Post Impeachment Consequences

 Regretfully, reports of the death of the Republican Party are exaggerated and premature. Given the gerrymandering sanctioned by the Supreme Court, the blatant voter suppression and the contagion of hatred and conspiratorial beliefs infecting a substantial proportion of the populace, don’t count on a collapse of Republican prospects in upcoming elections. The legislators who have sold their souls, by their unwavering support of Trump despite overwhelming evidence of his corruption, criminality and incompetence, are betting on a rising tide of anti-democratic sentiment to bolster their electoral ambition.

 Unless President Biden is able to enact his agenda, reining in the pandemic, restoring the economy, solving problems of immigration and racial injustice and rebuilding the Nation's infra-structure, I am terrified by the prospect that the 2022 midterm election will see recapture of the House and Senate by a party being declared deceased by wishful thinkers. Should that happen, a prediction of the death of our democracy will not be an exaggeration.

Impeachment Trial

 

Am I the only one who believes that the final argument made by Trump’s lawyer was, in large measure, read by him from a text that he seemed unfamiliar with and that sounded eerily as though it had been written for him by Donald Trump’s attack dog, Stephen Miller?

Trump's Concocted Defense

 The argument made by some Republican senators, that an impeachment trial of Donald Trump would be unconstitutional, is legally wrong for multiple reasons including the language of the Constitution, past precedent, recorded statements of the Framers and simple logic. However, the most compelling is the sheer hypocrisy of the claim that the trial is barred because Mr. Trump is no longer president.

In fact, Mr. Trump was impeached by the House while still in office and a trial in the Senate could have been conducted during his term but for the delay ordained by Majority Leader McConnell. Having engineered the delay, it ill behooves Republicans to claim that a trial now would be constitutionally untimely. This patent ploy calls to mind the old saw about the man who murdered his parents and asked for mercy as an orphan

Trump's Impeachment Defense

 To demonstrate the absurdity of Donald Trump’s First Amendment defense, the claim that he cannot be impeached for inciting insurrection because he was exercising his free speech rights when he addressed the crowd, consider this hypothetical scenario. Trump is arrested and charged with treason for giving the nation’s most sensitive military secrets to the Russians. At trial he argues that he cannot be convicted because his disclosure to the Russians was protected speech. Give us a break!

Supreme Court Test for Biden

 

President Biden’s solicitor general should not hesitate to reverse the government’s position in cases pending before the Supreme Court, notwithstanding Chief Justice Robert’s long ago admonition to an Obama lawyer for using the phrase “upon further consideration “ as being disingenuous. The new administration should emulate the Trump attorneys who baldly changed course in midstream without penalty or comment from the high court. The positions taken by Mr. Trump’s solicitor general in several pending cases are both legally and ethically flawed and should be promptly and forthrightly disavowed by the new team at the Justice Department.

The 'Progressive Prosecutor' Myth

 

In his Op-Ed " The 'Progressive Prosecutor' Myth, (A27, 2/5), Malik Neal makes many indisputable assertions. Yes, persons accused of crimes are presumed innocent and should not be held in jail merely because they are too poor to post bail. Yes, mass incarceration is a national shame that disproportionately victimizes people of color. It is also probably true that many prosecutors who gained office by promising significant reforms of the bail system have failed to deliver.

But Mr. Neal is wrong to put the entire blame for the failings of the criminal justice system upon prosecutors as having the "power and voice" to dictate decision-making. The ultimate power to determine whether any accused person is to be detained or released rests exclusively with the judge handling the case. To the extent that judges defer to the recommendations of prosecutors, without independently weighing the risks of flight and potential harm to the public, they are abdicating their authority and responsibility to exercise sound discretion and to deliver impartial justice.

The unfortunate fact is that too many judges seem to lack the backbone to reject excessive bail demands made by prosecutors, for fear of public denunciation. When prosecutors, driven by that same apprehension, inflate their bail requests, the result is a toxic mix of justice denied.

As Far-Right Peril Brewed, U.S. Scrutinized the Left

 In a very troubling article ( aren't they all? ) in the Sunday NY Times (front page, 1/31), it is reported that Donald Trump and top officials in his administration diverted the attention and resources of the FBI and Homeland Security from investigating far-right domestic terrorism, which had been identified as a growing threat to the nation, and directed those agencies to focus, instead, on antifa and the protests for racial justice. The consequences of that politically driven detour were made clear at the Capitol on January 6th.

While the article properly places blame upon Mr. Trump and former Attorney General William Barr, both of whom directed subordinates to beef up fruitless efforts to find left-wing conspiracies and to stand down on the threat of white nationalism, the report fails to pay necessary attention to the role of Republican legislators and right-wing media in promoting that misdirection. The myth that antifa was the true threat and that racial protests were a greater menace than white domestic terrorism was echoed by Republican senators and representatives and was amplified nightly by the "Murderers' Row" of commentators on Fox News, Carlson, Hannity and Ingraham. The persistent falsehoods spewed by those elements left our country unprepared to deal with the violence their malicious pronouncements incited.