Smith, another appointee of George W. Bush.

NAACP: 'a devastating blow to the civil rights of every American'

Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, called the ruling a “travesty for democracy.” She had argued the appeal on behalf of the two Arkansas groups.

“By failing to reverse the district court’s radical decision, the Eighth Circuit has put the Voting Rights Act in jeopardy, tossing aside critical protections that voters fought and died for,” Lakin said in a statement.

It was not immediately clear whether the groups would appeal. A statement from the ACLU said they are exploring their options.

Barry Jefferson, political action chair of the Arkansas State Conference of the NAACP, called the ruling "a devastating blow to the civil rights of every American, and the integrity of our nation’s electoral system.”

The state NAACP chapter and the public policy group had challenged new Arkansas state House districts as diluting the influence of Black voters. The state’s redistricting plan created 11 majority-Black districts, which the groups argued was too few. They said the state could have drawn 16 majority-Black districts to more closely mirror the state’s demographics.

U.S. District Judge Lee Rudofsky noted there was “a strong merits case that at least some of the challenged districts” in the lawsuit violate the federal Voting Rights Act but said he could not rule after concluding a challenge could only be brought by the U.S. attorney general.

The Justice Department filed a “statement of interest” in the case saying private parties can file lawsuits to enforce the Voting Rights Act but declined to comment on the ruling.

Another circuit court makes opposite ruling. Will Supreme Court decide?

It’s likely the case eventually will make it to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the issue was raised in a 2021 opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch.

“I join the court’s opinion in full, but flag one thing it does not decide,” Gorsuch wrote at the time, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas. “Our cases have assumed — without deciding — that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 furnishes an implied cause of action under section 2.”

Gorsuch wrote that there was no need in that case for the justices to consider who may sue. But Gorsuch and Thomas were among the dissenters in June when the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in another Voting Rights Act case in favor of Black voters in Alabama who objected to the state’s congressional districts.

The Gorsuch and Thomas opinion was referenced less than two weeks ago in another federal court decision that came to the opposite conclusion of Monday's ruling by the 8th Circuit.

On Nov. 10, three judges on the conservative-dominated 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans rejected arguments that there is no private right to sue under the Voting Rights Act. In a Louisiana congressional redistricting case, the panel said the U.S. Supreme Court so far has upheld the right of private litigants to bring lawsuits alleging violations of Section 2, as have other circuit appellate courts.

Fifth Circuit Judge Leslie Southwick, a nominee of ex-President George W. Bush, pointed to separate cases from 1999 and 2020 that reaffirmed that right.

Election law experts say most challenges seeking to enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act are brought by private plaintiffs and that the Justice Department has limited resources to pursue such cases. Some voting rights experts also noted the apparent contradiction in the Alabama case decided by the Supreme Court last June and Monday's ruling by the appellate court.

“It doesn’t seem to make sense,” said Jon Greenbaum, chief counsel for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “If the laws were that private parties couldn’t bring these cases, then the Alabama case would have never even gotten off the ground.”

If ruling stands, voting rights challenges likely to be limited

Lawsuits under Section 2 have long been used to try to ensure that Black voters have adequate political representation in places with a long history of racism, including many Southern states. Racial gerrymandering has been used in drawing legislative and congressional districts to pack Black voters into a small number of districts or spread them out so their votes are diluted. If only the U.S. attorney general is able to file such cases, it could sharply limit their number and make challenges largely dependent on partisan politics.

It’s unlikely Congress will be willing to act. Republicans have blocked recent efforts to restore protections in the Voting Rights Act that were tossed out by the U.S. Supreme Court a decade ago. In the 2013 Shelby v. Holder decision, justices dismantled an enforcement mechanism known as preclearance, which allowed for federal review of proposed election-related changes before they could take effect in certain states and communities with a history of discrimination.

In a statement, the Congressional Black Caucus noted that private individuals and civil rights groups have been successful in giving Black voters better representation through recent challenges to congressional maps drawn by Republican lawmakers in Alabama, Louisiana and Florida.

“This decision by the appellate court is ill-advised, cannot stand, and should be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which we hope will reaffirm that citizens have a private right of action to bring forward lawsuits under Section 2,” the group said.

#nunyas news

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minnesotafollower · 1 year

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Biden Administration Announces Proposed Restrictions on Asylum Applications

On February 21, the Biden Administration announced a proposed rule that would require rapid deportation of an immigrant at the U.S. border who had failed to request protection from another country while en route to the U.S. or who had not previously notified the U.S. via a mobile app of their plan to seek asylum in the U.S. or who had applied for the new U.S. humanitarian parole programs for…

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posttexasstressdisorder · 1 year

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Thank you, Vice President Harris, for bringing us together today.

The fallout from the Supreme Court’s decision last summer to overturn Roe v. Wade has been swift and severe.

Since then, the Department of Justice has worked with commitment and urgency to defend the reproductive freedoms that are protected by federal law.

During our last meeting, I discussed the work of the Department’s Reproductive Rights Task Force to safeguard federal protections of reproductive rights.

Today, and following President Biden’s Memorandum on Further Efforts to Protect Access to Reproductive Healthcare Services, I want to provide another update on three important areas of our work.

First, we continue to advise federal agencies on legal issues related to reproductive health in the aftermath of Dobbs. And we are defending agencies as litigation arises.

More than two decades ago, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the drug mifepristone as safe and effective to terminate early pregnancies.

But a decision issued last Friday by the District Court for the Northern District of Texas would displace the FDA’s expert judgment and roll back the agency’s approval of mifepristone.

The Justice Department strongly disagrees with the court’s unprecedented decision to do that in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA. We therefore appealed the decision, and we filed a motion for a stay pending that appeal.

As our filings make clear, the decision would severely harm women across the country.

It would deprive patients of a safe and effective medication to manage their reproductive health.

And it would allow doctors to challenge FDA approval of any drug – or any other federal action that allegedly injured third parties.

This could happen to any medication that Americans rely on, no matter how essential it is, and no matter how long ago it was approved.

The Justice Department will continue to defend the FDA’s approval of mifepristone – as well as the FDA’s role as the expert body that Congress has designated to make decisions about the safety and efficacy of prescription medicines in this country.

Second, we are continuing to vigilantly monitor state laws and enforcement actions that threaten to impingeon federal protections of reproductive rights.

For example, we are continuing to litigate our challenge to Idaho’s abortion ban to the extent that it conflicts with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, known as EMTALA.

As we explained in our filings in that case, Idaho’s law prohibits abortion when it is the medically necessary treatment to stabilize a patient’s emergency medical condition.

Last August, the District Court for the District of Idaho granted our motion for a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of Idaho’s law as applied to medical care that is required by EMTALA.

In addition, as I said on the day that Dobbs was announced, women who reside in states that have banned access to comprehensive reproductive care must remain free to travel to states in which that care is lawful.

And, under the First Amendment, individuals must remain free to inform and counsel each other about the reproductive care that is available in other states.

The Justice Department will defend these bedrock constitutional protections. And we will continue to evaluate private-party litigation that would benefit from our participation.

Third, we are continuing to work to protect health care providers and individuals seeking reproductive health services.

In this regard, we are enforcing the Freedom of Access to Clinic [Entrances] Act – known as the FACE Act.

That law prohibits anyone from obstructing access to reproductive health services – including abortion services, pharmacies that provide reproductive health services, and pregnancy counseling services – through violence, threats of violence, or property damage.

We are working to ensure that federal prosecutors across the country are equipped to bring FACE Act cases.

But in addition, we are conducting training for U.S. Attorneys’ Offices on the FACE Act. Our National Task Force on Violence Against Reproductive Health Care has prepared a training webinar for State Attorney Generals offices.

And we have emphasized that Civil Rights Division attorneys in the Justice Department are always available for consultation and technical assistance.

I am grateful to Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, who is leading these very important efforts for the Department.

And I am grateful to all the professionals across the Department who are working to ensure Americans’ freedom to reproductive rights protected by federal law.

Together, and with the people in this room, we will continue to fulfill the Justice Department’s founding responsibility to protect the civil rights of all Americans.

Thank you.

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youthkenworld · 9 months

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JustMyView@JustMyView

27m··/g/The_Donald·Edited

Not Sending their Best.

7 Illegal Aliens Among 19 Arrested for Child Sex Crimes in Florida County.

Seven illegal aliens are among 19 men arrested for allegedly committing child sex crimes in Bay County, Florida.

This week, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced the results of a nationwide sting called Operation Cross Country XIII which saw 126 suspects, accused of child sexual abuse and human trafficking, either identified or arrested as well as 68 suspects accused of trafficking.

As part of the operation, 19 men were arrested in Bay County. According to Fox News’s Adam Shaw and Bill Melugin, seven of those men are illegal aliens:

32-year-old Jesus Rangel De La Cruz 37-year-old Nery Antonio Bonilla Galvez 25-year-old Flavio Cruz 36-year-old Jose Arizmendi 26-year-old Robinson Andres Mancheno Monar 18-year-old Carlos Mejia Ruiz 23-year-old Shemar Pearson One of the illegal aliens arrived on a B-2 tourist visa but failed to depart in 2021 as part of the terms of the visa. Likewise, another one of the illegal aliens arrived on a J-1 exchange visitor visa but also overstayed after failing to leave the United States in 2021.

Fourteen of the 19 men arrested in Bay County are accused of traveling to engage in sexual activity with a minor while five are accused of possession of child pornography.

The operation ultimately located 200 sex trafficking victims, including 59 missing children. The operation took place in a two-week period in July.

“Sex traffickers exploit and endanger some of the most vulnerable members of our society and cause their victims unimaginable harm,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “This operation, which located 59 actively missing children, builds on the tremendous work the FBI has undertaken over many years to rescue minor victims and arrest those responsible for these unspeakable crimes.”

Democrats Love, Admire and Protect their Rapist, Pedophiles, Perverts, Monkey Spankers and Sexual Predators.

Just look at "Crack Head" Hunter's "Laptop from Hell".

Say it ain't So............."Creeper Joe".Read more

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 2 years

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A group of House Democrats called for legislation on Monday that would add four seats to the Supreme Court, lamenting a “ultra right-wing” branch that just overturned the Roe v. Wade decision on abortion rights.

The eight lawmakers cited recent Supreme Court decisions that rolled back Miranda rights, threw out a New York gun control law and allowed religion to surface in schools — as well as the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision that overturned the right to abortion in Roe — in saying there was a need to add new Justices to the Court.

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), the lead sponsor of the 2021 Judiciary Act, called the current makeup “a Supreme Court at crisis with itself and with our democracy” where “basic freedoms are under assault” from the 6-3 conservative supermajority on the bench.

The Supreme Court isn’t susceptible to the popular vote the way Congress is, Johnson said, and it has used that fact to amass power. “It’s making decisions that usurp the power of the legislative and executive branches,” he said.

Facing Republican opposition and some Democratic skepticism, the bill has little chance of becoming law, but it illustrates the deep anger among Progressive Democrats about the Court's direction under three conservative Justices nominated by former-President Trump: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

Those three Justices have radically altered the direction of the Court, which now has twice as many conservative Justices as liberal ones. Kavanaugh replaced Justice Anthony Kennedy, a previous swing vote who had been nominated to the court by a Republican, while Barrett replaced liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Adding to Democratic anger, a GOP Senate blocked former-President Obama’s last nominee to the court, Merrick Garland, who is now the Attorney General. Gorsuch ended up being nominated to the court in place of Garland.

Introduced last year, the Judiciary Act has not progressed in Congress.

Some Democrats wary of the proposal are concerned that expansion would open the court up for Republicans to push more of their nominees into the openings.

“The nightmare scenario of GOP court-packing is already upon us,” said Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.). “That’s how they got this far-right 6-3 majority in the first place.”

Lawmakers at Monday’s press conference, hosted by the Take Back the Court Action Fund, blamed Trump and the conservative legal movement for enabling a partisan court.

Republican politicians made controlling the judicial branch part of their platform, said Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), adding that the court has “gone rogue” and “become a radical institution.”

The lawmakers also emphasized that the longevity of the lifelong terms the sitting Justices are now serving makes action to expand the court more urgent.

Of 72-year-old conservative Justice Samuel Alito, Johnson said, “You can see the gleam in his eye as he thinks about what he wants to do to decimate the rights of people and put us back in the Dark Ages.”

Trump-nominated Gorsuch, Barrett and Kavanaugh, in their 50s, are “gonna be there for a while,” Johnson said.

Congress has changed the number of seats on the nation’s highest court seven times in the nation’s history. The new proposal would bring the total seat count to 13, meaning a decision from the court would need a 7-6 majority rather than the present 5-4.

Reps. Andy Levin (D-Mich.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) were also at the conference, along with Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who sponsored the bill in the Senate, and a handful of progressive activists.

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sataniccapitalist · 11 months

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 10 months

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DOJ’s failure of imagination

June 20, 2023

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

JUN 20, 2023

The Washington Post published an important article on Monday that describes the DOJ’s reluctance to investigate Donald Trump and his senior aides in the aftermath of January 6th. A non-paywalled version of the article is here: WaPo, FBI resisted opening probe into Trump’s role in Jan. 6 for more than a year.

The article is deeply sourced, based on a dozen interviews with DOJ and FBI personnel. If you have time, read the entire article. (Fair warning; it is lengthy but deserves your full attention.) The article provides context and explanations for the year-and-half delay in the DOJ’s investigation of the leaders of the attempted coup and insurrection on January 6th.

Although the WaPo headline refers to resistance by the FBI, the article focuses on the decision-making processes at both the DOJ and FBI. And given that the FBI is part of the Department of Justice, the FBI must follow the enforcement priorities set by the DOJ. To that extent, the buck stops with Attorney General Merrick Garland.

The article raises three questions:

1. Assuming that the WaPo reporting is accurate, does the delay matter given that Trump has been indicted for unlawfully retaining defense secrets? 2. What lessons should the DOJ and FBI learn, if any, from the reporting? 3. Were American citizens right to be concerned over the year-long silence from the DOJ about the investigation of Trump?

The article contains three main theses:

Senior leaders in the DOJ and FBI did not view investigating Trump and his aides as a priority in the January 6th investigation, focusing instead on the insurrectionists who assaulted the Capitol—the so-called “bottom-up” approach frequently used when investigating a drug cartel;

Concern about the DOJ’s reputation as a non-partisan institution caused the agency to impose a higher burden for opening an investigation regarding Trump's conduct than was applied to other Americans suspected of crimes; and

The FBI was reluctant to wade into a second Trump investigation given that the first investigation led to the firing of senior FBI officials and threats of retaliatory investigations by GOP members of Congress.

Although some defenders of Merrick Garland and the DOJ are attacking the article as “spin” or pointing to minor factual discrepancies, the criticisms do not undermine the main premise of the article: That the DOJ treated Trump with undue deference and applied higher evidentiary hurdles because of concern over the DOJ’s reputation, resulting in a fifteen-month delay before the FBI finally opened an investigation into Trump.

The article has opened a firestorm of criticism, accusations, recriminations, and revisionist history in social media and major news outlets. Rep. Adam Schiff responded to the article in his usual straightforward manner, tweeting

This Washington Post investigation confirms what I have been concerned about for almost two years: While the DOJ moved quickly to investigate the foot soldiers of the Jan 6 attack, it waited far too long to investigate leaders of the effort to overturn the election.

Professor Laurence Tribe offered tempered criticism of his former student (Merrick Garland), tweeting

Great journalism has shown Garland and Monaco well-intentioned but profoundly unwise in slow walking the investigation into Trump and those around him. Their fear of looking political backfired badly. Whether the harm was irreparable remains to be seen.

Others have called for the resignations of FBI Director Christopher Wray and Merrick Garland (e.g. Jennifer Rubin).

1. Assuming that the WaPo reporting is accurate, does the delay matter given that Trump has been indicted for unlawfully retaining defense secrets?

It is, of course, impossible to know how history would have changed if the DOJ and FBI had commenced an investigation of Trump in the immediate aftermath of January 6th rather than waiting fifteen months. But given the speed with which special counsel Jack Smith has driven his investigations, it is reasonable to assume that an investigation commencing in March 2021 would have resulted in an indictment sometime in 2022.

An indictment against Trump in 2022 would have mattered. It would have likely affected the 2024 GOP presidential primary process. For example, only weeks after the Mar-a-Lago indictment, the tide of opinion in the GOP is beginning to turn against Trump. Imagine where the GOP might be today if Trump had been indicted a year ago.

There would likely have been a trial in late 2023 or early 2024—soon enough to convict Trump before the 2024 election. An earlier investigation may have resulted in cooperating witnesses or defendants who flipped on Trump in 2023—developments that would have accelerated the effort to hold others accountable (like John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark, and Rudy Giuliani.)

So, yes, the delay by the DOJ and FBI mattered. A lot. The delay emboldened Trump to commit other crimes (retention of defense secrets) and (possibly) to engage in corrupt business dealings with Saudi Arabia ($2 billion investment in Jared Kushner’s spanking-new investment advisory business).

The delay also allowed Republicans to revise history and mount retaliatory investigations designed to spread misinformation in defense of Trump and undermine those who sought to hold him accountable.

Most importantly, it now appears that the delay has preserved the possibility that Trump can be reelected before he is tried for his attempted coup. His plan from the beginning was to use a second term to dismiss the charges against him. See this article from July 17, 2022 in Rolling Stone, Trump Says He Needs 2024 Election Win to Stop Criminal Probes. Per Rolling Stone, Trump told a friend, “when [not if] he is president again, a new Republican administration will put a stop to the [Justice Department] investigation.”

The fifteen-month delay in opening an investigation is time that will never be recovered, no matter how quickly Jack Smith works. The delay inflicted an irreparable injury on the people of the United States, the rule of law, and the Constitution.

2. What lessons, if any, should the DOJ and FBI learn from the reporting?

There are two primary lessons that the DOJ and FBI should learn from the report in WaPo. The first is that it was a mistake to prioritize the reputation of the DOJ over the pursuit of justice. If the pursuit of justice results in public disapproval of the DOJ, the pursuit of justice should prevail. Merrick Garland and the DOJ apologists who were more concerned about the reputation of the DOJ tarnished that reputation and breached their oaths to the Constitution.

The second is that the DOJ suffered from a lack of imagination. Confronted with the first-ever attempted coup in American history, it applied an investigation model designed for investigating drug cartels and criminal syndicates. In those investigations, prosecutors frequently know who the street soldiers are but not the “kingpins.” Or they may have direct evidence against the street soldiers but no evidence against the leaders of the criminal syndicate. Working from the bottom up in such circumstances makes sense.

The “bottom-up” drug cartel approach did not apply to Trump's attempted coup and insurrection. The attempted coup and incitement to insurrection occurred on live television and in press conferences and tweets by Trump and his surrogates. The DOJ could have commenced investigations based on publicly sourced information—but they lacked the imagination to do so.

And they lacked the imagination to understand that Trump would mount a second attempted coup by running for president in 2024. The attitude of, “This is the way we always do it” failed the DOJ and FBI grievously.

As the WaPo article makes clear, the DOJ and FBI acted only when they were embarrassed by the efforts of the media and the January 6th Committee. Rachel Maddow led a one-woman crusade to demand an investigation into the fake electors. Her efforts spurred attorneys general from several states to open such investigations and make referrals to the DOJ to open similar investigations.

That pressure finally forced Lisa Monaco (the number two person in the DOJ) to assert during a news conference that the DOJ investigators “are looking at those. . . referrals” from the state attorneys general. As noted in the WaPo article, Monaco’s claim the DOJ was considering the referrals was a surprise to many who were working on January 6th prosecutions. (“Law enforcement officers . . . were taken aback by Monaco’s comments because they had not been told work was beginning . . . .)

The role of the January 6th Committee cannot be overstated. Credit goes to Nancy Pelosi, Bennie Thompson, Liz Cheney, and the members and staff of the Committee who focused the nation’s attention on the many crimes committed by Trump and his aides before, during, and after January 6th. Per WaPo,

One person directly familiar with the department’s new interest in the case said it felt as though the department was reacting to the House committee’s work as well as heightened media coverage and commentary. “Only after they were embarrassed did they start looking,” the person said.

Thus, the final lesson is that “public embarrassment” should not be the threshold for initiating an investigation. Long before Rachel Maddow and others highlighted the obvious conspiracy between fake electors across the nation, the DOJ had sufficient “predication” to commence an investigation. The fact that it did not is a stain on the DOJ’s record that will never be removed. The best we can hope for is that the DOJ will engage in introspection about how it lost its way in the face of the greatest threat to American democracy since the Civil War.

3. Were American citizens right to be concerned over the year-long silence from the DOJ concerning the prosecution (or absence thereof) of Trump?

Yes. Many Americans (including me) interpreted the absolute silence from the DOJ and FBI about Trump during the first year and a half after January 6th as evidence that the DOJ was not investigating Trump. Many others, including political commentators and readers of this newsletter, were convinced that the absolute silence was “proof” that the DOJ was working diligently in the background to build “an airtight case” against Trump because “If you shoot at the king, you dare not miss.”

Citizens concerned about the possibility that a coup-plotting president would escape accountability were dismissed as “impatient,” “immature,” “rash,” “tiresome,” and “unprofessional.” In fact, they were rightly concerned that the DOJ was failing in its central mandate. The delay shook their faith in the legitimacy and righteousness of the DOJ—and yet they were viewed as “the problem” for criticizing the DOJ.

It is, of course, appropriate for the DOJ to refrain from commenting on specific investigations—except when it is appropriate for it to make a comment. When a crime is committed in public or results in mass casualties, the DOJ and FBI routinely issue statements about the status of their investigations. (The “public interest” exception to comments on ongoing investigations is permitted by the DOJ Manual at 1-7.400.)

Here, the DOJ’s silence was used as a cover for its inaction. Shame on the DOJ for doing so and shame on us for accepting that state of affairs. If Merrick Garland or Lisa Monaco had acknowledged six months after January 6th that they had not opened an investigation into Trump, history would be different.

In the future, we need greater accountability and transparency from the DOJ regarding its investigation of matters relating to compelling public interest. An investigation of an attempted coup constitutes compelling public interest. The DOJ needs to take a serious look at how its communication strategy failed to apprise the American public of the status of its investigations into Donald Trump.

#Dept of Justice #justice #Robert B. Hubbell #Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter #Merrick Garland #political

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