The courts can no longer protect the U.S. from a dictatorship :(
Trump weaponizing DOJ is worst case scenario envisioned by Obama officials
Rachel Maddow shares that outgoing members of the Obama administration told her that their biggest concern was Donald Trump weaponizing the criminal justice system for his own personal and political advantage, and wonders who can stop that now that reporting suggests that even SDNY has been compromised by Bill Barr enacting Trump's bidding.Feb. 18, 2020
Keep going--this is from the same telecast:
DOJ memo shows Barr's lid on reported Giuliani investigation
Rachel Maddow looks at a newly released DOJ memo that shows all Ukraine-related investigations being consolidated in such a way that even investigations already in progress, like those the SDNY is reportedly conducting of Rudy Giuliani now have to be processed through Main Justice.Feb. 18, 2020I had assumed, apparently too optimistically, that President Trump would eventually suffer the same fate as gangster Al Capone, who literally got away with murder but was convicted of tax evasion. But it appears that Attorney General William Barr won't allow even a friend of Trump to be investigated for possible commission of a crime. So laying the fate of the United States at the feet of the courts of the Southern District of New York, who might have been able to charge Trump with tax fraud if there's evidence that he committed any within the statute of limitations, no longer appears to be a realistic option. If the Senate (part of the Legislative Branch of the United States Government) won't act, and the Department of Justice (Judicial Branch) is now under the thumb of someone who appears to be conforming to the President's wishes rather than following the law, is there any other branch of the U.S. government left that is both willing and able to hold Trump responsible for, essentially, anything?
posted by Shira Salamone at 4:54 PM
2 Comments:
Courts don't charge people with tax fraud; prosecutors do. Am I missing something?
The state could charge Trump with tax fraud; but the article you linked to suggests that the statute of limitations is more of an issue than federal interference.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough. What I mean is that, even if the statues of limitation weren't an issue, the new insistence of Main Justice that individual courts/jurisdictions and/or their prosecutors are no longer always authorized to prosecute in accordance with their own findings would be an issue. That's my own layperson's understanding.
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