9/1/20
I'm increasingly worried about dignified lawyers. On August 24, Cyrus Vance Jr. (NY’s state law state’s attorney) agreed NOT to enforce a grand-jury subpoena for Trump's financial records, despite more than a year's wrangling over the case. Trump claimed an absolute immunity -- he literally used those words -- from criminal investigation while he serves as president. The Supreme Court said "No sirree bob," ruling in such a way that the actual opinion had to be written by a ticked-off U.S. District judge, Victor Marrero, after Trump's lawyers filed yet another appeal against the subpoena.
Marrero wrote that the Trump lawyers showed a pattern of delay tactics in an attempt to wreck Vance's investigation. "That notion, applied as so robustly proclaimed by the President's advocates, is as unprecedented and far-reaching as it is perilous to the rule of law and other bedrock constitutional principles on which this country was founded and by which it continues to be governed," the judge thundered in his opinion. It was as if Marrero slammed a cartoon-sized gavel on the Liberty Bell to make sure everyone heard the message.
Trump's lawyers kept fighting for nondisclosure even after that. They tried another appeal to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That required almost a week's wait for the full appeals panel, which met yesterday and said the subpoena couldn't be enforced until the panel heard arguments from both sides on September 25. Trump's lawyers now say that they'll fight the subpoena all the way to the Supreme Court AGAIN.
Vance had the legal right, technically, to exercise the subpoena while the appeals court sat waiting, because no stay had been issued. Of course, it's more complicated than that. According to MSN, Vance has a better chance of shutting down Trump's second trip to the Supreme Court because he waited (as if the Supreme Court couldn't turn it down without comment.)
The upshot is that Vance did not act boldly. Vance is a gentleman. He is a gentleman lawyer the way David Boyes, a Democrat, was during the 2000 election. You'll recall the hanging chads drama. Unlike Boyes, Republican James Baker called up reinforcements from north to south, busing in young men to create the "Brooks Brothers riot" -- that is, to intimidate election officials into giving up on counting all the votes. It worked.
We can't afford to be gentlemen and ladies when we face Donald Trump. The man is literally an unindicted criminal, and he is aggressive to the point of -- well, calling in truckloads of trigger-happy assault ("hunting") rifle aficionados to intimidate people in the streets, as they did in Portland last week. Whether those people are "Antifa," bystanders, or pudgy Biden fans in "Vote!" T-shirts, they're enemies to these Trumpers.
Similarly, the thugs who torched garbage trucks and a used-car dealership in Kenosha were not peaceful protestors. The most violent protesters could well have been in Trump's pay. You'll recall that in one city, a right-wing provocateur broke a window to an AutoZone shop, wrote "Looting Zone" on the store front, and stood back while others took his lead. In Portland, the most violent "protesters" were Trump's private army, who objected to Portlanders exercising their Constitutional right to peaceably assemble.
I'm not saying we should fight fire with firearms. I'm saying that if there is an opportunity to do something, we should do it right now, posthaste. We can't afford to let Trump refuse to return high-speed mail-sorting machines to the USPS. We can't afford to let Louis DeJoy thumb his nose at a House subpoena. Democrats have to play hardball or we could lose democracy itself.
Cyrus Vance has waited on the subpoena go-ahead for so long that he has slipped past the Justice Department deadline for legal actions (indictments or disclosures) that might harm either candidate at the polls. It's called the rule of forbearance, or the 60 or 90-day rule.
Do we have 90 days till the election? No. Do we have 60? Barely, even now. On September 25, we'll have only 45. If, as Dahlia Lithwick suggests, Bill Barr decides to break the forbearance rule, Vance must do so too. Otherwise, Trump's lawyers have successfully run out the clock.
We can't let that happen. If Vance and his fair-minded colleagues fail to act, we could face an army of deplorables. They have all the guns, and even ahead of the election, they think they have all the rights too.
What are your thoughts about the way the Trump Administration is fighting? Is there a dignified way to fight back?
No comments:
Post a Comment