Tag Archives: Trump crimes

Justice Delayed – What Are We Waiting For?

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Every literate person has heard the phrase: “justice delayed is justice denied.” There are indications that, in substance if not in exact wording, it dates to the 1600s. https://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/2967-you-can-quote-them or even further back. http://tinyurl.com/y3nucucu In any case the modern version, as applied to the legal system, is commonly understood to relate to the right to a speedy trial and primarily to the rights of defendants.

There is, however, a larger meaning. That is the entitlement of the nation to bring criminals to justice as swiftly as circumstances and protection of individual rights will allow. Anyone who has practiced law across the system knows that the wheels often grind slowly, for a variety of good and/or unavoidable reasons: (1) there are too many cases for the criminal courts to handle; (2) legal processes over the decades have become laden with complicated rules of procedure and evidence that can lead to lengthy delays while difficult issues are briefed, argued, and decided; (3) lawyers sometimes find that their best strategy is delay and use motion practice, discovery and other tactics to drag cases out as much as possible to put off the day of reckoning; (4) judges in some cases are in no hurry to move cases to final decision. The erratic nature of judicial decision-making is discussed in horrifying detail in Noise, A Flaw in Human Judgment, by Daniel Kahneman (one of the creators of Behavioral Economics & Nobel Prize awardee), Olivier Sibony, and Cass Sunstein.

The core theory of the system is that the law applies equally to everyone, regardless of social status, wealth, or other circumstance. At least that was the case before Donald Trump came along. Trump is credibly alleged to have committed more serious crimes than any president in history. He has been impeached twice but never convicted because the Republicans in the U.S. Senate, once one of the world’s great deliberative bodies, put their loyalty to him above their oaths to the Constitution.

One of the results of the Trump crime spree has been that, once he left the White House and the ill-conceived DOJ policy that protects sitting presidents from indictment ceased to apply, multiple jurisdictions moved against him simultaneously. There is no evidence that the scheduling of the main four cases has been coordinated, adding to the arsenal of ludicrous claims by Trump that his attempt to run for another term has been interfered with. The situation has also contributed to Trump’s ability to file an unending stream of motions designed mainly to delay and to create multiple appeals to higher courts and, ultimately, to the Supreme Court that Trump almost certainly believes will eventually save him from accountability.

The judges in the various federal cases seem unable or unwilling to impose rigorous order on the process, with the result that the schedule for holding Trump accountable for his crimes grows longer by the day. The chaos in the multi-defendant Georgia state case, as reported by the Washington Post, is a perfect example of this. http://tinyurl.com/32kzbpus The judges are putting up with conduct from Trump and his counsel that would never be tolerated for other defendants and their lawyers. Trump has repeatedly violated court-imposed restraints on his conduct in and out of court largely without meaningful consequences for him. The Department of Justice and the Special Counsel seem curiously passive in response to these outrages.

I have speculated that the Supreme Court will find a rationale of some kind to keep Trump on the 2024 ballot in all the states. The various courts of jurisdiction over his criminal charges are abetting the risk that he may win the 2024 election, at which point all criminal cases will likely be halted. Trump will then pardon himself, an act utterly preposterous and at odds with the Constitution, and the case will proceed back up to the Supreme Court where, one fine day, the Court will have to make a last stand for the Constitution and democracy … or not.

While that is going on, Trump and the loons, racists, and fascists he will install in the federal government will proceed to dismantle the civil service and the other components of the federal system they fear so deeply. If, then, the Supreme Court, decides that Trump was not entitled to pardon himself, the response will be “so what?”  By the Trump will repeat the famous line, “you’ve made your decision, now enforce it.”

The only apparent way to prevent the takeover of the government by the anti-democracy anti-Constitutional Trump MAGA morons, other than rejecting him at the ballot box (more about that in a moment), is to move his criminal cases along to decision before the election, stop the interlocutory appeals (appeals are usually allowed after a final verdict, not repeatedly throughout the litigation), expedite the inevitable appeals and bring the issue of his criminality to a head. The chances of that being accomplished seem remote at best.

Regarding defeat of Trump in the election, I continue to believe that the supporters of the democratic approach to governance under the existing Constitution far outnumber the MAGA crowd of cultists who continue to believe Trump is some kind of savior of the “values” they hold dear. The question is whether those supporters will vote in sufficient numbers in 2024.

The media appear to be repeating the same mantra and obsession with Trump and Republicans that they exhibited during his 2016 campaign and presidency. The media cannot be ignorant of the impact on voters of their relentless coverage of Trump and recitation of polls claiming he has an insurmountable lead over President Biden. They are digging their own graves, along with the burial of democracy.

I remain mystified as to the relatively inert Democratic messaging network. The Republican-created information vacuum combined with the silence of the Democrats is leaving the field to Trump, potentially creating a sense of invulnerability as the courts allow his lawyers to exploit the legal system without meaningful consequence. No other criminal defendant in America would be permitted to attack publicly the courts, judges, witnesses and even juries with impunity. Yet Trump continues to do so while having the advantage of interlocutory appeals, massive media coverage of his every insane utterance, and the aggressive support of Republican elected officials throughout the country who fear loss of their jobs more than preservation of the republic.

Just yesterday, the DC Circuit full bench, without dissent, declined to interfere with the three-judge panel decision limiting Trump’s comments about witnesses and court staff. Trump will undoubtedly appeal to the Supreme Court. And on it will go in the many cases in which the courts have given him leeway that would never have been given to anyone else charged with the felonies he is facing.

I understand the political imperatives that make it important that the sitting president not appear to be “weaponizing” the government against Trump. There are other ways, however. Trump’s crimes were not committed in secret. He openly incited the attack on the Capitol on January 6 and the evidence of planning behind that day is now established. The Department of Justice has the advantage of having the law and the Constitution on its side. Those great tools of democracy are there not just to protect accused criminals but to deliver justice to the whole of society for crimes committed against the commons. What are we waiting for?

The Presumption of Innocence

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With all the Republican handwringing about Trump’s multiple indictments and efforts to interfere with the administration of justice (including defunding the Special Counsel’s office – to be covered in separate post), it may be useful to consider what the “presumption of innocence” means.

Some people appear to believe that the presumption of innocence has some meaning outside the courtroom and that a person cannot be “guilty” when “presumed innocent. That belief is wrong. The presumption is a legal process concept not found as such in the Constitution but implied by the right to a fair trial. The Sixth Amendment provides:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

The practical result of those words is that the accused cannot be convicted, i.e., formally found “guilty” of the alleged crimes without a trial and process that complies with the Sixth Amendment and other applicable sections of the Constitution and laws. But that does not mean that the accused is “innocent.” It means that in court, the accused enjoys the protections associated with “fair trial” at the end of which a decision of “guilt” or “innocence” will be made. It means he hasn’t been found guilty yet. This may seem like a “dancing on the head of a pin” issue, but Trump’s acolytes make much of it and the media constantly repeat it.

Being “presumed innocent” doesn’t mean you are innocent. It means you haven’t yet been found guilty by the proper process. If you are not guilty, you cannot be kept in jail pending trial unless some limited conditions are met and appropriate, evidence-based findings are made. These include being a flight risk. Or a threat to witnesses.

So, Donald Trump may be “presumed innocent” but he is not “innocent.” No one, even his most ardent sycophantic idolizers, has argued that the facts alleged in the four criminal indictments against him are untrue. Nor could they make credible arguments to that effect. Instead, they deflect and distract with unproven and unprovable claims that the various governments that charged Trump have been “weaponized” for purposes of political revenge, or to keep Trump out of the 2024 race, or Trump shouldn’t be held accountable because others for whom no meaningful evidence of criminal conduct was ever brought forward have not been charged with crimes. Or or or or something anything, look a flying squirrel, look a UFO!

Trump’s only defense is delay. On the merits, on the facts, he is dead in the water. And yes, yes, he has the legal right to ask the state courts to remove the cases to federal court [all should be denied] and the legal right to ask that trial dates be put off to 2050 [denied].

Yes, Trump has us right where we want him. American justice is painfully slow, but Trump’s standard playbook is toast. The only real question is how long this is going to take.

One other thing. Various of Trump’s political allies are trying to have Jack Smith’s Special Counsel office defunded as a means of stopping the prosecution. In Georgia, efforts are under way to impeach or otherwise halt the prosecution by Fanni Willis. I believe all of these efforts constitute obstruction of justice, and it is past time for the governments involved to say so. Republicans in Congress have no business interfering with a criminal prosecution any more than they could pass a law saying that prior conduct of a particular individual, criminal at the time, was retroactively no longer criminal. The Republican Party has lost its claim to being the party of “law and order.”

Another Major News Entity That Needs Editors

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The Internet has brought us many new and useful tools, but one of the glaring downsides is that it has undermined journalism in multiple ways. One response of the media has apparently been to either eliminate editing or significantly diminish its role in vetting articles before they are posted. Examples continue to multiple.

The latest glaring example comes from ABCNews.com that published a story about two US Navy sailors accused to spying for China. https://abcnews.go.com/US/2-us-navy-sailors-arrested-allegedly-spying-china/story?id=101990144  While the content of the story is important and interesting, there is no obvious reason why it had to be rushed to “print” without competent checking of the writing.

Examples:

  • Jinchao “Patrick” Wei, a 22-year-old petty officer 2nd class, was arrested Wednesday and charged with espionage — more specifically, conspiracy to and committing the communication of defense information to aid a foreign government.

Conspiracy to committing?  Conspiracy to the communication?

  • Petty Officer Wenheng Zhao, of Monterey Park, California, was also arrested Wednesday, by FBI and NCIS agents, and is charged with conspiracy and receipt of a bribe by a public official, officials said, according to Zhao’s indictment.

“According to Zhao’s indictment” does not belong at the end of the sentence. It should be placed at the beginning.

  • Zhao, 26, worked at the Naval Base Ventura County in Port Hueneme and had an active U.S. security clearance who had access to classified information, officials said.

As written, that sentence says that it was the “security clearance,” as a “who” rather than a “what,” that “had access to classified information.” I am reasonably certain that the sentence was intended to say that Zhao had the security clearance that gave him access to classified information.

  • His indictment states he had access to material classified as secret, as did Wei, who was born in China and became a U.S. citizen in 2022 as he was allegedly also sending information to his handler.

I’m not sure what to say about that sentence. The concluding phrase, “as he was allegedly also sending information to his handler,” is lost in space. With slight changes, it probably belongs after “secret.” The sentence would be improved by creating two sentences from it, one about the indictment and one about Wei’s background. Sigh.

  • “The alleged conduct also represents a violation of the solemn obligation of members of our military to defend our country to safeguard our secrets and to protect their fellow service members.”

What happened to the punctuation? Properly written, that sentence would read this way: “”The alleged conduct also represents a violation of the solemn obligation of members of our military to defend our country, to safeguard our secrets, and to protect their fellow service members.”

  • It was not immediately clear if either Wei or Zhao had retained attorneys who could comment on their behalf.”

I admit I am nitpicking a bit here, but wouldn’t that sentence read better this way: “It was not clear whether Wei or Zhao had retained attorneys who could comment on their behalf.” OR, even better, “It was not clear whether Wei or Zhao had retained an attorney who could comment on his behalf.”

  • Wei is alleged to have passed along imagery of the USS Essex, provided the locations of various Navy ships and provided dozens of technical and manual for systems aboard his ship and other Navy ships.

Open your blue books and answer this question: How many manual or manuals was Wei claimed to have shared?

  • “The case against Mr. Zhao is part of a larger national strategy to combat criminal efforts from nation state actors to steal our nation sensitive military information,” Estrada said.

Obviously, “nation” should have been “nation’s,” the singular possessive form. I suppose it’s possible that Estrada misspoke and said only “nation” but, if so, the authors should have inserted “[sic]” after the word to indicate their awareness of the mistake.

There are other problems with the piece but eight is enough to make the point. A final note: the article lists five contributors to the piece. Remarkably, none of the five apparently saw or raised any of the issues I have identified. If they did, they were ignored, which may be worse

Lest I be accused of picking on ABC, I hasten to assure you that problems like these are evident throughout Internet-published journalism.

Examples: click-bait titles are rampant.

Blue Jays Acquire Angels’ Star Shohei Ohtani In Blockbuster Trade Proposal That Would Instantly Shake Up The MLB

Maybe I’m being unfair, but I believe that headline in https://www.totalprosports.com/mlb/shohei-ohtani-angels-blue-jays-trade-rumor/ was written to lead the reader to believe that the Los Angeles Angels had agreed to trade Shohei Ohtani to the Blue Jays, which is about as likely as my being recruited as a pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers. In fact, the article makes clear that the acquisition of Ohtani was merely a proposal from the Blue Jays.

Another example of failed/missing proofreading:

The bomb squad “determined that the small grenade was insert,” according to a sheriff’s office update. [Miami Herald, July 11]

I have many more examples but, frankly, they are buried in my emails. In preparing to write this post, I realized that I have more than 9,150 emails in my Inbox. Many are routine items (“Your Amazon order has shipped”) and there are hundreds, possibly thousands, related to Donald Trump and his many crimes against the Constitution, the law, and humanity. One of these days I “plan” to find time to review them all and either act on them or delete them. One fine day.

Meanwhile, c’mon ABC and the rest. Do better.

Trump Crimes Report

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Apologies for the late arrival of this but it couldn’t be helped. I just wanted to call to everyone’s attention a new report released a few days ago from the Brookings Institution entitled, Trump on Trial: A Guide to the January 6 Hearings and the Question of Criminality. https://brook.gs/3Q91S7U

The Guide is like a study aid for the hearings that begin tonight at 8 pm on multiple channels (but, of course, not on Fox News) to present the findings thus far of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. I was working as fast as possible to highlight key passages, of which there are many. But time has run out, so I’m sharing the link to the original report. In a later post I will provide a method to receive the marked-up report for those interested.