Pardons Off the Table Until After Investigation

In the guise of allaying the public's alarm, President Trump and his attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, have signaled potential "flippers" that they should keep their silence, secure in the knowledge that a pardon will be forthcoming before any jail term has to be served. Made to appear that the president and his team will not interfere in the Mueller investigation, the opposite is plainly their intent and their message is clear.

This maneuver is of a piece with the recently promoted notion that the firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions will be held in abeyance until after the November election, another signal that before Mueller can conclude his investigation a new Attorney General may fire him or, at least, handcuff his ability to enforce or report any findings of illegality.

Manafort Aide Attacked as Liar

As a retired judge who handled many criminal court trials, I am deeply disturbed by the behavior of federal judge T.S. Ellis III as he presides at the trial of Paul Manafort. His constant berating of the prosecutors might be excused as a function of an irascible personality, not a prized quality in a jurist, or as a by- product of his pursuit of a speedy trial.

However, Judge Ellis' interruptions of examination of witnesses and his own frequent questioning of witnesses, sometimes accompanied by remarks that suggest the judge's disbelief of the witness' credibility or his disapproval of the witness' behavior, constitute unacceptable and improper judicial demeanor. A trial judge must be sensitive to the influence his perceived views and behavior carry with jurors who often take the judge's apparent perspective as a guidepost for their own deliberations. A judge must not convey his private assessment of a case or a witness to the jurors who are the ultimate deciders of the facts.

I believe the prosecutors should request that Judge Ellis give a curative instruction to the jury advising that they must not draw any inferences or conclusions from the court's interpositions and assure the jurors that he does not have an opinion of the credibility of any witness nor of the guilt or innocence of the defendant.

Jay Sekulow's Bad Information

Now that it has been established that Donald Trump dictated the statement issued by his son, Donald Jr., falsely asserting that the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians was about adoptions, the president's lawyer, Jay Sekulow, says he had "bad information" when he made erroneous statements on behalf of the president denying any involvement by the president in the drafting of the false statement.

Mr. Sekulow has to know that any ethical attorney would first ask his client about the facts before issuing a statement on the client's behalf. So the conclusion is inevitable; one of four possibilities occurred. 1. Mr. Sekulow violated his ethical duty to question his client, or 2. his client lied to him, or 3. his client told him the truth and Mr. Sekulow lied to the public and the press and his client did not contradict him, or 4. perhaps most likely, Mr. Sekulow and Donald Trump conspired to put out a false statement. Under any of these options, Donald Trump is proven a liar and under all but one of the options, Mr. Sekulow merits the same condemnation.

Corporate Profits Soar as Wages Lag

Not surprisingly, as  the NYTimes has reported, corporate profits swell but laborers see no relief (7/14/18, A1). Even though there is a serious shortage of workers, which one would expect to result in higher wages, an increasing share of this country's wealth goes to investors and corporate executives while the pay and benefits of working people shrink.

Although several factors influence this trend, including automation and cheap foreign labor, the overriding reason for Labor's sorry lot is the decline in bargaining power represented by the ever diminishing size and power of labor unions. Unions, at their height, used the power of collective bargaining to end sweatshops and other abuses and gain living wages and benefits for a large swarth of our population. Now, unions are the victims of a "right to work" philosophy stealthily promoted by corporate interests and of the rulings of conservative courts which sanction laws and practices calculated to weaken or destroy unions.

Supreme Court Janus Ruling

When the Supreme Court, in Citizens United, opened the floodgates for corporate money to dominate American politics, the cop out was that unions also benefitted and would be free to counter corporate influence with their own large war chests. Now the court has wiped away even that illusory solace. In its latest ruling, Janus v. AFSCME, the court has struck the death knell of unions, at least in the public sector, by holding that non-union workers may not be required to pay their reduced share of the costs of the unions' core activities (especially collective bargaining) even though those workers get all the benefits won by the unions and their contributions may not be used to support the unions' political activities. 

The likely effect of this reversal of long-followed precedent by the court's slim conservative majority will be to cause unions to drastically shrink or even disappear, leaving the field of political funding to the corporate beneficiaries of Citizens United.

Fruit of the Poison Tree Scam

Opinion writers at the Wall Street Journal have invoked the legal doctrine known as the "fruit of the poisonous tree" to discredit the Mueller investigation. They argue that, because an FBI agent who was in on the initiation of a probe into collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign has been shown to have had a strong aversion to Donald Trump, the entire investigation, including the current version headed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, is tainted and any findings made or actions taken will be inadmissible and of no legal weight.
Patently, those editorial writers either failed to consult knowledgeable lawyers or received very bad legal advice. The fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine was created by courts to prevent and deter police and prosecutors from using evidence that would not have been discovered but for a seminal violation of an offender's constitutional rights.
Even if the investigation into Trump-Russia collusion originated from improper motives, a highly doubtful claim, the subsequent discovery of incriminating evidence by that investigation is, nevertheless, admissible provided it was not illegally obtained, i.e. did not flow from a violation of the defendant's Fourth Amendment rights.
Since the argument has no legal merit, it would seem to be part of an orchestrated campaign to politically undermine any findings that may be adverse to the Trump campaign.

Fruit of the Poison Tree Scam

Opinion writers at the Wall Street Journal have invoked the legal doctrine known as the "fruit of the poisonous tree" to discredit the Mueller investigation. They argue that, because an FBI agent who was in on the initiation of a probe into collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign has been shown to have had a strong aversion to Donald Trump, the entire investigation, including the current version headed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, is tainted and any findings made or actions taken will be inadmissible and of no legal weight.
Patently, those editorial writers either failed to consult knowledgeable lawyers or received very bad legal advice. The fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine was created by courts to prevent and deter police and prosecutors from using evidence that would not have been discovered but for a seminal violation of an offender's constitutional rights.
Even if the investigation into Trump-Russia collusion originated from improper motives, a highly doubtful claim, the subsequent discovery of incriminating evidence by that investigation is, nevertheless, admissible provided it was not illegally obtained, i.e. did not flow from a violation of the defendant's Fourth Amendment rights.
Since the argument has no legal merit, it would seem to be part of an orchestrated campaign to politically undermine any findings that may be adverse to the Trump campaign.