Trump v US
Judge Aileen Cannon ... No more special prosecutors ... Rogue judges at the highest level ... Presidential immunity decision worse than anticipated ... A dreadful partisan court ... Milwaukee convention ... Vance has no conviction - unlike his running mate ... Roger Fitch files from Washington
"FBI searches for motive in Trump shooting" - mystifying Associated Press headline.
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"The parallels between [Trump v US] and Germany's Enabling Acts …similarly ratified by the German Supreme Court right after Hitler took power in early 1933 - are startling. That collection of laws ruled that whatever Hitler said in the context of an 'official act' instantly became the law of the land. For all practical purposes, as the nation's leader, he became immune from prosecution under the laws that applied to every other normal German or elected politician." - Thom Hartmann
Although everyone is reeling from the new presidential election dynamics in the US, all eyes should still be on the US Supreme Court and a decision being called the Dred Scott of our time.
Hitler: immune from prosecution
In perhaps the most partisan power grab in its 235-year history, the supreme court on July 1 attempted to nullify all the outstanding federal criminal litigation against Donald Trump as well as litigation under appeal in New York State and Georgia. Rather than Justice Gorsuch's promised "rule for the ages", it's a rule tailor-made for Donald Trump.
As international law professor Oona Hathaway noted in Foreign Affairs, for the rest of the world the US president has always been above the law. Now Americans themselves will learn what that means.
In a decision that will live in infamy, the court ruled that a president is, in all essential matters, above the law. That's contrary to the Constitution; Article 1, Section 3, makes clear that even a president who has been impeached and convicted remains "liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law".
By a majority of 5-4 (Justice Barrett not joining), dicta was inserted in Trump v US that may affect multiple criminal prosecutions in several states, e.g, those involving fake electoral slates.
The five justices opined that even the evidence of crimes that falls within the president's astonishingly-broad "official acts", e.g, contacts and phone calls between the president and others, perhaps bribery and corruption, attempted subversions of justice through corrupt contacts with department employees (e.g, Jeffrey Clark in the DoJ), intimidation of the Vice-President and the Justice Department's senior officers, pressuring Georgia officials to "find" votes, cannot be admitted in court, nor the president's motives and good faith queried.
More here on CJ Roberts' now-notorious footnote 3.
READ THE WHOLE FITCH HERE.
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