Category Archives: legal news

legal news, national news

McConnell leaves cheap legacy

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I won’t think often of Mitch McConnell once he leaves his post as US Senate Republican leader.

But when I do …

I will remember the cheap partisan game he played by blocking President Obama’s decision to name a justice to the U.S. Supreme Court.

You remember, right. Justice Antonin Scalia was vacationing in Texas when he died suddenly in February 2016. Scalia was the intellectual leader of the conservatives who sat on the high court. A brilliant jurist to be sure. Obama had a right under the Constitution to select a successor.

President Obama paid his respects to Justice Scalia and then turned to the D.C. appellate court and nominated Judge Merrick Garland to succeed Scalia. Garland, by all accounts, was a serious judge, fair-minded and scholarly and, yes, a good bit more liberal in his judicial philosophy than Justice Scalia.

Not so fast, said McConnell, who then led the GOP majority in the Senate. The president shouldn’t be allowed to make an appointment in an election year. He said there would be no confirmation hearing for Garland. The Senate would wait for the election results, McConnell said.  He took a huge gamble, as Donald Trump was a decided underdog in early 2016 in his race against Democratic Party nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

What happened? Donald Trump got elected, took the oath in January 2017 and then selected conservative judge Neil Gorsuch to succeed Scalia.

I shall be clear.  McConnell acted legally. He had the right as Senate majority leader to block the president’s nomination.

However, McConnell’s stiff of a president from doing his constitutional duty still doesn’t pass this blogger’s smell test.

The tactic stunk to the highest of the heavens and that should stand as this partisan hack’s most enduring legacy.

crime news, legal news

No one is above the law?

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Supreme Court decisions notwithstanding, most of us have operated under the believe that the laws apply to everyone, regardless of occupation, wealth or social standing.

Have laid down that predicate, let’s suppose Kamala Harris is elected president in November, defeating a former POTUS who faces numerous criminal indictments for actions he allegedly committed to overturn the results of the previous presidential election.

Does the president-elect call off the dogs, ordering the Justice Department to cease and desist in its probe of the former president?

Abso(freaking)lutely not!

Donald Trump has accused DOJ of hunting him down because they want him out of office.  That, of course, is nonsense, covered in self-aggrandizing narcissism.

The high court earlier this year ruled that presidents are entitled to immunity from prosecution if the crime they commit falls in line with his action as president. Special counsel Jack Smith then reindicted Trump, resurrecting the indictments that were effectively rendered moot by the SCOTUS.

No self-respecting prosecutor is going to say his or her sole intent in pursuing a legal matter is to rid the world of a politician. I believe Jack Smith and Attorney General Merrick Garland are far more than merely self-respecting lawyers.

If this election turns out the right way in November, we will have a president-elect who once served as a district attorney, a state prosecutor and a state attorney general. Something tells me she won’t let up on the gas for a moment in bringing Donald Trump to justice.

Nor should she.

legal news

SCOTUS trashes another established notion

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Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has laid waste to another established legal tenet, let us look briefly at what might lie ahead.

The court, ruling 6 to 3, has decided that presidents do have presumed immunity from prosecution if they commit wrongdoing while sitting in the office. The court let stand the notion that a president can be prosecuted for acts he committed after he leaves office.

We all thought that “no one is above the law.” Well … that’s not quite true. It means, in this matter specifically, that Donald Trump was within legal authority to provoke the Jan. 6 onslaught on the Capitol and then do nothing to stop it while mobsters assaulted the cops, crashed through windows, defecated on the floor of our Capitol and threatened to execute the VP if he didn’t obey Trump’s command to overturn the result of the 2020 election … which Trump lost to Joe Biden!

Does this mean, therefore, that Joe Biden could send a special forces sniper team to assassinate his opponents before he leaves office? Of. course not … except that the court ruled that illegal acts might be protected.

When I served in the US Army long ago, I was told that we didn’t have to obey unlawful orders. We were instructed to resist them. Vice President Mike Pence received what to my mind was an unlawful order from Trump to “do the right thing” by stopping the certification of the 2020 election result. Pence has said all along he didn’t have the authority to act.

He followed the law and the US Constitution. Trump should be tried for issuing that order. SCOTUS, again in my view, got this ruling wrong.

legal news

No one is above the law? Pfffttt!

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If you thought for a nanosecond — as I did — that “no one is above the law,” then what we have received today from the U.S. Supreme Court is a decision that dispels such foolishness.

The court, ruling 6 to 3, has decided that Donald J. Trump is granted “presumptive immunity” from prosecution for acts committed while he was still in office. That includes pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The six votes all came from Republican-appointed justices; the three dissenting justices all were selected by Democratic presidents. Who knew … right?

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. According to The Hill: Roberts wrote that whenever the president and vice president are discussing official responsibilities, they are engaging in official conduct — and, presiding over the certification of the 2020 presidential election results is a constitutional and statutory duty of the vice president.

“The indictment’s allegations that Trump attempted to pressure the Vice President to take particular acts in connection with his role at the certification proceeding thus involve official conduct, and Trump is at least presumptively immune from prosecution for such conduct,” Roberts wrote.

The indictments of Trump presumed what Attorney General Merrick Garland has preached, that “no one is above the law.” Not true, according to the SCOTUS. The court’s logic applies even to discussion that involve knowingly conspiring to break the law.

SCOTUS did kick some of the indictments back to a lower court. More delay is coming up. The case involving the Jan. 6 assault on the government likely won’t go to trial until after the election.

Then, if — God forbid! — Trump wins, well … you know how that ends.

legal news

Will nominee show up at RNC?

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Given what I believe is happening with regard to convicted felon Donald Trump’s post-conviction antics, it is fair to wonder about this possibility.

It is that the 45th POTUS might be unable to attend the Republican Party nominating convention that will launch his candidacy against President Joe Biden.

Trump is going to be sentenced for the conviction handed down by the jury in NYC on 34 counts relating to an illegal hush money payment to an adult film actress, Stephanie Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels.

Sentencing occurs July 11. Four days later, GOP convention delegates will meet in Milwaukee to nominate Trump for another run for the White House.

Judge Juan Merchan has wide latitude here. He could sentence Trump to jail time; he could sentence him to probation. He could impose an immediate jail term; he could say Trump can wait several weeks before reporting to the slammer.

Suppose he gets jail time. Suppose the judge orders the 45th POTUS to report immediately to the hoosegow.

That means the GOP convention will nominate an individual who is in jail, serving time for felonies committed that sought to hide an extramarital tryst. Trump denies even knowing Clifford, let alone having sex with her in the hotel room years before running for POTUS in 2016.

He paid her 130 grand anyway. Go figure.

Oh, and he’s now been calling the judge a crook, the jury was rigged, the prosecutor was biased against him.

A judge usually looks for signs of contrition in criminal defendants. He is not getting a hint of it from this defendant.

Republican convention delegates, though, are blind to the reality that they are facing … that their next presidential nominee is a felon.

legal news

What happened to SCOTUS?

For as long as I have been covering and commenting on our court system, I have followed a few basic tenets of what I consider to be fair and impartial justice.

One of them is simple and straightforward. It states that judges must always be fair, impartial and objective when interpreting the law. They cannot possibly accept gifts from litigants or potential litigants. Period. End of story.

What in the hell, then, has become of that tenet? US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas finally has owned up to the revelation that over the years, he has accepted more than $4 million in travel and other assorted gifts from wealthy contributors. One of notably is Texas gazillionaire Harlan Crow, who has given Clarence and Virginia Thomas cruise trips, first-class jetliner rides, rooms at posh hotels and Lord knows what else.

Thomas only recently reported it. He’s not required to do so under SCOTUS rules. The nation’s highest court is the single judicial institution that does not police itself … but it damn sure keeps a close eye on the conduct of other federal judges serving on lower courts.

Thomas, appointed to the high court in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush, has assumed the unofficial title of chief grifter on the nation’s federal judiciary.

This is simply beyond belief. Oh, and get a load of this: Justice Thomas once told a TV documentary filmmaker that he prefers stay at Walmart parking lots in his recreational vehicle because that’s how “normal” people choose to relax.

It’s not clear when this scandal will expire. It seems we keep hearing of new gifts being lavished on the Thomases from their wealthy friends, some of whom actually have legal matters pending on the highest court in the land.

I am left only to lament the presence on this court of a justice who doesn’t grasp the gravity of his acceptance of these gifts … and to call on him once again to resign!

legal news

Alito’s wife is the boss?

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has acknowledged that he flies an upside-down Old Glory at his home. It’s an international symbol of distress.

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t mind one little bit about the flag. However, and this is important: Alito sits on the nation’s highest court that might have to decide whether POTUS No. 45 is immune from prosecution or whether he broke the law by pilfering classified documents away from the White House.

What we have here is a perception problem.

Alito said he and his wife co-own the house they share and that he cannot dictate to her whether she can fly the flag in that manner. He said he told her to take it down, but she refused. Really?

Why in the name of good husbandship doesn’t he just take the damn thing down himself? I guess the rules in the Alito household prohibit such ballsy behavior.

To be fair, I have to hand it to Justice Alito at least for recognizing there could be a perception problem, given that he asked his wife to remove the flag. What astounds me to no end, though, is why he didn’t act on it in a more, um forceful manner.

As for Mrs. Alito, she is making a political statement that has a direct impact on how her husband might be asked to do his job.

Chief Justice John Roberts has refused to meet with congressional Democrats to discuss the matter. Alito says he won’t recuse himself from any future action involving POTUS No. 45.

And as a friend of mine said in a social media meme earlier today, it’s more than a little weird that a man who cannot control what his wife does in his house feels compelled to dictate to millions of women how they must handle reproductive rights.

We live in a bizarre political environment.

crime news, legal news

Verdict is in: guilty!

Before we dance too far into the weeds of what Donald Trump’s conviction on all 34 felony counts of illegal campaign funding, I want to share a quick thought or two.

I accept the jury’s verdict. Second of all, the 45th POTUS — as predicted — called the trial a sham, a farce and said the fight is “far from over.”

Third, and this is most critical, the seven men and five women who today delivered their decision were all approved by the prosecutors and by Trump’s legal team. They were vetted carefully in accordance with New York state law,

For the 45th POTUS to suggest the trial was rigged against him means he doesn’t accept what I have just laid out … which is that his legal team approved the jurors right along with the prosecution.

So, there you have it. We have a convicted felon running for president of the United States.

Well done, jurors.

legal news

SCOTUS justice blames wife for the flag

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Associate US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has fallen back on the “blame my wife” defense in a case involving an upside-down flag flying at his home.

Alito has refused to recuse himself from any cases involving the former POTUS’s legal troubles involving his loyalty to the Constitution and to the nation.

He has been flying an upside-down flag at his home. The upside-down flag, of course, is the international symbol of a nation in distress.

According to The Hill: “I had nothing whatsoever to do with the flying of that flag. I was not even aware of the upside-down flag until it was called to my attention. As soon as I saw it, I asked my wife to take it down, but for several days, she refused,” Alito wrote, noting that they own their home “jointly” and that she has a “legal right to use the property as she sees fit.” 

Alito is now perceived as a justice who cannot remain impartial regarding cases involving the ex-POTUS. As they about perception, it’s the same thing as reality.

Alito rejects calls to recuse himself from Jan. 6 cases over upside-down flag issue (thehill.com)

The man shouldn’t be deciding these cases. Justice Alito has laid his bias out there for the whole world to see.

legal news

Would he really jail an ex-POTUS?

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New York District Judge Juan Merchan well could exhibit the gawdiest stones imaginable if he follows through with a veiled threat against the 45th POTUS.

You see, the former POTUS just can’t keep his trap shut despite the existence of a gag order that Merchan has imposed on him while he stands trial on allegations that he violated campaign finance laws when he paid off an adult film star.

Merchan has declared the ex-Philanderer in Chief to be in contempt of court and said he might send the criminal defendant to the hoosegow.

Wouldn’t that be rich? Well … yeah, it would be.