Montana radio host Aaron Flint pointed out that replacing Biden with another Democrat will still leave in power the people currently using him like a presidential skin suit. That’s also true, to a large extent, of replacing Biden with Trump. //

However, because we’ve already had the benefit of a Trump presidency, we can see that even a president as vigorous and defiant as he struggled to truly exercise authority over the people and institutions that, constitutionally speaking, the president commands.

Some of the most egregious examples of this occurred among cabinet-level national security types. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman under Trump Gen. Mark Milley was one of the worst offenders. Washington Post and New York Times reporters say, according to excerpts from Haley McLean, that Milley deliberately stayed in his position to sabotage voters’ elected commander-in-chief, saying to staffers of Trump, “I’ll just fight him” and “I will fight from the inside. //

Milley also disobeyed Trump’s order to pull U.S. troops from Afghanistan, setting the stage for the disastrous Afghanistan pullout Milley oversaw under Biden that seriously damaged U.S. foreign policy goals, killed 13 U.S. soldiers, and left stranded thousands of American citizens. //

In my new book, I point out that scholars such as Christopher Caldwell have shown that for more than a century the United States has been living under “two Constitutions.” One is the original Constitution that secures consent of the governed, rule of law, and government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The second Constitution, or regime, is that of the “living Constitution,” which I explain is essentially totalitarian because it recognizes no limits on its powers.

That second regime now has the upper hand, and it is run by this cabal of unelected bureaucrats who believe they have the right to saddle, ride, and spur Americans and bend us to their will. They don’t care what we vote for. We’re getting what they want regardless of how we vote. That goes for Congress, too, whom the deep state also treats like window dressing and who usually lives up to that cynical expectation.

So yes, the deep state is shamefully using Biden as their puppet president. But they believe they have the right to ignore the Constitution and voters even when the president isn’t a walking cadaver. For people who know that when the Democrat press starts shouting something it’s proof the opposite is true, this puts a pretty dark cast on all the Democrat shrieks about “democracy.”

To put it plainly, the left hates President Trump more than they love this country. Government officials at the federal and state levels have censored President Trump, filed civil suits in order to sanction him, illegally removed him from the ballot, and perverted the law in order to prosecute him. This is a strategic attack against a former President of the United States, against a current candidate for President, and against the value we as a Nation place on our system of government, our legal system, and our very identity. The term lawfare, while apt, fails to adequately convey the moral depravity underpinning this strategic attack. I encourage this body to address each tactical front in the broader conflict provoked by lawfare. //

Bailey outlines numerous flaws inherent in the prosecution:

1. Failing to uphold the rules of professional conduct by which prosecutors are bound
2. Failing to specify the other crime Trump was alleged to have committed/intended to commit in falsifying the business records, such that his Sixth Amendment rights were violated
3. Seeking a gag order in violation of Trump's First Amendment rights
4. Perverting the law to meet the facts rather than objectively applying the law
5. Failing to require unanimity from the jury on the predicate offense(s) //

Ready2Squeeze
18 minutes ago

To put it plainly, the left hates President Trump more than they love this country.

This should read:

To put it plainly, the left hates President Trump more than they love hate this country.

First, any civil or criminal defendant in a federal case who plausibly asserts that political or ideological factors may taint a jury pool can veto the Washington DC circuit and receive a hearing in his or her choice of another randomly chosen circuit or the circuit of his or her home dwelling.

Second, regardless of what circuit a federal case is filed in, any civil or criminal defendant who plausibly asserts that political or ideological factors may taint a jury pool shall be entitled to a jury pool that is proportionally selected from a region that did not vote more than 70 percent in favor of one party’s candidate in the most recent presidential, senatorial, or congressional election.

Third, plaintiffs or prosecutors in a federal case may elect to have the case decided in a randomly assigned circuit other than the District of Columbia. This would ensure that corrupt and criminal Democrats do not get a free pass on anything they do simply because they know a DC jury pool would never convict them of anything, no matter how egregious the offense.

Fourth, Congress should mandate that any states receiving federal funds for any legal or law enforcement purposes must abide by the same rules guaranteeing a defendant a politically fair jury pool.

Fifth, state legislators should enact similar laws ensuring political fairness for trials in their state.

In summary, all Americans are entitled to a jury of our peers, or at least a jury that is not politically biased. Unfortunately, conservative Americans are being increasingly subjected to politically weaponized lawfare. //

Indylawyer
10 hours ago
This is a badly needed reform. Excellent point. We also need to eliminate most federal criminal statutes, and make sure the ones that are left are clearly and narrowly defined. They wouldn't be able to wage most of this lawfare without these vague and overweening criminal statutes. //

anon-8gsr
12 hours ago
All this articles says to me is conservatives have been woefully neglectful in preparing to fight the opposition, and still are. We all knew that though.

GBenton anon-8gsr
12 hours ago
If Trump wins in November we have to view this as the last opportunity to right the ship. After what Biden has done, including the lawfare and threats to pack the Supreme Court and end the filibuster, the mission is to destroy the corruption and neutralize the threat should a Democrat win in 2028.

That said, I think if the American people knew the full truth about the left there might not be much of a Democrat party for a while. Trump should declassify anything and everything on the Dems and their corruption going back to JFK (and before, as relevant), since I believe they had JFK killed, they set up Nixon, and they have their fingerprints on a whole lotta bad stuff including Waco, etc, not to mention what Hillary and Obama did.

Expose all the dirt. make it public.

GBenton Arik
12 hours ago
Stealing elections needs to carry a price similar to treason since it interferes with the peaceful tranfer of power and threatens the stability and survival of the republic and invites tyranny. //

Central to the former Justice Antonin Scalia law clerk's arguments in January and Thursday is that when a man becomes president, he becomes a part of the constitutional machinery, no longer a regular citizen.

In this construct, the president is always the president, and the only way to laicize him is through a House impeachment and a Senate conviction for conduct that then becomes vulnerable to criminal prosecution. //

etba_ss Cappy Hamper
2 hours ago
It is actually worse. Roberts is the worst sort of justice, where in an attempt to preserve the "integrity" of the Court and avoid wading into political matters, his decisions are always guided by politics, not the law. In an effort to appear above politics, he is the most political creature on the Court.

Not political in the sense of advancing one party, but political in that every decision is filtered through the lens of how it will be viewed, the consequences, attacks, and preserving the Court's power. He sees himself as the hero of the SCOTUS, whose job it is to protect its power far more than to correctly interpret the Constitution and the law. This is why he upheld Obamacare under the "tax" provision, while ignoring that he had to disagree with his own opinion to take the case up. This is why he wanted to uphold the LA law in Dobbs, but not overturn Roe.

I think it would be preferable if they had pictures of him. Instead, he really just is this cowardly, feckless, weak and depraved. //

Random US Citizen etba_ss
2 hours ago
Roberts has turned the SC in to My Lai--he's destroying the court in order to "save" it. History isn't going to look kindly on that, either because constitutional order will fail and Roberts attacks on the rule of law will be seen as one cause of the collapse, or because constitutional order will prevail (an unlikely outcome) and he'll be seen as an obstacle that had to be overcome.

Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius. //

anon-of-yo-biz
2 hours ago
Is it really being argued that Bin laden was a "political" enemy? Was Hitler a "political" enemy? Can we never object against tyranny, hatred, and murder unless we have compatible political or religious views? It seems that the word bigot has grow to include all forms of just resistance. //

Cafeblue32 anon-of-yo-biz
an hour ago edited
This is intentional. The left is destroying language by making specific terms no longer their definition, or getting rid of them altogether. The purpose of language is clear and precise comminication so as to not be misunderstood and creat a bunch of unneccesary problems.The left's purpose is to deconstruct language to be less clear, so specific sexes become they/thems, Catperson, or whatever the hell. They remove gender indicators in gender-specific languages. They use persons instead of men and women, family units instead of marriage and family, how is everyone instead of "How are you guys doing?" The more generic they can make the language, the more they can re-invent it to mean whatever they want it to mean.

And here we are-men are women, Israel is genocidal, Palestine is a legitimate state, Putin is ready to roll into New York, illegal able bodies men wearing expensive jeans and sneakers are refugees, illegal squatters are residents, the American flag is racist and the LGBTGFY flag is to fly high above them all everywhere an American flag is flown around ther world. Working class conservatives are racists and fascists while Palestininas calling for the end of Jews and demand for sharia law are freedom fighters. Etc etc.

Rush said it long ago: words mean things. That's why they work so hard to destroy them.

We got what we wanted. And that’s what some members of our party are mad about. They want a federal law controlling abortion. Except that’s not what we promised.

It’s hard to understand how one justifies dishonesty as a political strategy. That’s what this is. They are asking that we conduct a bait and switch. We promised that every state would decide for itself, and now it’s, “No, now we’re going to decide for you.” How do you expect people to react to that? We overturned Roe with the understanding that some states would be awesome and largely ban the barbarian practice and that other states, like my own California, would declare open season on fetuses. And that’s what has happened. But you know what? Thousands and thousands of lives have been saved. In the butchery states? No, abortion continues there. But we’ve made progress. We’ve saved lives.

We have to stop making the good the enemy of the perfect and start understanding that progress is made incrementally. The left imposed Roe v. Wade, which made a huge, horrifying leap in one fell swoop. And look what happened. It got overturned in one fell swoop.

The battle against abortion is not going to end by passing a law at the federal level. It just isn’t. First of all, it’s not clear Congress even could enact one. You know, we just threw out a ruling that said the federal government could make abortion laws. //

The Democrats have been beating us around the head with abortion. What they’ll do is call us liars if we try and pass an abortion law, and they have the advantage of truth because we didn’t promise this. We promised the opposite. It’s electoral poison, and there’s a lot more at stake than abortion – free speech, economic prosperity, and peace, to name just a few. But as for abortion itself, if the Democrats get the power, they’ll legalize it up to the moment that a kid gets his driver’s license. If you want to kill more kids, push for a federal abortion ban because that is a certain way of killing more kids.

The way to change abortion is to change hearts and minds one state at a time. I wish we could wave a magic wand and make this barbaric practice disappear. But I’m not a child. I understand that even things I believe in deeply are not going to just happen through the sheer power of rightness. We’ve got a lot of work to do. We can’t just wish the practice away because we accurately assess it as horribly wrong.

Is Donald Trump immoral for feeling the way he does about abortion? There are lots of pro-life people who are ticked off at him, but these people need to understand that Donald Trump, first of all, represents most Americans’ position and, second, that he was the most successful pro-life president in American history. This man has saved thousands upon thousands of lives through his judicial appointments who tossed out Roe. Trump hasn’t betrayed anybody. He just disagrees at the margins.

Trump is looking at things realistically and, yes, politically. And he damn well better look at things politically because there’s a lot more at stake here than abortion in 2024. A lot more.

the Meese brief addresses the question of the universe of individuals who can be lawfully appointed to the position of “Special Counsel” in order for this regulation to fit under federal statutes and the Constitution’s Appointment Clause.

Meese states that the appointments of Patrick Fitzgerald, John Huber, and John Durham as past “Special Counsels” were all valid because, at the time of their appointment, each was serving as a Senate-confirmed United States Attorney within the Department of Justice. Their appointment as “Special Counsel” did not alter their authority; it just granted them the same authority over a particular investigation pursuant to the regulation that they otherwise would not have under their individual geographic limitations.

Meese and his co-authors first published the objection set forth in the current brief in law journals and other publications following Robert Mueller’s appointment as Special Counsel, given that he was an attorney in private practice at the time he was named Special Counsel to investigate former President Trump, but never to a court.

Now Meese and his co-authors are making the claim against Jack Smith to a court because of his effort to have the Supreme Court take up the immunity issue. This created an opportunity for them to raise the question by arguing that Smith lacks jurisdiction to seek the Court’s relief because he is not truly an “Officer” of the United States.

Congress alone has the authority to create federal offices not established by the Constitution. And the Attorney General cannot ex nihilo fashion offices as he sees fit. Nor has Congress given the Attorney General power to appoint a Special Counsel of this nature. Thus, without legal office, Smith cannot wield the authority of the United States, including his present attempt to seek relief in this Court. //

Because Jack Smith was a private citizen when appointed, never having been nominated by a President or confirmed by a vote of the Senate, he was not within the scope of individuals who could be authorized by Garland to exercise prosecutorial authority equivalent to United States Attorneys. Any action purporting to create such a position – or “office” -- and vest it with the same authority as United States Attorneys is unconstitutional because it was not “created by law." //

Among the most compelling arguments made by the Meese brief comes at the end when it notes the incarnation of a Special Counsel vested with a Javert-like mission, as compared to the statutorily-created officers of the Justice Department – the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General, Associate Attorney General, Solicitor General, eleven Assistant AGs, and 94 U.S. Attorneys – all subject to Presidential appointment and Senate confirmation. According to the Biden DOJ, the Attorney General can simply create a Special Counsel Office, appoint a non-government actor to that post, grant him the power to wield the authority of a grand jury, draw resources from various federal law enforcement agencies, and direct their conduct, and seek search and arrest warrants when loosed upon a member of the public.

If the Meese brief’s argument is correct, then all the actions taken by Smith have been without lawful authority under federal law – beginning with the use of the grand jury in Washington D.C. to build the cases he has brought against former President Trump. The outcome would almost certainly mean that the cases would be dismissed.

Chris Paige
3 hours ago
Here's the problem: if you believe in qualified immunity for cops, you can scarcely argue against immunity for presidents. That is, the logic of qualified immunity is that lower level officials couldn't do their jobs if they could be sued by everyone/anyone for their errors - same w/ president. Basically, any local prosecutor can influence public policy by forcing every president to go through risks/costs of criminal trial whenever that prosecutor deems appropriate - that would force presidents to consider the risk of trial before making a decision. Are they doing what they think is right or are they avoiding trial?

You see the critical point here is that acquittal doesn't solve the problem. Lots of people wouldn't be willing to be branded a criminal & go to criminal trial even if they knew they're going to be acquitted - it's just too much power. Imagine if NY could put SCOTUS on trial for various crimes - who cares about the outcome? It would give NY too much influence over SCOTUS. Same thing here.

So, regardless of what either side claims in their pleadings, the question of immunity of a former President from criminal prosecution for actions taken while in office is novel and presents an “issue of first impression” for the Courts to resolve. Any claim to the contrary is legally ignorant or expresses a bias as to what the outcome should be. The question has never been answered, because it has never before been an issue that needed an answer. //

Smith has said that “no man is above the law” – and that’s just about it. That might seem a bit flip on my part, but in an Opposition that has 42 pages of “argument,” I count that phrase being used six times in the first nine pages alone.

What the former President has is the case of Nixon v. Fitzgerald, a Supreme Court çase decided in 1982. //

the Supreme Court took the matter up prior to trial and overruled both lower courts, finding that a President does enjoy absolute immunity from civil damage lawsuits for acts taken while in office pursuant to his authority as President. The boundary for conduct falling within that absolute immunity was acts within the “outer perimeter” of the President’s official responsibility. Former President Trump contends that all the operative facts relied upon by Smith in the indictment fall within the “outer perimeter” of his official responsibility while in office. //

What the Supreme Court did not say in Fitzgerald was that the immunity recognized therein would extend to immunity from criminal prosecution for acts “within the outer perimeter” of Trump’s official responsibility. Smith’s response to Fitzgerald relies primarily on that point. But the Court did not say that such immunity would not apply either – that question was not before the Court. //

The Court did say that the public has a greater interest in criminal prosecutions than in civil damages lawsuits, and that fact played a role in not allowing Fitzgerald to pursue his case against Nixon personally. But the same interests in granting immunity – laid out in the text above – applies in both situations, and the Supreme Court did not suggest that the case for immunity would be less compelling if the issue before it involved a criminal prosecution. //

Yes, it would create a substantial barrier to even the justified pursuit of a criminal prosecution of any future President for alleged criminal behavior while in office. But it would not be an insurmountable barrier. The “Impeachment” process in the Constitution includes what is referred to as the “Judgment” clause – Article I, Section 3, Clause 7:

“Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States; but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, Trial, and Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.”

The House of Representatives impeached former President Trump for actions relating to the 2020 election, but he was not convicted by the Senate. His motion argues that criminal prosecution is allowed for conduct in office following an impeachment, conviction, and removal from office as stated in the “Judgment Clause.”

There is a logic and purpose for finding such a prerequisite. Impeachment and conviction, by the House and Senate respectively, provide the imprimatur of legitimacy from a co-equal branch of government closest to the people. It would provide independent justification for a subsequent elected Executive to prosecute the individual who was the prior elected Executive. Had the Senate convicted President Trump, that would have been a bipartisan “Judgment” that he had, in fact, committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” requiring his removal and disqualification from holding any office in the future. Such a finding would insulate a later criminal prosecution from claims of being politically motivated.

In a very real way, what partisan prosecutors are doing validates the exact point Trump is making as it confirms the risk identified by the Court in Fitzgerald.