May 15, 2017

Because No One Is Above The Law, Right?

From The Hill:
President Trump thinks he is above the law, Harvard professor Laurence Tribe said Sunday.

"He has shown no respect for the rule of law, regards himself as above the law," Tribe said on ABC's "This Week."

"He thinks it's appropriate to essentially have a job interview with the FBI director as we now know."
Elsewhere, at The Washington Post, he wrote:
Consider, too, how Trump embroiled Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, despite Sessions’s recusal from involvement in the Russia investigation, in preparing admittedly phony justifications for the firing on which Trump had already decided. Consider how Trump used the vice president and White House staff to propagate a set of blatant untruths — before giving an interview to NBC’s Lester Holt that exposed his true motivation.

Trump accompanied that confession with self-serving — and manifestly false — assertions about having been assured by Comey that Trump himself was not under investigation. By Trump’s own account, he asked Comey about his investigative status even as he was conducting the equivalent of a job interview in which Comey sought to retain his position as director.

Further reporting suggests that the encounter was even more sinister, with Trump insisting that Comey pledge “loyalty” to him in order to retain his job. Publicly saying he saw nothing wrong with demanding such loyalty, the president turned to Twitter with a none-too-subtle threat that Comey would regret any decision to disseminate his version of his conversations with Trump — something that Comey has every right, and indeed a civic duty, to do.

To say that this does not in itself rise to the level of “obstruction of justice” is to empty that concept of all meaning.
Obstruction is against the law.  No one is above the law, not even the president of the United States.

Here's our current Attorney General saying that exact thing:

And our junior Senator from Pennsylvania, Pat Toomey, has said the same thing:
“The president unfortunately has a history or unilateral actions” that run afoul of the law, Mr. Toomey said. “No one is above the law, including this president. … We have a constitution, we are a democratic republic, and presidents are not kings or dictators.”
Of course, the last two gentlemen were discussing presidents who also happened to be Democrats.

I wonder when they'll feel the same way about an autocratic president from their own party.

We have a constitution.  We are a democratic republic.  Presidents are not kings or dictators.

It's time for the Republicans in the Congress to put country before party and investigate Donald J. Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors.

7 comments:

  1. "No one is above the law"
    Actually the Law Enforcement caste is "above the law".
    See Qualified Immunity.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Larry Tribe Is HUGE!!!
    http://blog.simplejustice.us/2017/05/15/larry-tribe-is-huge/
    Some might question the propriety of the Carl Loeb prawf at Harvard Law School spreading the insane conspiracy nonsense that has captured the interest of the likes of Louise Mensch, a totally legit brit who definitely seems like a reliable source for Tribe to spread about, just in case it’s true. Then it would be HUGE!!!

    The question is not whether Trump has committed a high crime or misdemeanor, or whether he should be impeached. The question is whether Carl Loeb would be pleased with the idea that the professor who sits in his endowed seat should be on the twitters giving the twitting prez a run for his money on who can spread the most factually baseless crap possible.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You have no clue what qualified immunity is, who it applies to, or how it works.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Qualified Immunity : Judicial Created fiction that ignorance of the Law is no excuse unless you are in Law Enforcement.

    https://blog.simplejustice.us/2017/01/14/the-magical-doctrine-of-qualified-immunity/
    The doctrine of qualified immunity operates as an unwritten defense to civil rights lawsuits brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. It prevents plaintiffs from recovering damages for violations of their constitutional rights unless the government official violated “clearly established law,” usually requiring a specific precedent on point.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Like I typed, you know NOTHING about it. For one thing, it protects more than law enforcement, and for a second, its a recognition of the long-established legal doctrine that you must have knowledge aforethought that your actions are criminal in order to be charged with a crime, and extends it to civil litigation.

    Your ignorance is only surpassed by your arrogance.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "it protects more than law enforcement"
    You got me Not all government officials are law enforcement.

    Qualified Immunity How It Protects Law Enforcement Officers
    https://leb.fbi.gov/2012/september/qualified-immunity-how-it-protects-law-enforcement-officers

    Of course I have the ignorant belief that when Law Enforcement says
    "I know what the law is.”, they waive Qualified Immunity.
    http://blog.simplejustice.us/2017/03/13/but-for-video-that-almost-wasnt/

    ReplyDelete
  7. You are wrong.
    "http://blog.simplejustice.us/2017/05/17/the-comey-obstruction-memo-and-trumps-mens-rea/"
    There can be no indictment of the president for obstruction of justice, as he’s immune from prosecution during his term of office, but obstruction would serve as a basis for impeachment, as it has before with Nixon and Clinton

    ReplyDelete