Trump's Justice Dept & related 'injustices'

TGHusker

TGHusker

New member
I thought we had a thread on the justice dept but could not find it.   So here is this one.  I wanted to start this thread after reading in the Trump's America thread about the pardons Trump is making this week.    In reading the article below (copied in part) there are 3 important things that stand out to me regarding Trump's action:

1. The quote in Blue -  This seems to be a theme in Trump's actions, not just here but elsewhere, If Trump feels you are a 'swell person' then you are worthy of his good graces.  Yet trump says in the same phrase that he doesn't know Blagojevich.  While justice is to be blind, it isn't meant to be stupid.  We don't make decisions based on personal impressions or 'feelings'.  The stakes are too high.

2. The bold statement in Orange:    Trump feels emboldened after his acquittal.  Thinking people, unlike the GOP senators who voted for acquittal, saw this coming.  The impeachment didn't cause

Trump to pause and re-evaluate life choices for the purpose of reformation (Susan Collins and others expected this) but rather played to Trump's deeper motivations of self preservation and promotion.  I expect that we will see an unleashing of actions out of this president as he believes he will never be held accountable.  The GOP is too timid and too vested in trump to curtail any action this president might take. 

3.  The bold statement in purple -  from now on it is all about getting even. Trump is on his revenge tour and commuting Gov Blago's term is a stick in the eye of Comy and Fitzgerald. 

I expect Trump to soon pardon his friends, find a way to get some of them into his administration, and generally promote injustice within the dept of justice.  The dept has become weaponized under Trump as it was under Nixon.  Barr is the new John Mitchell. 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/18/politics/donald-trump-rod-blagojevich-commutation-sentence/index.html

 
Trump announced midday he had commuted the prison sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat who has served eight years of a 14-year sentence for the pay-for-play charges. Trump had been weighing the move since at least since 2018.
"He served eight years in jail, a long time. He seems like a very nice person, don't know him," Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews, suggesting the television appeals of Blagojevich's wife Patti helped cement his decision.

 



 


Trump also announced pardons for former New York police commissioner Bernie Kerik, convicted of tax fraud and lying to officials; Mike Milken, an investment banker known as the "Junk Bond King" who was convicted of felony charges that included securities fraud and conspiracy; and Eddie DeBartolo Jr., the former owner of the San Francisco 49ers who pleaded guilty in 1998 to failing to report a felony in a bribery case.


 

 


Trump pardons former New York police commissioner Bernie Kerik




The moves furthered the impression of a President unbound after the Senate acquitted him following impeachment charges he abused his power. Aides had worked to convince Trump against reducing Blagojevich's sentence, believing it would play poorly. And Republican members of Congress lobbied Trump to drop the idea.
But aides say Trump feels newly emboldened after the Senate acquittal, and the steps he announced on Tuesday were long in the works.
Trump publicly hinted he would use his clemency powers for Blagojevich, a Democrat, in August. But he faced sharp blowback from some conservative members of Congress, including from Illinois, as well as from some White House advisers who said it would undercut a message of draining Washington's swamp.
On Tuesday, Trump linked Blagojevich's prosecution to a longtime foe, former FBI Director James Comey, a close friend of former US attorney in Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald, who led the prosecution against Blagojevich.
"It was a prosecution by the same people -- Comey, Fitzpatrick -- the same group," Trump said, misstating the Illinois US attorney's surname.
Trump has raged over the past week at what he says are prosecutors run amok, including in the case involving his friend Roger Stone, who is due to be sentenced this week.
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"Draining the swamp" my a$$!

Part of me wants to believe he is trying to lose the election in 2020 because he never really wanted the job.  But I really believe he is just this s#!tty of a person.  He has no business being in office, and anyone who actively supports him should punch themselves in the face.

Just sayin...

This pisses me off!

 
teachercd said:
Do the crime...do the time.  No one should ever get out early.
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Ya but he is the law and order president remember.    :sarcasm When we heard that at the convention everyone should have known what was coming.   The same with draining the swamp.  He knew all of the swamp's ways and the people - because he played in the swamp therefore he was the only one who could clean it up or so he said.  Boy the lies his voters swallowed. 

 
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TGHusker said:
Ya but he is the law and order president remember.    :sarcasm When we heard that at the convention everyone should have known what was coming.   The same with draining the swamp.  He knew all of the swamp's ways and the people - because he played in the swamp therefore he was the only one who could clean it up or so he said.  Boy the lies his voters swallowed. 
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I don't believe anyone should get out early.  Your sentence should be your sentence.  Period.  

 
I'll believe it when I see it.  Is it really possible for Barr to act independent of Trump? We haven't seen it thus far.  Session tried to be independent by recusing himself in the Mueller investigation and ended up getting fired or forced to resign.   Barr did work for GHWB

back in the 90s - hard to find two more polar opposites GHWB and trump.  Maybe there is a seed in Barr that longs for the civility of the former days.

https://apnews.com/fb62962eaa840c5a38aa59e9c9918a16

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General William Barr has told people close to him he’s considering quitting his post after President Donald Trump wouldn’t heed his warning to stop tweeting about Justice Department cases, an administration official told The Associated Press.

The revelation came days after Barr took a public swipe at the president, saying in a television interview that Trump’s tweets about Justice Department cases and staffers make it “impossible” for him to do his job. The next day, Trump ignored Barr’s request and insisted that he has the “legal right” to intervene in criminal cases and sidestep the Justice Department’s historical independence.



The administration official was not authorized to discuss Barr’s private remarks and requested anonymity.It’s unclear how seriously Barr has considered resigning or whether he is instead trying to pressure Trump to back off his provocative tweets about the Justice Department. Barr’s spokeswoman said late Tuesday that the attorney general “has no plans to resign.”


Barr is one of the president’s closest allies in the administration and has been a staunch defender of Trump’s policy decisions. But considering resigning from his post suggests he sees the Justice Department’s reputation as an institution that makes decisions on criminal cases independently, unmoved and unbound by political sway, as more important than his allegiance to the president.

Trump tweeted on Tuesday that he’s considering suing those involved in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and opined that his confidant Roger Stone deserved a new trial after being convicted of witness tampering and obstruction.
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Banana republic justice as one law professor stated below.   Justice by personal appeal on FoxNews by Gov Blago's wife. Justice for the well connected given by one moved by personal recommendations and not justice dept proceedures.  He is a law onto himself and accountable to no one.  As he brashly states he is the 'chief law enforcement officer of the country'.  If only he could figure a way to pardon himself.  Seems there was this dictator in Germany almost a 100 years ago who became the chief law enforcer and nothing was illegal for him- including implementing the 'Final Solution'. 

 
Trump defended his actions, saying he has the right to shape the country's legal systems as he sees fit.

"I'm allowed to be totally involved," he told reporters as he left Washington on Tuesday for a trip to California, Nevada and Arizona. "I'm actually, I guess, the chief law enforcement officer of the country. But I've chosen not to be involved."

The president's post-impeachment behavior has alarmed Attorney General William Barr, who has told people close to the president that he is willing to quit unless Trump stops publicly commenting on ongoing criminal matters, according to two administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. It also has appalled several legal experts and former officials, who have said his direct intervention in legal matters risks further politicizing law enforcement at a time of fraying confidence in the Justice Department.

 
Carmen Ortiz, the former U.S. attorney for Massachusetts under President Barack Obama, was among the signatories on the letter condemning Trump's political interference in legal matters.

"I've worked under both Republican and Democratic administrations," she said, "and I've just never seen behavior like what were seeing right now."

Trump added to the sense of legal disarray Tuesday by granting executive clemency to a group of 11 people that included several political allies and others convicted of corruption, lying and fraud. Among the recipients of Trump's largesse was Rod Blagojevich, the former Illinois governor who was convicted on corruption charges in 2011 related to trying to sell Obama's vacated Senate seat. His sentence was commuted. Financier Michael Milken, who was charged with insider trading in the 1980s, and Bernie Kerik, the former New York police commissioner jailed on eight felony charges, including tax fraud, were pardoned.

Trump said the pardons and commutations were based on "the recommendations of people that know them," including Blagojevich's wife, Patricia, who made a direct appeal to the president on Fox News.

Legal experts said that by relying on his personal connections rather than the Justice Department's established review process for finding convicts deserving of clemency, Trump risked politicizing his pardon power.

"It's a clemency process for the well-connected, and that's it," said Rachel Barkow, a professor and clemency expert at the New York University's law school. "Trump is wielding the power the way you would expect the leader of a banana republic who wants to reward his friends and cronies."
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Now trump is dictating who should not have been on the jury.  The guy is a control freak.   Expect a pardon. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-says-roger-stone-has-very-good-chance-exoneration-hours-n1140046

President Donald Trump said his former adviser Roger Stone has "a very good chance of exoneration," hours after the GOP operative was sentenced to 40 months behind bars for obstructing a congressional investigation of Russia's 2016 presidential election meddling.

"I'm following this very closely, and I want to see it play out to its fullest, because Roger has a very good chance of exoneration, in my opinion," Trump said Thursday in a speech in Las Vegas, where he also blasted the jury forewoman in Stone's criminal trial.

 
"It's my strong opinion that the forewoman for the jury is totally tainted," Trump said, calling the woman "an anti-Trump person" with "a horrible social media account."

He said the forewoman is a "very dominant person" who likely convinced other jurors to follow her lead. "How can you have a jury pool tainted so badly?" Trump asked.
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Lawyers for Stone, 67, had filed a motion asking for a new trial. Stone's supporters have said it's based on comments made by the jury forewoman, Tomeka Hart.

Hart ran for Congress as a Democrat in 2012, a fact she disclosed during jury selection. Asked by Judge Jackson if she could fairly evaluate the evidence during the trial, she said yes, and Stone's lawyers did not seek to have her removed from the jury pool.

The judge who presided over the trial, Amy Berman Jackson, pointedly praised jurors for their "integrity" at Stone's sentencing
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Trump wants Ginsburg and Sotomayor to recuse themselves on anything "trump" related.    Now he is trying to bully the SC justices who don't see the world as he does.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/25/trump-supreme-court-sonia-sotomayor-ruth-bader-ginsburg

Even as the US justice system faces a crisis of credibility because of the Trump administration’s handling of federal cases, Donald Trump has taken the unusual step of attacking two supreme court justices on Twitter and in remarks to the press.

In a dissent last week, justice Sonia Sotomayor criticized the Trump administration’s frequent appeals to the supreme court to intervene in lower-court decisions, and the court’s willingness to side with such requests.

On Twitter, responding to a segment on Fox News’s The Ingraham Angle, Trump unleashed a tirade against Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who has criticized the president in the past.

“This is a terrible thing to say,” Trump tweeted. “Trying to ‘shame’ some into voting her way? She never criticized Justice Ginsberg when she called me a ‘faker’. Both should recuse themselves on all Trump, or Trump related, matters!

“While ‘elections have consequences’” – a reference to his two supreme court appointments since winning the White House, both reliable conservatives – “I only ask for fairness, especially when it comes to decisions made by the United States supreme court!”
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