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"We are writing a rule for the ages..."

4/29/24
from The Gray Area:
4/29/24:
If there is a good news element to the Supreme Court hearing on former President Trump's immunity from prosecution, it is this which Justice Neil Gorsuch said on Thursday: "We are writing a rule for the ages..."! If the Court actually does take this as a point of order for the future of the United States and the United States Presidency, what comes out of this Court may help to stabilize the rule of law. But, for those who disagree with everything this Court does, it may also serve as a spark for violent protests and riots. Lets pray, of course, for the former. In the meantime, it appears the early arguments on this case come down to 3 questions: 1. Were the actions the prosecution charges as illegal, done under former President Trump's official duties or personally? If it is determined that  those were personal actions, then the Court may split the baby and determine some things for which he as a former President can be liable for. 2. Does Jack Smith, the Special Counsel, or the Office of the Special Counsel, even legally have the authority and right to prosecute Trump, or anyone? According to the EPOCH Times, in a 42 page Amicus brief presented to the High Court in March, Meese and Mukasey questioned whether “Jack Smith has lawful authority to undertake the criminal prosecution of Donald Trump. Both, former US Attorneys General said Smith, in the Office Special Counsel itself had no authority to prosecute in part because he was never confirmed by the Senate to any position. This possibly meaning the entire thing is a sham, basically. A federal prosecution can be taken by persons properly appointed as federal officers the properly created federal offices. Neither Smith, nor the position of special council under which he purportedly acts meets those criteria. He wields tremendous power, effectively answering to no one, by design. That is a serious problem for the rule of law, whatever we think of former President Donald Trump or the conduct on January 6, 2021. The crux problem is that Smith was never confirmed by the Senate as the US attorney and no other statue allows the US Attorney General to name merely anyone as special counsel. Smith was acting US attorney for a federal district in Tennessee in 2017, but he was never nominated to the position. In other words, frankly, all the powers he’s wielding right now may not be legitimate. In fact, legally, they’re not I would say. He resigned from the position after then-President Trump nominated a different prosecutor as acting US attorney for a federal district in Tennessee. 3. What are long term implications? It is on this point where Gorsuch makes his statement, "We are writing a rule for the ages..."! This is raising some pretty serious debates and a whole lot of concern about what this means for our future. A lot of conservative justices went into the broad accusations against former presidents for example. As Clarence Thomas discussed this with Michael Dreeben, the attorney for special counsel Jack Smith's team - 'in the not so distant past, the president, or certain presidents, have engaged in various activity, coups, or operations, like operation mongoose, and, they were no prosecutions. If what you’re saying is right, it would seem that that would’ve been right for criminal prosecution of someone before?' Dreeben responded, 'Well, Justice Thomas, I think this is a central question. The reason why there have not been prior criminal prosecution is that there were not crimes.' Interesting. So, according to the attorney the reason we haven’t seen any criminal prosecution of former presidents is because there were no crimes. We could argue, of course, that maybe those crimes were just not investigated or prosecuted because previously was assumed that no president could be prosecuted like this and what they are doing to Donald Trump, has never been done in the history of this country. But, of course, you know who determines whether a crime took place? Were they're investigations? Were those investigations actually carried through? Were there any challenges to this? Were there any alleged crimes they were similar to what Donald Trump is being accused of? I’d say we’ve seen many things done by former presidents, that could be considered crimes at least on the same grounds as a Trump is being charged, with many of them taking classified documents. - like these socks scandal, 'sock gate' of Bill Clinton, - like Barack Obama taking a lot of documents and then denying them to even investigators, because he said that they were for his Library. Trump is being charged with this while others are not. - for example rape. How many former presidents have been accused of rape? Well, Bill Clinton comes to mind, he’s been accused many times in fact, but is he being charged like Trump is? - under Barack Obama, fast and furious or for example, working with the cartels to supply guns and drugs and things like that, ... - questions raised about military operations and Barack Obama and the killings of civilians and of course, - some raised concerns and questions of the Japanese internment camps during World War II, for example, under the former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. - and Justice Clarence Thomas' reference, operation mongoose, which was of course the CIA program carried out under President John F Kennedy, which saw the use of terrorist attacks against civilians in Cuba in a failed attempt to start a Coup. - I’d question even further, whether similar incidents of revolutions would also fit in that category, like the Arab spring revolutions; maybe the returning of the government formally of Ukraine; the killing of Gaddafi in Libya; what about George Bush‘s war over fake news from The New York Times of weapons of mass destruction. -'throw her in jail', with Hillary Clinton and Top Secret materials... I’d say there’s a very long list of incident that could be labeled as crimes under previous administrations. if they held them to the same standard they are holding Trump to. - not to mention, for example, the allegations of Trump trying to overthrow democracy by doing things like calling for investigations into election fraud. How many former presidents called for investigations into election fraud? How many of them talked about dueling electors? How about dueling electors being appointed? How many presidents did this in the past? Remember when Donald Trump was elected president many Democrats were calling not just for dueling electors, but for electors to go against the votes and just cast an opposite vote which actually is much further than what Trump is accused of doing. - And, you may be on these exact same grounds frankly, with every elected leader who spread fake news on trial about the Trump Russia hoax because, of course, they’re using Russian disinformation, which is used in order to undermine a presidency, rig an election, ... - and, of course, their political enemy may be, along with everyone else, who tried impeaching, and based on those false claims .... I’d say the political targeting of political enemies can be a very dirty business. This was one of the main concerns raised during the hearings by Justice Samuel Alito ... Here’s what he had to say, "whoever loses very close contested election knows that a real possibility leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement, but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent. Will that not lead us into a cycle that de-stabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy, and we can look around the world and find countries where we have seen this process, where the loser gets thrown in jail... as also elaborated on this problem and what can mean for the future of the American political system, you know, if presidents can be targeted for prosecution by their political enemies." And, he suggested that history has shown that once you open that door, for being possible to target presidents and political opposition for criminal prosecution, it usually does not stop once that doors open. It is very very hard to close. What is to stop it from being used against the next president, or the next president, or the next president after that. The prosecutors, on the authority of Jack Smith, they would say otherwise. They’re arguing that if presidents are given broad immunity, then it could damage the basic system of checks and balances. If a president has a broken the law, should justice be allowed to happen? Should we not be able to put them on trial? What if they actually did do something serious, should we have no way of legal recourse with that? The courts three liberal justices emphasize that a president is not above the law they seem to reject the idea of immunity from prosecution expressing fears about giving a president unbounded power to commit crimes from the White House...I wonder if that’s happening right now... It could still go either way, and, as we noted, there are many people with possible crimes on the other side of the political aisle, maybe justice does need to be able to take place for former presidents and people in high-level positions? If this is able to go through, we could very likely see charges happening in many parts of our government. This decision will open the door, or close it, to prosecutions of opposition former presidents and other top officials. Remember, though, Chief Justice Roberts tends to like to sidestep historic decisions in this Court. More From EPOCH Times:


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