America in 2020 is on the precipice of history — this grand 250-plus-year-old experiment in governance is currently on unhinged footing, teetering at the edge of a deep-fall cliff, the plunge like chaos usually witnessed in third-world countries every few years. Or maybe Brazil nowadays, or Australia. The next few months will tell the tale and yay/nay our system.
If the circus-sounds grinding out of the US Senate right now is any indication, that shit could happen.
And there’s so much bullshit-lying pouring out of the T-Rump on such a continuous basis (16,000 lies in three years), lies supported by loud-mouth assholes, the truth gets shouted-down, or just quashed outright.
However, the contradictory legal nonsense — per Law&Crime this morning:
A Harvard Law professor — who Alan Dershowitz cited as helpful to his defense of President Donald Trump — responded on Thursday to Dershowitz’s wild argument that “If a president does something that he thinks will help him get elected, in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”
Professor Nikolas Bowie not only called that argument a “joke” and “irresponsible,” he also came up with an extreme hypothetical to make a point about the logical end of said argument.
“Think of what that would mean. That would mean that if a president were to order the military to start rounding up black people because he’s afraid they’re going to vote for a Democrat in the next election, and so long is the president is motivated by the national interest–so long as the president is motivated to get re-elected–then that’s fine. Then the president isn’t corrupt,” he said.
“That can’t be right.”
Yet that angle has been the slanted-angle of the T-Rump’s lawyers this whole time, sliding from no crime, to a crime but not impeachable, to the asshole is immune from any criminal activity anyway, so long there’s that ‘national interest.’
Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg, also this morning, noted a move toward another type marker: ‘The president’s lawyers moved closer than ever to simply embracing the idea that the president can do whatever he wants. Alan Dershowitz even went so far as to argue that since presidents always think that their re-election is in the national interest, they cannot be legitimately impeached for any use of their powers of office to aid that re-election. This would have been good news for President Richard Nixon. And surprising news to pretty much everyone throughout U.S. history.’
"You can't make this stuff up… The Justice Department, in resisting House subpoenas, is in court TODAY and was asked: If Congress can't come to the court to enforce subpoenas… what remedy is there?
The DOJ lawyers response? Impeachment." – @RepAdamSchiff pic.twitter.com/eUMkaENXHQ
— House Intelligence Committee (@HouseIntel) January 30, 2020
Background via AlterNet:
There’s long been a tension in the president’s impeachment defense and his administration’s position in court, as many have pointed out.
Trump’s impeachment attorneys have argued that Congress shouldn’t have charged Trump with obstructing their investigation but instead worked out disputes in the judicial branch.
But when Congress has taken the administration to court to enforce its subpoenas, Justice Department attorneys have argued that judges can’t resolve the dispute between the legislative branch and the executive.
Basically, combining these two arguments, Trump’s lawyers are saying Congress should go to court to enforce its subpoenas, and then it should lose in court — essentially implying that lawmakers should have no power at all to compel evidence from the executive branch.
If this were true, the power of impeachment would essentially be nullified.
…
House impeachment manager Adam Schiff (D-CA) pointed out the glaring inconsistency and hypocrisy on Thursday in his remarks to the Senate, drawing laughter from the audience.
“Today, while we’ve been debating whether a president can be impeached for essentially bogus claims of privilege, for attempting to use the courts to cover up misconduct, the Justice Department in resisting subpoenas is in court today … because, as we know, they’re in here arguing Congress must go to court to enforce its subpoenas, but they’re in the court saying ‘Congress, thou shalt not do that,’” he explained.
“So the judge says: ‘If the Congress can’t enforce its subpoenas in court, then what remedy is there?’ And the Justice Department lawyer’s response is ‘Impeachment! Impeachment!’”
At that, the Senate chamber burst into laughter.
“You can’t make it up!” Schiff said.
“What more evidence do we need of the bad faith of this effort to cover up?”
Yet Senate Republicans will cover it up, vote to not call witnesses or have produce any other documents, then acquit the T-Rump, unleashing an unhinged motherfucker..
Joe Biden, campaigning today in Waukee, Iowa, ahead of next week’s first real showdown on the road to nomination, described to the crowd pretty-much the shape of things: ‘“Welcome to Donald Trump’s world. Up is down. Lies are the truth. Allies are the enemy. Everything is through the looking glass…In Joe Biden’s America, the president’s tax returns won’t be a secret. Political self-interest will not be confused with the national interest. And no one, not even the president of the United States, will be above the law.”‘
In that depressing level, will/would the T-Rump be immune from violent, criminal behavior, if proven?
Last summer, E.Jean Carroll, a New York-based writer, accused the T-Rump of raping her 20 years ago. (Illustration found here).
As heinous as that is, the T-Rump has been accused by at least 16 women the last few years, charges ranging at minimum assault, and some like Carroll’s case, rape. He’s a creepy-perv, jerk of an asshole.
And needs justice.
Today Carroll served further notice — via the Washington Post this afternoon:
Carroll’s lawyers served notice to a Trump attorney Thursday, asking that Trump provide a sample for “analysis and comparison against unidentified male DNA present on the dress,” the Associated Press first reported.
Carroll’s lawyers requested Trump provide the DNA sample on March 2 in Washington.
Carroll, a longtime advice columnist, described the alleged assault for the first time in June in a memoir excerpt published in New York magazine.
She reiterated the allegations in an interview with The Washington Post, saying Trump — then a well-known real estate developer — attacked her in late 1995 or early 1996 inside a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman, an upscale Manhattan department store.
She said Trump knocked her head against a wall, pulled down her tights and briefly penetrated her before she pushed him off and ran out.
She said she told two close friends about the incident at the time.
Trump has vehemently denied the allegation and called it fake news, asserting he had “never met this person in my life” and Carroll was “not my type.”
He also said Carroll had made up the story to promote her book.
In November, Carroll sued Trump for defamation in New York State Court, saying he had smeared her and damaged her career by calling her a liar.
…
According to the AP, Carroll’s lawyer had the coat dress tested in a lab after Carroll filed the defamation suit.
A lab report served with the legal notice indicated DNA found on the sleeves belonged to at least four people, at least one of whom is male.
Several people were tested and have been ruled out as possible matches, the AP reported.
“Unidentified male DNA on the dress could prove that Donald Trump not only knows who I am, but also that he violently assaulted me in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman and then defamed me by lying about it and impugning my character,” Carroll said in a statement to the AP on Thursday.
Of course, one could say he wasn’t president back in the mid-90s, so he’d “not” be immune to prosecution and possible jail time — so the legal shit up to our eyeballs, and the T-Rump slides…
(Illustration: MC Escher’s engraving, ‘Old Oliver Tree,’ found here.