RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/whats-at-stake-in-the-trump-immunity-case-president-supreme-court-1f00dc9c?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

The Supreme Court hears oral arguments Thursday in Trump v. U.S., in which Donald Trump argues that the Constitution precludes his prosecution for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. Mr. Trump’s detractors insist that recognizing presidential immunity would put him above the law. They’re wrong. Immunity for official actions is a necessary part of the constitutional structure, and criminal prosecution isn’t the only way to hold a president accountable for unlawful official acts.

Because no previous president ever faced criminal charges, the question before the justices is novel. But the high court has addressed the unique constitutionally driven relationship between the presidency and the courts. In Kendall v. U.S. ex rel. Stokes (1838), it declared: “The executive power is vested in a President; and as far as his powers are derived from the constitution, he is beyond the reach of any other department, except in the mode prescribed by the constitution through the impeaching power.”

Franklin v. Massachusetts (1992) dealt with the question of when statutes enacted by Congress apply to the president. The ruling noted that “the President is not explicitly excluded” from the Administrative Procedure Act, “but he is not explicitly included, either.” Under such circumstances, “out of respect for the separation of powers and the unique constitutional position of the President . . . textual silence is not enough to subject the President to the provisions.”

More fundamentally, in Nixon v. Fitzgerald (1982), the court held that separation of powers demands absolute immunity from civil lawsuits for acts falling within the “outer perimeter” of the president’s official responsibilities. Absolute immunity is necessary because the president “occupies a unique position in the constitutional scheme,” and the specter of litigation “could distract a President from his public duties.” That applies with even greater force to the threat of criminal prosecution.

Special counsel Jack Smith argues that “no President need be chilled in fulfilling his responsibilities” because there are “strong institutional checks to ensure evenhanded and impartial enforcement of the law,” including grand jury indictment, due process and the government’s burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But even if the prospect of conviction is remote, the threat of prosecution impairs the presidency.

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

What sort of a moral sense inhabits the souls of presidents and trustees of some of the nation’s most elite colleges and universities where anti-Semitic student protestors have been allowed to terrify and physically harm Jewish students, block entrances to university buildings, and chant for the annihilation of Israel? These people head institutions that are supposed to help form future leaders. God help us if they do not uphold the values for which they claim to stand.

On the other hand, my normal cynicism toward Washington politicians was tempered this past weekend, when the House, under Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) passed three separate bills to support Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and a fourth bill that would seize frozen Russian assets and force a sale of Chinese-owned TikTok. Democrat House Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) deserves congratulations for his help in this bi-partisan show of support for these important pieces of legislation. The United States has been singularly positioned as the leader of the free world for more than a century. With size comes responsibility – not to impose our way of life on others, but to provide a vision of what is possible when the individual is the basis of a “government of the people, by the people and for the people.” If we relinquish that role, the world will be worse off.

“It is said that Diogenes, an obviously odd but intelligent man who lived around 400BC, went about Athens’ marketplace with a lamp during the daytime. He claimed to be looking for an honest man. Apparently, he had little luck. We might well assume that a similarly futile search could be made in the nation’s Capital at any time of day. Politicians lie. So it is what they do that should galvanize our attention.

Lying is endemic and not limited to politicians. We all tell lies, or “white” lies as we euphemistically call them. Aesop’s fable of the boy who cried wolf warned that when persistent liars do tell the truth, no one believes them – a lesson that politicians, reporters and others should learn. In the 19th Century, Carlo Collodi of Florence, the pen name for Carlo Lorenzini, gave us the story of the sentient wooden puppet Pinocchio whose nose grew longer when he lied. Sadly, lying noses do not lengthen among those in Washington today. Rather, they believe Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister who said that if a lie is repeated often enough it is perceived as truth – like telling the public that only adherence to a Democrat-led agenda will save the planet from destruction. Climate change is a fact. The planet’s climate has changed thousands of times over millions of years. It will continue to do so. But people’s behavior is just one cause.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/04/a-prosecution-in-search-of-a-crime.php

Donald Trump is undergoing a criminal trial in Manhattan. He is charged with filing corporate records that included a false statement; namely, that payments to Michael Cohen that were described as being for legal services were, in fact, to reimburse Cohen for making one or more payments to Stormy Daniels in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement. But those payments to Daniels were perfectly legal, and filing a false corporate document is a misdemeanor on which the statute of limitation has passed.

So in order to charge Trump, District Attorney Alvin Bragg had to allege that the false documents were filed in order to cover up another crime. That would make it a felony. But what is that other crime? Bragg has been coy about it. In truth, there was no other crime, and Bragg’s prosecution is election interference on behalf of the Democratic Party, plain and simple.

One would think that this case could not have gone to trial without a clear specification of that other crime and evidence in support of it. But that appears to be what has happened, courtesy of trial judge Juan Merchan, who is in on the scam.

Byron York points out this classic of obfuscation from the prosecutor’s opening statement:

Which means what, exactly? I suppose the translation is that Trump didn’t want voters to know about his fling with Daniels. But an “illegal conspiracy to undermine the integrity of a presidential election” does not define a crime.