Law (US)

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Could Trump’s 2024 campaign keep his legal troubles at bay?

      by

      Could Trump’s 2024 campaign keep his legal troubles at bay?Trump’s declaration that he is once again a candidate changes nothing under the law – but the political element could weigh on prosecutors’ success The law is clear. The politics less so.If Donald Trump’s third run for the White House is propelled by large doses of narcissism and revenge, the former US president must also be hoping that a high-profile political campaign may help keep his myriad legal problems at bay before they bury him.January 6 subcommittee to examine criminal referrals it might make to DoJRead moreProsecutors from New York to Georgia and Washington DC have spent months digging into an array of alleged crimes before, during and after Trump was president. Some of those investigations are coming to fruition with indictments expected to follow within months, possibly weeks, on charges that potentially could see Trump become the first former US president to go to prison.His declaration that he is once again a candidate changes nothing under the law. Legal minds broadly agree that while a sitting president is protected from prosecution in office, that immunity disappears when they leave the White House.But then there is the politics of a prosecution against a presidential candidate who has already dismissed the investigations of his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, the hoarding of top secret documents, and allegedly fraudulent business practices, as “politically motivated” and a Democratic “witch-hunt”.Donald Ayer, a former US deputy attorney general under President George HW Bush, said the political element will weigh on prosecutors only to the extent that it affects their ability to persuade a jury to convict him.“Donald Trump declaring his candidacy certainly doesn’t make his prosecution legally impossible or inappropriate, but its impact on the prosecution’s success must be considered. One ultimate judgment the justice department must make – it is specifically set out in the justice manual – is whether it is probable that they can convict by proving their case beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.“Ultimately, I don’t think that the confusion and uncertainty that Trump is trying to generate with this step will end up being a reason that the government declines to go forward. It is just one more effort to mislead people, and it does not change the extent of his culpability or the urgency of holding the worst perpetrators of these crimes accountable.”Still, justice department officials have discussed whether to appoint a special counsel to take over the Trump investigations in order to head off accusations that any criminal charges are politically driven because the attorney general, Merrick Garland, was appointed by a Democratic president, Joe Biden. But even then the special prosecutor would ultimately answer to Garland.There is plenty of precedent for prosecutors to investigate and indict election candidates. Trump’s opponent in 2016, Hillary Clinton, was under investigation by the FBI through the primaries and again in the days before the general election over her use of a private email server.Candidates can even run with a prosecution hanging over them. Last week, a Trump-backed Republican won a seat in the Texas legislature while under indictment for impersonating a public servant.Four years ago, several candidates won seats in Congress while facing criminal charges. They included two Republicans, Chris Collins of New York and Duncan Hunter of California. Collins later pleaded guilty to insider trading and resigned his seat. Hunter admitted using campaign funds on extramarital affairs and also gave up his seat although he was saved from prison by a pardon from Trump.The Texas attorney general and Trump loyalist, Ken Paxton, has been re-elected twice while under criminal indictment for securities fraud but the trial has been repeatedly delayed.The justice department has a practice of not bringing criminal charges against a candidate within 60 days of an election, but it’s not written into law. The way the criminal investigations against Trump are unfolding, he faces the prospect of multiple trials long before the 2024 presidential election reaches its climax.Federal investigators are building a case against the former president for keeping classified documents, including some marked top secret, at his Mar-a-Largo mansion in Florida after leaving the White House. The potential charges include breaches of the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice.The justice department is also investigating Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results and his part in instigating the 6 January 2021 storming of the Capitol in Washington.Ayer said he expects both investigations to result in charges.“Of the two federal investigations, I think the one that focuses on the outright stealing of the election is the most important one. What’s at stake there is hard to overstate. But the documents case is also very serious because of the national security considerations. Because it is narrower and less complicated to prove, it could be ready for prosecution sooner,” he said.Trump is also facing the threat of serious charges by a local prosecutor in Atlanta, Georgia. The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, has assembled a “special purpose grand jury” that has spent months focused on Trump’s multi-faceted attempt to turn defeat into victory by pressuring officials to overturn his loss in the key swing state.Willis has been building a substantial body of testimony from some of Trump’s closest allies and Republican officials who witnessed the defeated president’s actions. They include the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, who was questioned about a call he received from Trump demanding that he “find” enough votes to erase Biden’s victory.Ronald Carlson, a leading Georgia trial lawyer and professor at the University of Georgia’s law school, said the Fulton county investigation “continues to be the most dangerous threat” to the former president.“President Trump continues to denigrate and dismiss this as political theatre. It would be a serious mistake to underestimate what’s going on. It seems to me highly likely this grand jury will report that criminality occurred and we should not be surprised to see an indictment. Remember, Georgia is the only place where the president himself is on tape saying to the [Georgia] secretary of state, ‘Brad, please find me 11,780 votes.’”Carlson does not think the state attorney general’s office will be deterred by political pressure from charging the president, possibly early next year.“They’ve given no sign up to this point of being afraid, and I don’t think they will be,” he said.Carlson believes Willis, a Democrat, is building a case with overwhelming evidence against Trump so that it cannot be dismissed as political. She also needs a watertight case to persuade a jury in a largely Republican state.Ayers said Garland was equally determined to press ahead with charges if the evidence is there.“I believe that the attorney general is highly motivated to secure accountability at the highest levels if it can be proven, and to do so as soon as reasonably possible, consistent with assembling a strong case showing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. He knows that a failure to achieve a high degree of accountability, meaning criminal prosecution, will send a bad message that the United States of America can’t be counted on to enforce its laws prohibiting these most serious offences of all against the country,” he said.Charges are one thing. Getting to a trial, and securing a conviction is another.Even if Trump is charged, could his lawyers stall any trial until he once again has immunity as president, as he hopes? Debra Perlin, a former Department of Homeland Security attorney who is now policy director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, says not.“Let’s be honest, Trump has played a delay game from the very beginning on every challenge that’s come his way. But I don’t think that they are able to delay those trials. Although I’m sure that there would be a lot of pre-trial filing that his team would make, we are far outside of them being able to delay up until the election,” she said.TopicsDonald TrumpUS elections 2024US politicsLaw (US)featuresReuse this content More

    • 200 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      The US made women second-class citizens. Now we must give a stinging rebuke | Moira Donegan

      by

      The US made women second-class citizens. Now we must give a stinging rebukeMoira DoneganThe supreme court edict overturning Roe v Wade said women are ‘not without electoral and political power’. That feels almost like a dare Organized feminism has been on the decline in the US since the 1980s, with the radicalism of the second wave giving way to a more diffuse, less focused feminist movement consisting of NGOs, campus activists, online discourse and HR inclusion initiatives. In a way, this is normal. Students of the movement have long spoken of feast and fallow years for feminism, eruptions of activism that are followed by long and virulent backlashes.But feminism has perhaps never received such a dramatic and immediate setback as it did this June. The supreme court’s decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization undid the major legal achievement of the second wave era, reversing Roe v Wade and ending the constitutional right to an abortion.The result has been chaos, with so-called “trigger bans” blasting into enforcement in some states, long-dormant laws from before the era of women’s suffrage being revived in others and still other states left in limbo, as abortion flickers in and out of legality, depending on the proclivities of whichever judge is determining whichever injunction. Children and teens who are pregnant as a result of incest, rape or exploitation are now forced to travel across state lines for abortions, because they live in states where a fetus or embryo is valued more highly than their own health and potential. Women whose pregnancies are doomed are forced to wait, carrying fetuses they know will not live, or to slowly bleed out their miscarriages until either the fetus dies or they go septic.There’s an incalculable amount of cruelty now being forced on pregnant women, and there’s also an insidious kind of debasement being imposed on all women, pregnant or not. Millions of American women and trans people are now living in states where their lives are not their own, where an unplanned pregnancy can derail their educations, careers or plans, where they must live under the indignity of the knowledge that the state can compel them to give birth. That injury is not the kind of acute horror story that we see coming out of states where bans are now in effect. But it is an injury that has been done to each and every woman in America.This indignity is political. For the past five decades, during the Roe era, American women were endowed with a basic level of respect by the right to abortion. They could not be forced to carry a pregnancy to term; their bodies, at least on paper, were their own. This principle lent women a sense of worth and equality under the law, the sense that the freedoms and responsibilities of self-determination and self-respect – of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – so revered in the American tradition were theirs, too. The idea was that women were made, by Roe, into full citizens – not members of some lesser class needing monitoring or protection, but equal participants in the American project.This idea was so powerful and potent to American women’s identity that it did not matter what the reality of Roe was. It did not matter that the decision itself was built on legal reasoning about a right to privacy, instead of a more secure, more honest reasoning about equality; it did not matter that the supreme court had never recognized American women as having their own individual right to reject pregnancy. Over the 49 years of its existence, Roe became more than just the 1973 court decision and its logic. It became a symbol, a shorthand for the baseline preconditions of women’s full citizenship.Dobbs erased both the law and the symbol. Women no longer have a constitutional right to an abortion, and we no longer have the dignity that that right gave us. We are now, in many states, subject to laws that criminalize and surveil us, that assess our needs for medical care based on whether we are suffering enough to deserve it, that in many cases treat blobs of tissue, laughably far from anything human, as having rights and interests that trump our own. In one of the most intimate and life-defining aspects of our existence, we find ourselves not quite treated as adults, not allowed to make our own choices, not trusted to know our own interests and not valued in our own right. In pregnancy, women are now less citizens than they are subjects.In his majority opinion ending the constitutional right to abortion, Samuel Alito asserts that he’s not hurting women on the basis of their sex at all, that he is merely handing the issue “back to the states”, as if any state law banning or restricting abortion did not inherently make women less equal. But Alito asserted that women who did not like the Dobbs decision could simply vote to reverse its effects in their own states, and hope that a majority of other voters agreed with them that they should be full citizens with self-determination. “Women are not without electoral or political power,” Alito said, perhaps somewhat regretfully. If they didn’t like the status of second-class citizenship to which his ruling had consigned them, why didn’t they simply vote themselves out of it? Maybe we will. During the midterm elections, American women can vote en masse to restore reproductive freedom.Of course, voting will not be sufficient to restore abortion rights and women’s full citizenship in America. For that, we will need a revival of an organized and radical feminist movement, committed to local engagement, long-term relationship – and institution-building and direct action. The seeds of that movement are already beginning to germinate in the local abortion funds, clandestine mutual-aid efforts and grassroots mobilizations that have helped fill the well of need in the wake of Dobbs. And of course, voting is not easy for everyone – it has been made less easy, and less meaningful, by the actions of the same supreme court.But the midterm elections represent an immediate opportunity for American women to exercise that political power of which Alito spoke. The elections can preserve Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, which can stave off Republican ambitions to ban abortion nationwide; if the majorities are large enough, they may even be able to fulfill Joe Biden’s promise to reinstate Roe by statute. Voting for Democratic governors, attorneys general and state legislators can blunt or reverse the impact of state abortion bans and misogynist laws: a local election, for many women voters, means a choice between a district attorney who will prosecute patients and providers of abortions, and one who will not.Alito’s whole opinion drips with contempt, but the line about American women – that we are “not without electoral and political power” – felt like a dare. American women do have power, perhaps more than Samuel Alito realizes. It’s time to call his bluff.
      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionAbortionWomenRoe v WadeUS supreme courtLaw (US)HealthcommentReuse this content More

    • 188 Shares149 Views

      in US Politics

      Paul Pelosi attack: suspect federally charged with assault and attempted kidnapping – as it happened

      by

      The justice department has announced charges against David DePape, who was arrested on Friday for allegedly breaking in to House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco residence and assaulting her husband, Paul Pelosi.DePape will face a charge of assault on a family member of a US official in retaliation for their work, which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, the justice department said. He will also face a charge of attempting to kidnap a US official over their work, for which he could face a maximum of 20 years in prison.Following DePape’s early Friday morning arrest for the attack, which left Paul Pelosi needing surgery for a skull fracture along with other injuries, San Francisco’s police chief announced DePape was being held on suspicion of several charges, including attempted murder. The city’s district attorney is expected to formally level charges against him today, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.Closing summaryHere’s what happened today:
      The supreme court began hearing arguments in two cases that its conservative majority could use to end affirmative action. The AP reported that several members of the conservative bloc, who are known foes of the policy, showed no indication of changing their minds about it during ongoing oral arguments.
      The justice department announced charges against David DePape, who allegedly broke in Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco residence and assaulted her husband, Paul Pelosi. The charges include assault and attempted kidnapping. More charges are expected form the San Francisco’s district attorney.
      Donald Trump reportedly asked the supreme court to stop House lawmakers from getting his tax returns.
      Biden will reunite with Barack Obama in Philadelphia on Saturday to campaign for the state’s Democratic nominees for Senate and governor.
      Democrats have a slight advantage in three crucial Senate races, and are in a dead heat for a fourth, according to a New York Times poll.
      – Chris Stein and Gabrielle CanonIn the midst of midterms fervor, some Republicans have also used the attack as a chance to tout their “tough on crime” agendas.Texas Congressman Lance Gooden tried to blame Democrats for the attack, responding defensively to evidence that DePape may have been spurred to violence by far-right rhetoric. Others include Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican candidate Kari Lake, and former president Donald Trump, who all blamed Democrats for not doing more to crack down on violent crime..@KariLake @ her event today:“Nancy Pelosi, well, she’s got protection when she’s in DC — apparently her house doesn’t have a lot of protection.”The crowd burst into laughter and the moderator was laughing so hard he covered his face with his notes. From @KateSullivanDC— Kyung Lah (@KyungLahCNN) October 31, 2022
      From Forbes:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Americans’ concerns about crime have increased over the past year, particularly among Republicans, leading GOP candidates to make the issue a central focus of their midterm campaigns. Nearly 80% of respondents in a recent Gallup poll said they believe crime is rising nationally, while 56% think crime is rising where they live.While there’s an increasing perception of worsening crime, there’s isn’t strong data to support it. Forbes also highlighted how murder rates dropped 2.4% in the largest US cities this year, according to Major Cities Chiefs Association and violent crimes dipped 1% per FBI statistics.But political divisiveness and aggressive rhetoric is fueling new concerns about the increase in attacks against public officials from both parties.Let’s keep pretending that we don’t know the motivation for the attack on Paul Pelosi pic.twitter.com/3ySXnsD3FD— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) October 31, 2022
      The New York Times reports that there’s been a tenfold increase in threats of political violence since Trump’s election and representatives are increasingly worried about their safety.“I wouldn’t be surprised if a senator or House member were killed,” Senator Susan Collins told the New York Times. “What started with abusive phone calls is now translating into active threats of violence and real violence.”In the aftermath of the attack, conservatives and divisive online personalities have floated conspiracy theories questioning the attack against Paul Pelosi and have helped fuel new rounds of misinformation. From Rolling Stone:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Because DePape had a history of blogging about far-right ideas and even dabbled in QAnon conspiracy theories, the GOP has scrambled to deny that this was an attempted assassination of a leading Democrat. Some have gone as far as peddling a conspiracy theory of their own. An “opinion” piece in the fake news publication the Santa Monica Observer falsely claimed that DePape was a sex worker hired by Pelosi and the two had gotten into a physical dispute. The piece was amplified by, among others, Elon Musk, who later deleted his tweeted link without explanation or apology.”San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins told reporters Sunday that there is no evidence of a connection between the two men and details released by FBI officials Monday also counter the conspiratorial claims. Musk, the new owner of Twitter, has come under criticism for spreading the misinformation, sparking concerns that he will do little to curb conspiracies amplified on the social media site. Elon Musk’s Paul Pelosi tweet proves he has no business running Twitter | Robert ReichRead more“If Musk’s tweet doesn’t raise bright red warning signs all over the world about his judgment and character, just days after he took over one of the planet’s largest and most influential media machines, I don’t know what will,” Robert Reich, the former US secretary of labor wrote in an editorial for the Guardian. “That Musk would choose this tragedy to demonstrate the disgusting extremes such hateful lies can reach is another indictment of his character and judgment.”During the terrifying ordeal, Paul Pelosi was able to dial 9-1-1 from a bathroom, court documents show, and officials have highlighted how the quick actions of the dispatcher may have saved his life. With the line open after placing the emergency call, the dispatcher could hear the conversation between assailant David DePape and Pelosi. Two minutes later, the police arrived.“I truly believe, based on what I know, that it was lifesaving,” San Francisco District Attorney Brook Jenkins told ABC News. Jenkins is expected to file additional charges on Monday afternoon. Nancy Pelosi is far from the only Washington politician facing threats. Earlier today, Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell detailed just how menacing the atmosphere has become:.@RepSwalwell (D-CA) says his chief of staff spends 10 hours per week dealing with threats to him and his staff:”We have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in security for myself and my staff. It almost rewards people who want to make threats.” pic.twitter.com/kvfA1GENb1— The Recount (@therecount) October 31, 2022
      The San Francisco Chronicle has more details about David DePape, who is now facing federal charges over Friday’s attack on Paul Pelosi.“He has been homeless. This person really does suffer from mental illness and that is probably why he was there at 2am,” DePape’s longtime partner Oxane “Gypsy” Taub told the Chronicle in an interview. She said DePape used drugs and struggled with mental illness, to the point that he thought “he was Jesus for a year.”The story paints a picture of DePape’s erratic life and bouts of homelessness that led to him being consumed by conspiracy theories, culminating in his attack on the Democratic House speaker’s husband.Here’s more from the Chronicle:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Taub remembered DePape, 42, as a “shy and sweet” person who once supported her well-documented fight against San Francisco’s public nudity laws. “David never appeared nude in any of my events even though he was encouraged to,” she said. “He was uncomfortable.”
      When the pair met in Hawaii in 2000, she said, DePape “didn’t know anything about politics,” but came to share her fervor for many progressive causes — though Taub also espoused conspiracy theories about the September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C.
      “I don’t think he became a Trump supporter,” Taub said Sunday. “He was against the government, but if anything he was opposed to the shadow government, against the people who really run the government and use politicians as puppets. Like Trump was a puppet. David and I were against the shadow government.”
      Authorities say DePape, who most recently lived in Richmond, broke into the Pelosi home in San Francisco early Friday morning looking for the House speaker but found her husband alone. It’s not clear whether the intruder drove to the home or traveled there another way.The justice department’s complaint for its charges against David DePape contains harrowing details of the assault on Paul Pelosi.Here is what San Francisco police officers found when they responded to a 911 call at the Pelosi residence:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}At 2:31 a.m., San Francisco Police Department (“SFPD”) Officer Colby Wilmes responded to the Pelosi residence, California and knocked on the front door. When the door was opened, Pelosi and DePape were both holding a hammer with one hand and DePape had his other hand holding onto Pelosi’s forearm. Pelosi greeted the officers. The officers asked them what was going on. DePape responded that everything was good. Officers then asked Pelosi and DePape to drop the hammer. DePape pulled the hammer from Pelosi’s hand and swung the hammer, striking Pelosi in the head. Officers immediately went inside and were able to restrain DePape.Police found zip ties in the Pelosi residence that they said belonged to DePape, as well as retrieved from his backpack “a roll of tape, white rope, one hammer, one pair of rubber and cloth gloves, and a journal.”Here’s what Paul Pelosi told a police officer as he was going to the hospital:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Pelosi stated he had never seen DePape before. Pelosi was asleep when DePape came into Pelosi’s bedroom and stated he wanted to talk to “Nancy.” When Pelosi told him that Nancy was not there, DePape stated that he would sit and wait. Pelosi stated that his wife would not be home for several days and then DePape reiterated that he would wait. Pelosi was able to go into the bathroom which is when he was able to call 9- 1-1. Pelosi stated that when the officers arrived, that was when DePape struck him with the hammer.Here is what DePape told San Francisco police in an interview following his arrest:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}DePape stated that he was going to hold Nancy hostage and talk to her. If Nancy were to tell DePape the “truth,” he would let her go, and if she “lied,” he was going to break “her kneecaps.” DePape was certain that Nancy would not have told the “truth.” In the course of the interview, DePape articulated he viewed Nancy as the “leader of the pack” of lies told by the Democratic Party. DePape also later explained that by breaking Nancy’s kneecaps, she would then have to be wheeled into Congress, which would show other Members of Congress there were consequences to actions. The complaints adds that DePape “explained that he did not leave after Pelosi’s call to 9-1-1 because, much like the American founding fathers with the British, he was fighting against tyranny without the option of surrender. DePape reiterated this sentiment elsewhere in the interview.”The justice department has announced charges against David DePape, who was arrested on Friday for allegedly breaking in to House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco residence and assaulting her husband, Paul Pelosi.DePape will face a charge of assault on a family member of a US official in retaliation for their work, which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, the justice department said. He will also face a charge of attempting to kidnap a US official over their work, for which he could face a maximum of 20 years in prison.Following DePape’s early Friday morning arrest for the attack, which left Paul Pelosi needing surgery for a skull fracture along with other injuries, San Francisco’s police chief announced DePape was being held on suspicion of several charges, including attempted murder. The city’s district attorney is expected to formally level charges against him today, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.Donald Trump has filed an emergency petition to the supreme court, asking it to halt the release of six years of his tax returns to the House ways and means committee, Bloomberg Law reports.The Internal Revenue Service was on 3 November expected to turn over the documents to the Democratic-led committee, after the former president lost repeated lower court decisions to stop Congress from seeing the returns.Trump defied political norms and refused to turn over his tax filings during his first run for the presidency in 2016, saying they were being audited. He maintained that stance throughout his presidency and afterwards.Here’s more on the petition, from Bloomberg Law:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The case presents “important questions about the separation of powers that will affect every future President,” Trump’s lawyers argued. Allowing the House Ways and Means Committee to obtain a president’s tax returns would “render the office of the Presidency vulnerable to invasive information demands from political opponents in the legislative branch,” they added.
      Trump’s lawyers also questioned the committee’s reasons for why it wanted his financial records, claiming the true purpose was to release Trump’s tax documents “to the public for the sake of exposure.” They argued that the judges who initially heard the case showed too much deference to the committee and ran afoul of a balancing test laid out earlier by the Supreme Court in a fight over Congress’ access to Trump’s financial records, Trump v Mazars.
      Trump’s request to stop the committee from immediately getting the documents will go to Chief Justice John Roberts. Roberts, who handles emergency matters out of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, could act on Trump’s request by himself or circulate it to the other justices for a vote.The six-justice conservative majority on the supreme court has shown skepticism towards universities’ race-based admissions policies during oral arguments today, the Associated Press reports.The court is hearing two cases concerning the University of North Carolina and Harvard University, in which the court’s six conservative justices could potentially ban the use of race as a factor in college admissions, a practice known as affirmative action.Such a decision would be the latest example of the court overturning longstanding precedent, after five of its nine justices earlier this year struck down Roe v Wade and allowed states to ban abortion.The AP reports that several members of the conservative bloc are known foes of the policy, and showed no indication of changing their minds about it during ongoing oral arguments in the two cases.Here’s more from the AP’s story:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}During arguments in the first of two cases, the court sounded split along ideological lines on the issue of affirmative action.
      Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s second Black justice who has a long record of opposition to affirmative action programs, noted he didn’t go to racially diverse schools. “I’ve heard the word ‘diversity’ quite a few times and I don’t have a clue what it means,” the conservative justice said at one point. At another point he said: “Tell me what the educational benefits are?”
      Justice Amy Coney Barrett, another conservative, pointed to one of the court’s previous affirmative action cases and said it anticipated an end to the use of affirmative action, saying it was “dangerous, and it has to have an end point.” When, she asked, is that end point?
      Justice Samuel Alito likened affirmative action to a race in which a minority applicant gets to “start five yards closer to the finish line.” But liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court’s first Hispanic justice, rejected that comparison saying what universities are doing is looking at students as a whole.
      Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the court’s newest justice and its first Black female, also said that race was being used at the University of North Carolina as part of a broad review of applicants along 40 different factors.
      “They’re looking at the full person with all of these characteristics,” she said.
      Justice Elena Kagan called universities the “pipelines to leadership in our society” and suggested that without affirmative action minority enrollment will drop.
      “I thought part of what it meant to be an American and to believe in American pluralism is that actually our institutions, you know, are reflective of who we are as a people in all our variety,” she said.
      The Supreme Court has twice upheld race-conscious college admissions programs in the past 19 years, including just six years ago.Republican and Democratic political leaders condemned Friday’s attack on Paul Pelosi, husband to speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. But one of Donald Trump’s sons used it as an opportunity for insults, Martin Pengelly reports:In the aftermath of the attack on Paul Pelosi, amid rising concern over rightwing figures stoking violence against political opponents, Donald Trump Jr posted online a crude meme featuring a hammer, the weapon used to attack the husband of the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, on Friday.“OMG,” the former president’s son wrote next to the picture, which also had the caption “Got my Paul Pelosi Halloween costume ready”.The internet backlash was swift but Trump Jr, a full-time provocateur and surrogate for his father, doubled down equally swiftly – posting another, this time clearly homophobic, meme which appears to reference a baseless conspiracy theory about the assault.Donald Trump Jr posts crude memes making light of attack on Paul PelosiRead moreOhio congressman Brad Wenstrup is grieving after his niece died among more than 150 people killed in a crowd crush during Halloween celebrations in South Korea.Wenstrup was the uncle of 20-year-old University of Kentucky nursing student Anne Marie Gieske, who was killed as a crowd of mostly young people flooded Itaewon’s narrow, sloping streets on Saturday. In a statement from his office, the Republican member of the US House of Representatives said he and his wife, Monica, were mourning their niece, whom he described as “a gift from God to our family”.“We loved her so much,” Wenstrup said.Gieske’s parents, Dan and Madonna Gieske, added: “We are completely devastated and heartbroken over the loss of Anne Marie. She was a bright light loved by all. “Anne’s final gift to us was dying in the state of sanctifying grace. We know we will one day be reunited with her in God’s kingdom.”Anne Marie Gieske was one of at least two young Americans to die in South Korea’s worst-ever crowd crush. The other was Steven Blesi, also 20 and a foreign exchange student from Georgia’s Kennesaw State University who was out celebrating having finished some academic exams.Blesi’s father, Steve, told the New York Times that learning of his son’s death was like being stabbed “a hundred million times simultaneously”.Wenstrup has represented Ohio in the US House since 2013. He is running for re-election against Democratic challenger Samantha Meadows during the 8 November midterms.Voters won’t just elect lawmakers and governors in the 8 November elections. In Michigan, they’ll choose whether or not to allow a 90-year-old abortion ban to go into effect. Poppy Noor reports from Ann Arbor:In the spring of this year, Julie Falbaum’s 20-year-old son walked into a frat party filled with about 50 of his peers, holding a stack of petitions. They were for a campaign to protect abortion.“Who wants to be a dad?” he yelled. Like a park-goer throwing bread to pigeons, he chucked the forms around the room and watched as dozens of young men swarmed to sign them.The campaign to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution was already under way here even before Roe fell, and it has become an embittered battle in Michigan – to keep a 90-year-old abortion ban off the books. Campaigners fear that ban would criminalise doctors and pregnant people and deny essential medical care, such as miscarriage medication, now that the constitutional right to abortion no longer exists in the US.The battle in Michigan has brought death threats and vandalism from pro-choice militants. On the anti-choice side, it has involved dirty tactics from the Republican party, which tried to block a petition brought by nearly 800,000 Michiganders over formatting errors, and has peddled a wide campaign of misinformation.Julie Falbaum, a campaigner for the yes campaign on Proposal 3, which would establish reproductive rights, believes her son’s story – that he managed to collect so many signatures at a frat party without a campaign plan – is reflective of a broad coalition of support for “Prop 3”, which is supported by men and women, young people and older people, Republicans and Democrats.“I see Michigan as pivotal to the future of democracy in the United States,” says Deirdre Roney, 60, who travelled from Los Angeles to campaign for the ballot in Detroit, where she grew up. Explaining that Detroit is the biggest voting bloc in Michigan, and that Michigan is one of the swingiest states in the country, she adds: “This is a blueprint. If this passes in Michigan, other states can use it.”‘This is a blueprint’: abortion rights ballot proposal takes off in MichiganRead moreJoe Biden will this afternoon mull levying a tax on energy companies’ profits in a speech planned for 4:30 pm. The last-minute address comes as Democrats look to reclaim credibility with voters on their handling of the economy ahead of next week’s midterm elections, which will decide the balance of power in Congress for the coming two years.Here’s what else happened today:
      Biden will reunite with Barack Obama in Philadelphia on Saturday to campaign for the state’s Democratic nominees for Senate and governor.
      Democrats have a slight advantage in three crucial Senate races, and are in a dead heat for a fourth, according to a New York Times poll.
      The supreme court is hearing arguments in two cases that its conservative majority could use to end affirmative action.
      In his speech this afternoon on oil companies’ record profits, Joe Biden will discuss whether to impose a windfall tax on energy firms, the Associated Press reports.Citing a person familiar with the matter, Biden will raise the possibility of a tax aimed specifically at energy companies’ profits as a way to encourage them to lower prices at the pump.The president is set to speak at 4:30 pm eastern time to “respond to reports over recent days of major oil companies making record-setting profits even as they refuse to help lower prices at the pump for the American people,” the White House announced earlier today. Rising gas prices have been a major drag on Biden and his Democratic allies’ public support ahead of the 8 November midterms, where polls indicate the state of the economy is voters’ top issue.Wisconsin isn’t just the site of one of the Democratic party’s few chances to add to their majority in the Senate – it’s also pivotal to the future of American democracy, the state’s party chair says.In a lengthy Twitter thread, Ben Wikler lays out what’s at stake in the governorship and statehouse races in the perennial swing state:In this moment, a tiny change in votes in Wisconsin could start a domino effect that could shape the future of American history. For worse, or better.— Ben Wikler (@benwikler) October 31, 2022
      Wisconsin is a policy laboratory. If the GOP makes their control voter-proof here, they’ll take those policies nationwide. Read this important story for details. But recognize, too, that this week could open the door to dismantling their control. https://t.co/wjh4jG6iq6— Ben Wikler (@benwikler) October 31, 2022
      First, the nightmare scenario: Mandela Barnes and Tony Evers could lose, and Ron Johnson and Tim Michels could win. Republicans could get a veto-proof supermajority in our state legislature. What would happen?— Ben Wikler (@benwikler) October 31, 2022
      Wisconsin’s been the tipping point state in the last two presidential elections. Both of those elections came down to less than a percentage point. If democracy breaks even further in Wisconsin, the Electoral College math gets grim—fast. https://t.co/IahUX86yxl— Ben Wikler (@benwikler) October 31, 2022
      Tim Michels, running for governor of Wisconsin, has explicitly said that his first priority will be to “fix” the election system by signing all of the voter suppression and election subversion laws that Governor Evers, our Democratic incumbent, has vetoed.https://t.co/a0vgjS18fi— Ben Wikler (@benwikler) October 31, 2022
      If Tim Michels rigs our elections, he will likely do it before the April 4, 2023 state Supreme Court election, which will determine the balance of power on Wisconsin’s highest court. The state court could uphold the rigging before the 2024 presidential. https://t.co/txmqPCowSn— Ben Wikler (@benwikler) October 31, 2022
      Gov Evers, on the other hand, supports fair elections and has been a brick wall to save our democracy—refusing to concede to Republican attacks and allowing the bipartisan Wisconsin Election Commission to do its job.— Ben Wikler (@benwikler) October 31, 2022
      If Tim Michels can scrap the bipartisan Wisconsin Election Commission and install radical Republicans—as he has promised—every rule governing how elections function could be shaped to advance the GOP’s partisan agenda. https://t.co/9DcK3c3CUa— Ben Wikler (@benwikler) October 31, 2022
      But if that’s not enough to give Trump a victory, and Trump still loses 2024, Michels could refuse to certify the election.In fact, when asked about it directly, he *only* committed to certifying the election *if* he can fix the election system first. pic.twitter.com/3mo5xWkYWj— Ben Wikler (@benwikler) October 31, 2022
      To win the electoral college majority in 2024, we’ll need Wisconsin.And if we lose the governor’s race now, the path to having a free, fair, and secure presidential election becomes stunningly bleak.— Ben Wikler (@benwikler) October 31, 2022
      Bernie Sanders is heading to Wisconsin to drum up support for Democratic candidates, the Associated Press reports:.@BernieSanders announces four stops in Wisconsin this week to support Democratic candidates and drive turnoutSanders plans to be in Eau Claire, La Crosse and Madison on Friday and in Oshkosh on SaturdayHis visit comes after former President @BarackObama was in Milwaukee— Scott Bauer (@sbauerAP) October 31, 2022
      The state is home to one of Democrats’ other Senate pickup opportunities this year, with lieutenant governor Mandela Barnes trying to unseat incumbent Republican Ron Johnson. Polls have generally shown Johnson with the advantage here.It’s also home to a very tight governors race, where Democratic incumbent Tony Evers is up for a second term against GOP challenger Tim Michels. More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Samuel Alito assured Ted Kennedy in 2005 of respect for Roe, diary reveals

      by

      Samuel Alito assured Ted Kennedy in 2005 of respect for Roe, diary revealsExcerpts reported by biographer show Alito, who wrote June ruling that outlawed abortion, said he was ‘big believer in precedents’ In a private meeting in 2005, Samuel Alito, who would become the US supreme court justice who wrote the ruling removing the federal right to abortion, assured Ted Kennedy of his respect for Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 court decision which made the procedure legal in the US.“I am a believer in precedents,” Alito said, according to diary excerpts reported by the Massachusetts senator’s biographer, John A Farrell, on Monday. “People would find I adhere to that.”Alito and Kennedy met regarding Alito’s nomination by George W Bush. The nominee also said: “I recognise there is a right to privacy. I think it’s settled.”Seventeen years later, in his ruling removing the right to abortion, via the Mississippi case Dobbs v Jackson, Alito said the entitlement had wrongly been held to be protected as part of the right to privacy.“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” he wrote this June.The late Kennedy, a younger brother of US president John F Kennedy, who spent 47 years in the Senate, also questioned Alito about a memo he wrote as a justice department clerk in 1985, outlining his opposition to Roe. Alito told Kennedy he had been trying to impress his bosses.“I was a younger person,” Alito said. “I’ve matured a lot.”According to Farrell, Alito told Kennedy his views on abortion were “personal” but said: “I’ve got constitutional responsibilities and those are going to be the determining views”.Alito was confirmed to the supreme court by the senate, 58 votes to 42. Kennedy voted no.Farrell reported the excerpts from Kennedy’s diary in the New York Times. A spokesperson for Alito “said he had no comment on the conversation”.Kennedy died in 2009, aged 77. His Senate seat was filled by a Republican, Scott Brown, who was subsequently defeated by Elizabeth Warren, who quickly emerged as a leading progressive. In June, after Alito’s ruling removed the right to abortion, Warren was a leading voice of liberal anger.“After decades of scheming,” she said, “Republican politicians have finally forced their unpopular agenda on the rest of America.”01:54Susan Collins, a Maine Republican but a supporter of abortion rights, said she had been misled in a meeting similar to that between Kennedy and Alito.Collins said that in the 2018 meeting, when asked about Roe, Brett Kavanaugh told her to “start with my record, my respect for precedent, my belief that it is rooted in the constitution and my commitment to the rule of law” and added: “I understand precedent and I understand the importance of overturning it.”In 2022, Kavanaugh sided with Alito and three other conservatives in removing the right to abortion.Collins said: “I feel misled.”Discussing Alito’s meeting with Kennedy, Stephen Gillers, a New York University law professor and legal ethics specialist, told the Times: “No serious court watcher can doubt that what Alito said in Dobbs he deeply believed in 2005. And long before then.”Farrell’s previous books include a biography of Richard Nixon. On Monday, reviewing Ted Kennedy: A Life, the Associated Press wrote: “Teddy lived long enough for his flaws to be fully exposed. All are laid bare in this book – the drinking, the infidelity, the selfishness, the casual cruelty, the emotional isolation.“The central riddle of Kennedy is how these weaknesses existed alongside the benevolence, loyalty, perseverance and wisdom that made him one of the most influential senators in modern American history.”The AP review noted Kennedy’s silence during another supreme court nomination, that of Clarence Thomas in 1991, writing: “When Anita Hill accused Thomas of sexual harassment, Kennedy was in no position to help lead the fight against him. He passed his time at the confirmation hearings by doodling sailboats, and Thomas was confirmed.”In June this year, Thomas joined with Alito to overturn Roe v Wade. In a concurring opinion, he suggested other privacy based rights could be next, including the rights to contraception and same-sex marriage.TopicsRoe v WadeAbortionUS supreme courtUS constitution and civil libertiesLaw (US)US politicsEdward KennedynewsReuse this content More

    • 125 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Abortion bans create ‘insurmountable barriers’ for incarcerated women in US

      by

      Abortion bans create ‘insurmountable barriers’ for incarcerated women in USSupreme court’s overturning of Roe will make reproductive healthcare in prisons a lot worse than it already is, experts warn When the US supreme court decided to strip away constitutional abortion protections in June, it effectively made the situation for many pregnant incarcerated women who are seeking abortions a lot worse.Conditions for reproductive healthcare in many US prison facilities are already often abysmal. With many pregnant inmates regularly facing dire circumstances including being denied abortions or being forced to give birth while shackled, experts warn that the overturn of Roe v Wade will now result in even more severe consequences for an already marginalized community.From 1980 to 2020, the number of incarcerated women across the country increased by over 475%, according to the Sentencing Project. In 2020, Idaho led the nation in the highest female state imprisonment rate at 110 per 100,000 female residents, followed by Oklahoma, South Dakota, Arizona, Wyoming, Kentucky and Montana. As of two years ago, the imprisonment rate for Black women was 1.7 times the rate of the imprisonment for white women. Meanwhile, Latinx women were imprisoned at 1.3 times the rate of white women.The Prison Policy Initiative found that an average of 58,000 people are pregnant each year when they enter local jails or prisons. In many of the states that already have the highest female state imprisonment rates, they also now have strict abortion laws ban the procedure almost entirely.As a result, the overturn of Roe v Wade is expected to make the lives of pregnant incarcerated people who are seeking abortions increasingly difficult.“People experiencing incarceration and pregnancy in states where abortion has been severely restricted or outlawed altogether, will likely face new barriers as jails and prisons seek to hide behind the supreme court’s decision to avoid their constitutional obligation to provide healthcare (including abortion) to people in custody,” Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, deputy director of the Reproductive Freedom Project at the American Civil Liberties Union told the Guardian.“Even where correctional staff and officials do not deliberately block access to care, the reduced availability of services and need to travel even greater distances to access legal abortion, and the greater demand for services in states where abortion is still legal, will only exacerbate all the financial and logistical obstacles that already existed,” she added.A study led by Carolyn Sufrin, the director of the Advocacy and Research on Reproductive Wellness of Incarcerated People program at Johns Hopkins University, surveyed incarcerated people’s abortion access across 22 state prison systems and six county jail systems.The study, which collected policy data for 12 months in 2016 to 2017 and was eventually published in 2021, found that there were already a myriad of obstacles such as self-payment requirements that can prevent a pregnant inmate from obtaining the care. Out of the 19 states that then permitted abortions, two-thirds required the pregnant inmate to pay.Only 11 of the 816 pregnancies in state and federal prisons that ended during the study time period were abortions, or 1.3%. 33 out of 224 pregnancies that ended at study jails were abortions, with over half of those happening during the first trimester.“There were already few abortions in prison settings…so will [the overturn of Roe] impact abortion access for an incarcerated individual? Absolutely,” Sufrin told the Guardian.For a lot of incarcerated women across the country, many remain behind bars because they are unable to afford bail. As a result, self-payment requirements for those seeking abortions are often times very difficult to fulfill.“State prison systems or jails sometimes would force pregnant people to pay for the procedure, sometimes including even the cost of transport or the time to have prison guards with them, which is problematic because normally if an incarcerated person is going off site for any other medical procedure, they wouldn’t be charged for the cost of transport or the time for the guards,” Corene Kendrick, deputy director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project, told the Guardian.“Trying to expect those people in jails to come up with the money for transport to an offsite abortion procedure when they can’t even come up with the money to make bail, to go home to their families, really creates an insurmountable barrier.”In 2017, Kei’Choura Cathey, a former inmate who discovered she was pregnant in August 2015 while awaiting trial, sued the Maury county sheriff in Tennessee, claiming that he denied her the right to an abortion because her pregnancy was not a threat to her health nor the result of rape or incest.Cathey’s only option at the time was to post bail so she could leave jail to receive the abortion. However, her bail was set at a staggering $1m. Eventually, her bond was lowered to $8,000. However, according to the lawsuit, by the time Cathey was able to post bond, she was already more than six months into her pregnancy, thus making her abortion illegal.For a lot of pregnant incarcerated women seeking abortions in a post-Roe reality, experts fear that they are likely going to face similar circumstances like Cathey.“Prisons or jails will argue…that’s an elective procedure so we are not going to cover it,” said Kendrick, which in turn will potentially force many incarcerated pregnant women who are unable to cover the procedure to carry their pregnancies to term.For a lot of pregnant inmates, birthing conditions in prison facilities are already dire. Numerous reports in recent years have emerged of inmates either being forced to deliver while shackled to their beds or having to deliver their babies on their own.While some states – and in effect, prison facilities – are seeing outright bans in abortions as a result of the supreme court’s ruling in June, others have not overhauled abortion protections just yet.In Wyoming, for example, abortion is currently legal but remains restricted as it is only allowed to be performed until fetal “viability”.In a statement to the Guardian, Wyoming’s department of corrections said that the supreme court ruling on Roe in June has not affected its policies on abortion related issues.“The WDOC has not had any change in policy or care for abortion related issues in the WDOC for inmates or offenders. The WDOC does on occasion have female inmates that are pregnant during incarnation and they are cared for at the Wyoming Medium Correctional Institute in Torrington, WY. We rely upon the expertise of expert medical advice in all decisions related to the health and wellness of our inmates.”Ultimately, according to Sufrin, “There’s tremendous variability in what healthcare service deliveries look like on the ground and systems are not really set up to provide the full scope of comprehensive pregnancy and postpartum care for people.”For pregnant incarcerated people who are sent off-site for abortions, another issue that has emerged since Roe’s overturn is the hesitancy or even outright refusal from external healthcare providers to perform the abortions.“We’ve already seen instances of local hospitals turning people away and not providing medically necessary care because of ambiguities in the law, [such as] there might still be a heartbeat, those sorts of things. Then the carceral facility is left to manage dangerous bleeding or an ectopic pregnancy and they’re just very much ill-equipped to do that and don’t want to and should not,” explained Sufrin.“Even in the best of circumstances, there’s still a lot of constraints and a lot of trauma that pregnant folks experience. So now after the Dobb’s decision, we anticipate… that we’re going to have more pregnant people in our country and fewer people with access abortion. And I believe that we will see that in incarcerated settings as well,” she said.TopicsUS prisonsWomenUS politicsAbortionUS supreme courtLaw (US)newsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Giuliani names Trump election deniers as witnesses in legal ethics case

      by

      Giuliani names Trump election deniers as witnesses in legal ethics caseDoug Mastriano, Jenna Ellis and Peter Navarro among those named in case related to attempt to overturn Pennsylvania result Facing a Washington DC legal ethics prosecution over his role in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani has turned to a cast of characters from that failed effort.Giuliani review: Andrew Kirtzman’s definitive life of Trump’s last lackeyRead moreA witness list filed by lawyers for Giuliani on Friday included Doug Mastriano, the Republican candidate for governor in Pennsylvania; the former Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis; and Christina Bobb, an attorney currently caught up in Trump’s fight with the US Department of Justice over the retention of classified records.Also among those named were the former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi; Peter Navarro, a former Trump trade adviser charged with contempt of Congress in the January 6 investigation; former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski; and Bernard Kerik, a former New York police commissioner who Trump pardoned of felonies that sent him to jail.Phil Waldron, a former army colonel turned Texas bar owner who pushed baseless electoral fraud claims, was also on the witness list.Giuliani is accused of mounting a frivolous election challenge in Pennsylvania – one of four states, with Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, on which the attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s presidential election victory focused and which Trump this week named in an intemperate response to a subpoena from the House January 6 committee.The DC office of disciplinary counsel intends to call Giuliani as a witness. The former mayor appears on his own list too.Giuliani has said he had a “good faith basis” for contesting mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania.But his work as Trump’s personal attorney – for which he has famously struggled to secure payment – landed him in legal jeopardy on a number of fronts.Giuliani’s role in approaches to Ukraine for political dirt on Trump opponents including Biden landed him in the middle of Trump’s first impeachment.Trump’s second impeachment, for inciting the Capitol riot on 6 January 2021, was the result of the failure of legal attempts to overturn the 2020 election.In Georgia, Giuliani has been named as the target of a criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the election result there.In New York, he has been sued by Dominion Voting Systems, a maker of election machinery.Giuliani is also suspended from practicing law in New York state.Writing for Slate, the Harvard law professor Laurence H Tribe and Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor, said Giuliani and the law professor John Eastman were “the two chief ‘generals’ [who] orchestrat[ed] Trump’s abuse of the law to overturn the election”.The authors added: “In joining the bar, lawyers take an oath to support the US constitution much like the one that Article VI of the constitution requires of all public officials. Lawyers who betrayed that oath in ways that led to the deadly insurrection of January 6 are no better than a physician who violates the Hippocratic Oath to ‘do no harm’.”The complaint in the DC case says Giuliani violated two Pennsylvania rules that bar attorneys from bringing frivolous proceedings without a basis in law or fact and prohibit conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice. The charges can lead to the suspension of a license to practice or disbarment.The hearing is set for December.TopicsRudy GiulianiDonald TrumpUS elections 2020US politicsRepublicansLaw (US)newsReuse this content More

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      US supreme court rejects Trump appeal in Mar-a-Lago documents case

      by

      US supreme court rejects Trump appeal in Mar-a-Lago documents caseFormer president requested independent arbiter to vet more than 100 documents marked classified seized from his Florida home The US supreme court on Thursday rejected Donald Trump’s bid to let an independent arbiter vet more than 100 classified documents that were seized from his Florida home as he confronts a criminal investigation into his handling of sensitive government records.Trump privately admitted he lost 2020 election, top aides testifyRead moreThe justices, in a brief order, denied Trump’s emergency request that he made on 4 October asking them to lift a federal appeals court’s decision that prevented the arbiter from reviewing more than 100 documents marked as classified that were among the roughly 11,000 records seized by FBI agents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach on 8 August.There were no publicly noted dissents by any of the nine justices to the decision, which came two days after the justice department urged them to deny Trump’s request and keep the classified documents out of the hands of the arbiter, known as a special master.The court has a 6-3 conservative majority, including three justices appointed by Trump, who left office in January 2021.Federal officials obtained a court-approved warrant to search Trump’s residence after suspecting that not all classified documents in his possession had been returned after his presidency ended.Investigators searched for evidence of potential crimes related to unlawfully retaining national defense information and obstructing a federal investigation. Trump has denied wrongdoing and has called the investigation politically motivated.Trump went to court on 22 August in a bid to restrict justice department access to the documents as it pursues a criminal investigation.TopicsDonald TrumpUS supreme courtLaw (US)Mar-a-LagoUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 238 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      The most terrifying case of all is about to be heard by the US supreme court | Steven Donziger

      by

      The most terrifying case of all is about to be heard by the US supreme courtSteven DonzigerIf the court upholds the rogue ‘Independent State Legislature’ theory, it would put the US squarely on the path to authoritarianism It is well-known that intense competition between democracy, authoritarianism and fascism is playing out across the globe in a variety of ways – including in the United States. This year’s US supreme court term, which started this week, is a vivid illustration of how the situation is actually worse than most people understand.A supermajority of six, unelected ultraconservatives justices – five of which were put on the bench by presidents who did not win the popular vote – have aggressively grabbed yet another batch of cases that will allow them to move American law to the extreme right and threaten US democracy in the process. The leading example of this disturbing shift is a little-known case called Moore v Harper, which could lock in rightwing control of the United States for generations.The heart of the Moore case is a formerly fringe legal notion called the Independent State Legislature (ISL) theory. This theory posits that an obscure provision in the US constitution allowing state legislatures to set “time, place, and manner” rules for federal elections should not be subject to judicial oversight. In other words, state legislatures should have the absolute power to determine how federal elections are run without court interference.Think about this theory in the context of the last US election. After Joseph Biden defeated Donald Trump resoundingly in both the popular vote and in the electoral college, Trump tried to organize a massive intimidation campaign to steal the election which played out in the storming of the Capitol building on 6 January. But behind the scenes, the legal core of this attempt was to convince the many Republican-controlled state legislatures (30 out of 50 states) to send slates of fake Trump electors from states like Arizona, Georgia and Michigan where Trump actually lost the popular vote.If Trump had succeeded, he would have “won” the election via the electoral college (itself an anti-democratic relic) and been able to stay in office another term. If the supreme court buys the theory in the Moore case, this could easily happen in 2024 and beyond. In fact, it is possible Republicans will never lose another election again if this theory is adopted as law. Or put another way, whether Republicans win or lose elections via the popular vote will not matter because they will be able to maintain power regardless.That’s not democracy. And it would put the United States squarely in the same category as authoritarian countries with illiberal leaders like Hungary, Poland, Turkey and Russia. Each of the leaders of those countries ostensibly “won” elections that were structurally rigged to virtually guarantee they could not lose.It is disturbing that the supreme court used its increasingly diminished credibility with the public to take on a case that has no real purpose other than what I am describing in this column. In the United States, our highest court only rules on approximately 70 cases a year out of the 7,000 petitions for review that are presented. It is a relatively lazy court. In contrast, the supreme court of Brazil rules on approximately 100,000 cases a year. If the US court agreed to accept the Moore case for review, it almost certainly plans to endorse this rogue ISL theory, that could blow up elections and democracy in the United States as we know it.Context is important. This situation did not just come out of nowhere, but really is the product of a multi-decade strategy by a coalition of corporations and rightwing religious fundamentalists dating back decades to take control of the US government.Recent US history shows how spectacularly effective rightwing funders, representing wealthy Americans and corporations, have been in essentially buying control over our political system. These forces correctly perceive that if democracy is allowed to exist in an unfettered and neutral way, then corporate profits will be diminished and the powerful fossil fuel industry will be phased out over time. So they are organizing to prevent that from happening.This rightwing funding network simply could not exist with the enormous power that it has accumulated without the US supreme court’s Citizens United case, which laid the groundwork for the current takeover of the supreme court. One industrialist just turned over his entire $1.6bn fortune to an organization controlled by Leonard Leo, the brilliant mastermind behind the pro-corporate Federalist Society, which essentially put all six of the ultraconservatives on the court.Should the court endorse the ISL theory, Republican-controlled legislatures also will be able to gerrymander political districts to lock in permanent control of federal elections without judicial oversight. Gerrymandering is a fancy term to describe another method of voter suppression in the United States: setting district maps to guarantee that progressive or minority candidates simply cannot get elected except in pre-approved districts. It explains, for example, why in the state of North Carolina Republicans control eight of 13 seats in the US House of Representatives despite the Democratic party winning well over 50% of the statewide vote in the last several elections.The Moore case would in practice strip people of the right to fair elections by placing electoral power in the hands of a small group of officials at the state level who set district maps. In a presidential election, these officials could determine what slate of electors gets put forth to the electoral college, regardless of the outcome of the state’s popular vote.In the gerrymandered map at the heart of the Moore case, an evenly divided popular vote in North Carolina would have awarded 10 of the state’s 14 seats in the House of Representatives to Republicans.While many are focused on the January 6 proceedings, the real coup has been going on quietly in the supreme court without a single shot being fired. As the judicial branch is set to deliberate a case that could drastically weaken the other branches of government, never has it been more clear that it is time to rein in the power of our least democratic institution.
      Steven Donziger is a human rights lawyer and environmental justice advocate. He is also a Guardian US columnist
      TopicsUS supreme courtOpinionUS politicsLaw (US)US voting rightscommentReuse this content More