Category Archives: legal news

legal news, State news

Texas AG feels the heat

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Ken Paxton is supposed to be fixated solely on the nuts and bolts of his job as Texas attorney general.

He isn’t focused on those details. Instead, he is looking over his shoulder at a reported FBI investigation into whether he broke the law by handing out favors to a political donor.

I consider these questions to be a debilitating factor that takes the AG’s eyes off the mission, which is to represent the state on myriad legal matters.

A number of Paxton’s key AG’s office legal eagles have asked the federal government to examine whether the attorney general has committed criminal acts. They have either resigned, put on leave or been fired by the attorney general.

At least one major Texas newspaper, the Dallas Morning News, has called on Paxton to resign immediately. The Morning News contends that Paxton no longer can serve effectively as the state’s top law enforcement officer, based on the federal investigation that reportedly has commenced and on the state trial on securities fraud that is still pending.

Indeed, it is impossible in my view for the attorney general to work on behalf of the state while the FBI presumably is looking high and low to determine whether there is anything to the allegations that the AG’s top aides have raised.

I get the part about the presumption of innocence. However, the cloud is darkening over Paxton and his tenure as attorney general.

At issue is whether Paxton intervened on legal matters involving Nate Paul, a major donor to Paxton’s campaigns. Paxton’s aides suggest he broke the law; their complaints involve allegations of bribery.

This isn’t going down well with many of Paxton’s fellow Republicans. Some have called the allegations “concerning.” Others have said Paxton should quit.

The drama is going to play out eventually, or one should hope.

Texas needs an AG who isn’t sullied by these types of questions.

Thus, you can count me as one who continues to believe Ken Paxton should resign.

legal news, local news, State news

Time to quit, Mr. Texas AG

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It is highly doubtful a major Texas newspaper read my blog from this past month before declaring it is time for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to resign from public office.

Here is what I wrote on Oct. 7:

https://highplainsblogger.com/2020/10/should-ag-paxton-quit/

Now the Dallas Morning News has weighed in with a strong and meticulously reported editorial that says it’s time for Paxton to go.

The Sunday DMN laid out in detail the transgressions that Paxton has allegedly committed. Now, I won’t take credit for influencing the Morning News’s editorial position. Oh, what the heck … I’ll take all the credit I deserve.

Still, for the major newspaper which happens to be Paxton’s hometown newspaper — as he represented Collin County in the Legislature before being elected AG in 2014 — to call for his immediate resignation is a big deal, man.

Read the Morning News editorial here.

It wasn’t enough that a Collin County grand jury indicted Paxton on securities fraud. He still is awaiting trial five years after the indictment. Oh, no. Seven top AG’s office legal eagles blew the whistle on allegations of criminal activity within the office. They have called for a federal investigation of the myriad allegations they have leveled.

Paxton has managed to fire most of them; others have quit.

The AG’s credibility is blown to smithereens.

Hit the road, AG Paxton.

legal news, national news

GOP wins SCOTUS battle; however …

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It’s done.

The U.S. Senate’s Republican majority had its way with the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court. She was confirmed in a 52-48 vote. Not a single Democratic senator voted “yes” on this travesty; one Republican senator, Susan Collins of Maine, voted “no.”

The GOP Senate majority can now look back on the hypocrisy it displayed in jamming this nomination through to confirmation. Many of the Senate Republicans who endorsed Barrett’s nomination said four years ago that no president should be allowed to fill a SCOTUS seat during an election year.

Yet here we are today. Barrett will take her oath and join the court, delivering a solid right-wing conservative majority to the court possibly for decades. Then she well might get to decide whether this election should stand. Hmm. Imagine how she’s going to rule in a case involving the individual who nominated her to the nation’s highest court and who might challenge an election result that delivers a seeming victory to Joseph Biden.

The process that produced Justice Barrett simply stinks beyond measure.

It is known that “elections have consequences.” We have seen the consequence of electing one Donald J. Trump to the presidency, which is the confirmation of a third nominee to the highest court in America.

I do hope the next electoral consequence will be Donald Trump’s defeat next week.

legal news, national news

Merrick Garland haunts this hearing

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Merrick Garland is very much alive and well but his “ghost” floated throughout the hearing room today as a congressional hearing commenced on an appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee welcomed another federal judge, Amy Coney Barrett, as she began her confirmation hearing to the U.S. Supreme Court. She would take the seat occupied by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in September.

Garland’s role in this drama? Well, he once got nominated to the high court by President Barack Obama. Another justice, Antonin Scalia, died in February 2016 while on vacation in Texas. President Obama wanted to nominate a successor. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wasted no time in declaring his intention to block that effort. Why? Because the voters had a right to be heard before a SCOTUS nomination would be considered by the Senate.

We had a presidential election in 2016. Obama couldn’t run again. It turned out that Donald Trump would win the election. So, Trump got to select someone to succeed Scalia; he chose Neil Gorsuch.

The hypocrisy between then and now is stunning in its scope.

We were 10 months away from the previous election when a vacancy occurred. Now, we’re just 22 days before the next election. Don’t Americans have a right to have their voices heard before the Senate considers a nominee to succeed Ginsburg? Of course we do.

Except that Republicans who at the moment hold the majority of Senate seats are pushing full speed with the Barrett hearing.

Most astonishing of all is the comment that Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham made in 2018. He said then that if an opening occurs during Donald Trump’s term as president and the “primary season has begun,” the Senate should hold off until after the election before considering a possible replacement.

Graham said we could hold his words against him. Fine. Many of us are doing that, Mr. Chairman.

Amy Coney Barrett wouldn’t be my choice to join the court. I much prefer a jurist in the Merrick Garland mold: moderate, center-left in philosophical judicial outlook. Garland, though, never got the courtesy of a hearing, let alone a Senate vote, that appears to be in store for Judge Barrett.

It’s all because the Senate GOP majority played politics with the judicial nomination process in 2016 … and is doing so once again right now.

Shameful.

legal news

Answer the question, Joe

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the Democratic ticket seeking to defeat Donald Trump and Mike Pence, are performing a clumsy dodge when it comes to a simple, straightforward question.

It is this: Do you endorse a plan to add members to the U.S. Supreme Court in the event Judge Amy Coney Barrett gets confirmed to the seat vacated by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

Many progressives are alarmed at the addition of another conservative to the high court and they want to add at least two seats to the nine-member bench presumably with progressives/liberals to, um, provide some ideological balance.

The move might pick up steam if Democrats gain control of the U.S. Senate, which is looking more plausible each day we draw closer to the election.

Biden and Harris have danced all around the question about whether they back such an idea. For the record, I happen to oppose it. The court has been a nine-member body for more than 150 years and it should remain that way. Even the late Justice Ginsburg opposed the idea of “packing” the court.

Donald Trump and Mike Pence are raising a ruckus over Biden and Harris’s refusal to answer the question. To be candid, they do have a point. Biden said he will make that decision public “after the election.” Harris, when asked during her VP debate with Pence this past week, turned the discussion instead to the “packing” being done by Republicans who are filling lower-court bench seats.

Biden and Harris need not provide the Trumpkins with ammunition to fire at them down the stretch of this campaign.

Just answer the question. No matter what they decide, rest assured that the Democratic Party presidential ticket will continue to have my support. Honest. Really and truly.

legal news, State news

Texas AG faces new questions, allegations

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had been in some serious trouble already, with a pending trial awaiting him over allegations of securities fraud.

Now comes a new set of concerns raised by senior AG office staffers, including Paxton’s top assistant, who are demanding a federal investigation into whether Paxton has abused the power of his office.

The hits just keep on comin’, as the saying goes.

Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, two of Paxton’s fellow Republicans, are being strangely reticent about the allegations. Patrick says they are “very concerning” and Abbott said they raise “serious questions.” The two men of course are withholding judgment until they know all the facts.

As the Texas Tribune has reported: “We have a good faith belief that the attorney general is violating federal and/or state law including prohibitions related to improper influence, abuse of office, bribery and other potential criminal offenses,” seven agency leaders wrote in a one-page letter obtained by the (Austin American-) Statesman.

Among the seven officials who signed the letter is Jeff Mateer, Paxton’s top aide, who quit the AG’s office this past week.

Good heavens. The state’s top law enforcement officer cannot possibly function well with these kinds of clouds hanging directly over him. He already is awaiting trial on securities fraud stemming from a Collin County indictment in 2015 alleging that he failed to notify investors of his involvement with certain fund management outfits. Now we have this matter.

I would hope the federal government would get involved promptly and reach an independent finding of whether the admittedly unspecified allegations have any merit.

If not, then let Paxton stand trial on the securities matter. If they are legitimate, then let’s allow the system to take care of AG Paxton.

legal news, local news, political news, State news

Justice isn’t partisan

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A series of political signs caught my eye recently while driving along Lucas Avenue just east of Allen in Collin County, Texas.

“Keep Your Republican Judges” the signs blurt out.

The signs bring to mind a question I used to ask Texas judicial candidates while I was working for a living as a newspaper editor.

“Can you tell me the difference,” I would ask, “between Democratic justice and Republican justice?” The answer from judges and judicial candidates in either party was essentially the same. They couldn’t differentiate between the parties.

That brings me to a point I have been harping on since The Flood, which is that if Texas is going to keep electing its judges it needs to remove the partisan label from these races.

I have more or less given up on the notion of appointing judges and then having them stand for “retention” at the ballot box. Texas seems wedded to the notion of electing judges, which we do at all manner of levels: justices of the peace, to county court at law judges, to district judges, to appellate court judges, to the Court of Criminal Appeals and to the Texas Supreme Court.

They all run either as Democrats or Republicans. Depending on the relative strength of either party at the time, we have tossed out fine judges from the weaker of the two parties.

As late as the early 1980s, when Democrats remained strong in Texas, fine GOP judges got the boot. Then the tide turned and Texans began tossing out fine Democratic judges in favor of GOP judges. Why? Because they were of the party in power.

It doesn’t make sense to me.

Judges who adjudicate criminal and civil cases do not deliver justice on the basis of partisan leaning. Appellate judges, be they sitting on regional appellate benches or on the state’s top two appellate courts — the CCA or the Supreme Court — do not interpret the Texas Constitution on a partisan level.

I can understand selecting judges based on their judicial philosophy. If they are too soft or too harsh in their judgments, then allow voters to make their selection on that basis.

Partisan labels don’t belong in our state’s judicial contests.

legal news

Consider this possible bombshell

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I don’t want to predict the moment that Earth will spin off is axis, but there’s a potentially explosive scandal out there that might erupt, forcing the worst constitutional crisis in American history.

Donald Trump is about to nominate someone to the Supreme Court. That someone could be confirmed in a U.S. Senate vote before the Nov. 3 election.

We’ll go to the polls and the result might not be to Trump’s liking. He might decide to challenge the results that could show Joe Biden winning narrowly … God forbid!

Then the case could go to the Supreme Court.

Just suppose Trump’s selection on the court finds herself in the position of casting the deciding vote that might return Trump to office for a second term. Suppose as well that the appointee doesn’t recuse herself from any deliberation and that her vote renders a Biden victory moot on some legal technicality that no one can predict at this moment.

Whoever Trump nominates and is confirmed in my view needs to declare herself out of the game. She must not participate in any decision that could deliver a second term to the individual who selected her for a lifetime appointment on the nation’s highest court.

Oh, man, I do not want any of this to play out. My version of political perfection would be for Joe Biden to win in a rout, to bury Trump under an electoral landslide that produces zero doubt over the outcome … not that a landslide loss would dissuade Trump from trying to pull of some mumbo jumbo to steal an election result.

We need to prepare ourselves for the possibility of a hideous, horrendous, hell-raising crisis in the event we get a shiny new Supreme Court justice sitting on the bench awaiting an electoral outcome.

Recusal is the only option.

legal news, national news

‘Not written in the stars’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I kinda think U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah has missed a key point in the fight over whether Donald Trump should proceed quickly with nominating someone to the U.S. Supreme Court in the wake of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death.

Romney said he would support moving forward quickly, endorsing the idea of a rapid-fire confirmation process, despite assurances from many key GOP senators in 2016 that they would oppose such a thing, even with a Republican president awaiting the chance to nominate someone in a presidential election year.

Sen. Romney declared Tuesday that there nothing “in the stars” that requires the SCOTUS to be a “liberal” court. That was his public declaration in stating his support for moving ahead. I am scratching my head over that one, Mitt.

We all get that elections have consequences. Trump promised to select conservative judges. He is delivering on the pledge. It’s the timing of it, the idea that an election now no longer stands as an impediment to the president being able to select someone. The GOP sang an entirely different tune in 2016 when Justice Antonin Scalia died and President Obama sought to name Merrick Garland to the high court. GOP Senate leaders — namely Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — slammed the brakes on that, declaring that the “people deserve a voice” in determining who sits on the Supreme Court.

Well, they deserve as much of a voice today as they did then.

That’s the beef. It has little to do with whether a president can select who he wants.

I was hoping Mitt Romney would put principle above party — just as he did when he was the lone GOP senator to vote to convict Trump of abuse of power in his Senate impeachment trial.

Silly me. Mitt let us all down.

legal news

Electoral consequences? Yep, we have ’em!

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It has been said more times than I care to recall that “elections have consequences.”

That truism is playing out in real time as I write these few words.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death has opened the door wide for the most unfit man ever to hold the office of president to nominate his third selection to the nation’s Supreme Court.

You want consequences? The court, if Trump’s nominee gets confirmed, will be locked in a solid 6 to 3 conservative majority possibly for a generation.

Yes, this is what we get when we elect someone with no moral compass, no ideological basis, no authentic sense of what justice really means to the nation’s highest office.

Trump says he’s going to nominate a woman to succeed Ginsburg.  I always am struck, by the way, at Trump’s use of platitudes to describe individuals. He calls Judge Amy Coney Barrett, one of the frontrunners to be nominated, as “fantastic,” that she’s a “brilliant lawyer,” that she’ll do a “great job.” What is missing in these platitudes is any sense that Trump knows anything of substance about the individuals he is considering.

How in the name of electoral power do we rectify what’s about to happen? I believe the first and perhaps last option is to ensure that Trump gets defeated, that Americans elect Joseph R. Biden as their next president. I know that electing Biden won’t undo the damage that Trump might inflict on our federal judiciary — given his penchant for heeding the advice of far-right-wing commentators and thinkers. Electing Biden does set the predicate for a longer-term repair of the damage that Trump will inflict.

Thus, the upcoming election — shall we say — has intense consequence on the future of our nation.

If you disbelieve the value of elections and the consequences they can produce, I present to you Exhibit A: Donald John Trump’s fluke victory in 2016.