18 Real Attacks on the ‘Rule of Law’
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
D onald Trump, we are told over and over and over again, threatens the “rule of law.” To pick a piece at random, I note that Joel Mathis of The Week recently wrote , “When we talk about Trump and the rule of law, mostly we talk about how he’s flouting and evading the constraint of laws he doesn’t like: His newly declared state of emergency to circumvent Congress’ refusal to appropriate funds for a Mexican border wall is just the best recent example.” You don’t have to take my word for the absurdity of this claim that the emergency declaration flouts the rule of law; read the New York Times : Trump has, at a minimum, a colorable legal claim for this emergency declaration.
In the Mathis example, as in most of these cases, the “violation” generally amounts to a policy difference or the departure from a “norm” like the one used to buck presidential oversight of powerful federal agencies.
The suffocating sanctimoniousness of the “Trump-is-threatening-the-rule-of-law” crowd is exceeded only by their hypocrisy. Don’t believe me? Here is a list of 18 actual violations of the law and Constitution done in service of removing Trump from office. I’ll bet you can’t find a single objection from any of these “rule-of-law” hand wringers to these flagrant and unpunished transgressions of the law.
Unmasking: Obama Administration officials “unmasked” hundreds of Americans who were caught up in government surveillance of foreign nationals. It’s illegal for the government to spy on Americans without a warrant. So when an American is heard speaking to a target of a legal foreign wiretap, the government is supposed to take action to shield the American from the effect of the surveillance. Without those safeguards, it’s just the government spying on an American citizen without a warrant. Hundreds of Americans were outed (unmasked) by former United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power and other Obama officials in the closing months of Obama’s tenure, despite the fact that Power as the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. had no reason to be perusing the private conversations of American citizens.
Clinton and DNC money laundering during the 2016 campaign : In a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission in 2017, the Committee to Defend the President (CDP) alleged “about $84 million was funneled illegally from the DNC through state party chapters and back into the war chest of the Clinton campaign. The political action committee claims that even though the FEC acknowledged receipt of the complaint and claimed that an investigation would be conducted, the needle has barely moved.”
Payoffs or offers to pay-off women who accused Trump: As I noted in a 2018 article, “Remember all those women who came out around [October 2016] accusing candidate Trump of sexual harassment? Turns out that a lawyer sympathetic to candidate Clinton contacted Clinton donors for money with which to pay some of these women to accuse Trump right before the election.” The Hill and the New York Times also reported the story at the time.
The Ohrs’ and their pay-for-smear Fusion GPS money: Then-Assistant Attorney General Bruce Ohr trafficked in Clinton-procured Trump-Russia “collusion” claims by shuttling from Fusion GPS subcontractor Christopher Steele to the FBI. Ohr did so at the same time Fusion GPS was paying his wife, Nellie, to help prepare this same Trump/Russia material. This is an apparent violation of a federal law barring government employees from participating in decisions in which they have a financial interest.
The Sally Yates insurrection: Shortly after President Trump assumed office, he issued an executive order citing his power under the Immigration and Nationality Act to place a travel moratorium on immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries. Sally Yates, the Obama-era holdover who temporarily served as acting attorney general, oversaw a vetting of this executive order and the Department of Justice issued a legal opinion confirming the order was legal and proper. Nevertheless, Yates used her authority to instruct the Department of Justice to defy the president. She clearly violated the president’s authority under Article II of the Constitution as the chief executive by refusing to carry out an order she acknowledged was legal. Unfortunately, this appears to have set the tone for the Justice Department’s continued resistance to the president ever since.
Andrew McCabe makes repeated false statements to FBI investigators: In February 2018, the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General issued a report finding numerous instances of false statements and/or lack of candor to FBI investigators concerning leaks from the FBI to the media. As I recently pointed out , not only has McCabe not been prosecuted, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has relied upon McCabe’s statements to reach a conviction of Michael Flynn (who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI).
The Michael Flynn set-up: Flynn is a retired United States Army lieutenant general who served for 33 years until his retirement in 2014. In January 2017, two FBI agents surprised Flynn with an interview about a legal and routine conversation he had with the Russian ambassador in his capacity as an incoming administration official. On December 1, 2017, Flynn pleaded guilty to what his interrogators considered unintentional misremembering of the facts. Flynn’s interrogators did not actually think he was lying on purpose. News reports speculated that the special counsel threatened to prosecute Flynn’s son and Flynn was otherwise financially ruined by the prosecution, leaving him little choice but to admit to “lying” about not remembering details of a conversation.
Leak of the wiretap of Flynn’s conversation with the Russian ambassador : In the early weeks of the Trump Administration, the Intelligence Community illegally leaked accounts of their surveillance of the Flynn conversation to the press. In addition to violating rules regarding the handling of classified material, the leak severely undercut the president’s ability to conduct foreign affairs as contemplated by Article II of the Constitution.
Leak of President Trump’s conversation with the Russian foreign minister in which the president revealed classified information: Under Article II, the president is the elected head of the executive branch and is in charge of foreign policy. This leak is another example of vigilante bureaucrats usurping that constitutional authority. Also, this leak may violate a federal law against unauthorized disclosure of classified information. Such leaks undermine the ability of the elected president conducting foreign policy through candid discussions with foreign leaders (which is essential to this constitutional role). The leak also undermined the president’s absolute constitutional authority to determine how to use classified information.
Rod Rosenstein’s self-appointment oversight of investigation into his own actions: The deputy attorney general installed himself as the oversight attorney over Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation to “[continue] to conduct the investigation confirmed by Director James B. Comey,” and implicitly whether President Trump’s firing of Comey constituted obstruction of that same investigation. Rosenstein, in fact, wrote a memo recommending Comey’s firing on May 9, 2017, making him a potential accessory to this same act. Placing himself over the investigation gave Rosenstein the opportunity to use his position to shield himself from potential liability for the Comey firing. A federal regulation prohibits an attorney from overseeing an investigation when that attorney has a “substantial interest that would be directly affected by the outcome of the investigation.” Rosenstein shouldn’t be allowed to supervise an investigation into his own conduct. Gee, I wonder whether Mueller will find Rosenstein at fault?
Leak of President Trump’s conversation with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto: As noted by the Atlantic , whoever leaked these conversations undermined the constitutional authority of the president and national security: “Leaking the transcript of a presidential call to a foreign leader is unprecedented, shocking, and dangerous. It is vitally important that a president be able to speak confidentially—and perhaps even more important that foreign leaders understand that they can reply in confidence.”
Mueller snatches private emails without a warrant: . Mueller seized the Trump transition emails without a warrant or notification to the Trump team. The emails were taken without any opportunity to test privilege claims and in apparent violation of the Presidential Transition Act of 1963, which recognized that until the president-elect assumed office, the transition team should be treated as a private entity with constitutional protections against warrantless searches and seizures.
Rosenstein threatens to investigate congressional staffers if they didn’t back off investigating his actions: Rosenstein “criticized the Committee for sending our requests in writing and was further critical of the Committee’s request to have DOJ/FBI do the same when responding,” the committee’s then-senior counsel for counterterrorism Kash Patel wrote to the House general counsel’s office. “Going so far as to say that if the Committee likes being litigators, then ‘we [DOJ] too [are] litigators, and we will subpoena your records and your emails,’ referring to HPSCI [House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence] and Congress overall.” As Mollie Hemingway noted at the time, the Justice Department spun but did not deny the essential facts of these accounts. It’s troubling, to say the least, when a deputy attorney general feels empowered to intimidate staff representatives from Congress.
Prosecution of Concord for engaging in political speech: As noted in my article in The Federalist , the Justice Department’s prosecution of Concord, a Russian technology firm, is simply punishing pro-Trump/anti-Clinton speech during an election. It’s unconstitutional because the First Amendment protects both the speaker and consumer of speech, and because if the government is going to attack speech, it certainly can’t pick its targets based upon viewpoint.
The raid on Michael Cohen’s law office . The legal basis for this raid remains shrouded in secrecy as the application for the search warrant has not been released to the public. This has not stopped the pundits from concluding that the basis for search was well-founded. It should also be noted that the ACLU similarly disgraced itself by supporting the raid on Cohen’s office without having seen any of the justification for the raid. Nevertheless, as Alan Dershowitz pointed out , this raid is a shocking invasion of the Sixth Amendment right to attorney-client communication and unnecessarily trampled on the expectation of confidentiality for any potential client.
The Department of Justice defies its constitutional masters: Justice officials ignored congressional subpoenas and presidential direction to turn over key documents pertaining to interference in the 2016 elections. To add constitutional insult to grave constitutional injury, Rod Rosenstein publicly laughed at and mocked Congress during a speech at the Newseum. Not only has Rosenstein repeatedly and flagrantly violated the constitutional authority of the chief executive over the Department of Justice under Article II, he has displayed public contempt for Congress’s rights to information under Article I.
Trampling Trump’s attorney-client privilege: Michael Cohen blatantly violated attorney-client confidentiality by testifying against his former client before Congress.
Repeated instances of non-candid statements to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court: Beyond the dubious Carter Page warrants that many have questioned , the FISC issued a little-noticed opinion voiding the government’s use of the secret database of general surveillance that it queries. This database is believed to include all texts, emails, voice mails, phone records, and perhaps phone calls themselves of all Americans. Did you send a picture of your privates on your phone? Yes, that is likely in the database, too. It is often not the actual phones that the government asks permission to search when it applies for a search warrant. It’s the database. Those pictures and texts have already been snatched into the database, which has been abused by bureaucrats and possibly contractors to spy on Americans. The Intelligence Community was supposed to certify that it had guarded against these abuses but these certifications turned out to have been invalid. In one opinion, the FISA court declared itself to be a victim “an institutional lack of candor.”
In the post-Trump era, the phrase “rule of law,” has come to take on an Orwellian opposite, like “Freedom is slavery” or “Ignorance is strength.” The violations of the law committed to “get Trump” are characterized as necessary steps to protect the law at the same time partisan legal minds declare every Trump action to be illegal or unconstitutional. Little or no analysis is applied in service to the one law that seems to have displaced 2,000 years of legal tradition: Hurting Trump is “legal.” Helping trump is “illegal.” It’s as simple as that.
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“In the post-Trump era, the phrase “rule of law,” has come to take on an Orwellian opposite, like “Freedom is slavery” or “Ignorance is strength.” The violations of the law committed to “get Trump” are characterized as necessary steps to protect the law at the same time partisan legal minds declare every Trump action to be illegal or unconstitutional. Little or no analysis is applied in service to the one law that seems to have displaced 2,000 years of legal tradition: Hurting Trump is “legal.” Helping trump is “illegal.””
Several problems with this seed;
1. The writer is supposed to be a lawyer, writing under a pseudonym, while providing a picture of himself? How cool is that? /s
2. "The suffocating sanctimoniousness of the “Trump-is-threatening-the-rule-of-law” crowd is exceeded only by their hypocrisy."
( translation The suffocating hypocrisy of the “Trump-is-threatening-the-rule-of-law” crowd is exceeded only by their hypocrisy.) Yes, kids, sanctimonious means the hypocrisy of the pious.
So the writers grasp of the language leaves a bit to be desired.
3. And his understanding of time appears to be challenged as well. What exactly could be described as the "post Trump era"? Is Trump dead? Impeached? ( Hint - we're not there yet )
And last but not least, what 2,000 years of legal tradition is displaced in a country barely 240 years old, whose legal system is borrowed from a country only 1091 years old.
I think the only thing sanctimonious is the writers work and quite possibly the writer as well.
So much for today's bullshit extra
treason.
and it goes all the way to the top.
Without a doubt. Obama clearly committed treason as did Hillary in their attempts to rig the 2016 election and its aftermath against the new duly elected President of the United States.
I doubt the author of this seed or, you understand what the phrase, "the rule of law" means in a legal context so, let me help you out.
Trump has violated the rule of law by going against our primary legal document, the Constitution by usurping Article 1 of that document.
Congress told Trump he could have money for border security but, not for a wall, he decided to take matters into his own hands and, usurp the power of Congress and, declare a false emergency to "steal" the money from other places, which is not in his power to do so. That is going against the "rule of law".
The emergency is very real. It’s the Trump haters who are the ones breaking the law.
No it isn't, I know you won't accept this but, this goes against the rule of law set forth by the Constitution, you know, that document you say you respect.
No, they want the president to obey the law, including the ones he disagrees with, such as Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. To usurp that article, as he is doing, he is going against the "rule of law" which states in essence, that no one is above the law, that includes the president.
Explain - in detail without all the miscellaneous links that have no bearing on the subject - just HOW the President, acting on and enforcing policy/authority given him by Congress, is against the "rule of law set forth by the Constitution".
Do you even understand what the "Rule of Law" is - according to the U. S. Constitution?
The Federal Constitution of 1787 drastically changed the concept of constitutional government by introducing the principle of constitutional supremacy. Article VI declared that “T his Constitution … Shall be the supreme law of the land. ” Laws passed by Congress , though supreme in relation to State constitutions and State laws, were ranked below the Constitution. Indeed, Article VI explicitly stated that such laws must conform to, and be made in pursuance of, the Constitution. Noting the significance of the Supremacy Clause, Chief Justice John Marshall held in the famous case of Marbury v. Madison(1803) that an Act of Congress contrary to the Constitution was not law:
[I]n declaring what shall be the supreme law of the land, the Constitution is first mentioned; and not the laws of the United States generally, but those only which shall be made in pursuance of the Constitution, have that rank.
It may thus be seen that the American Constitution and the power of judicial review are an extension of rule of law. The Constitution is law, the highest law, and the President, Congress, and the Federal Judiciary are bound by its terms. A government of laws and not of men is, then, the underlying principle of the American political and legal system.
And, a wall won't keep those that are already in here out now will it? To answer your question, it will be when the number of illegals coming in once again equals what it was forty years ago, in case you didn't know, the number of illegals coming into the country is now less than the number leaving the country and, incase you didn't know it, the illegals in this country aren't coming in across the southern border, they are coming here with visa's that they over stay, just like the FLOTUS did when she came here. Besides, building a wall isn't taking care of an emergency, it will take two years to plan the building before ground can be broken on building the wall, some emergency.
Thanks for making my point, go back and, read Article 1 of that same Constitution and, tell me were the president has the right to take power from Congress to direct money were he wants it to go over Congress's objections.
If it were "real" why did trump go golfing, go to Vietnam, etc. It's a phony emergency so he can get his vanity wall which he WILL NOT be getting.
Not when the majority of illegals coming here come here by getting a LEGAL visa and, then either over staying that visa or, violating that visa, as Melania Trump did.
This is very material to the discussion of illegals here in the country and, those coming here. An immigrant isn't illegal until they break the laws of the land, those crossing the southern border are asking for asylum, that makes them legal until they are seen by an immigration judge and, it is proven that they have no claim for asylum, you or, Trump don't get to make that decision. The closest we came to giving what you Rightwingers call amnesty to the illegals was with DACA so, get over the BS claim of 1986.
Again material, the numbers have dropped of illegals coming over the southern border so, the claim that it is an emergency that we build the wall is false.
Same issue, overstays are a large part of the illegal immigration problem, we have a different system for immigration here than in the ME, after all aren't they the ones that kill Christians, Jews, Gays simply for being who they are or, at least that is the claim of the Right here in the U.S., do you really want the U.S. to be like them?
No new wall has been built, in spite of what Trump claims, yes, there have been repairs done to the existing wall but, there hasn't been any building of new wall.
Trump is a golf course owner. Did it ever occur to you that maybe he wants the wall to keep them in? He has a lot of lawn to mow.
National Emergencies Act of 1976 - you really might ought to read that.
Didn't think we had an issue with Illegal Aliens during Vietnam - nice try.
Think maybe you need to come down here - we're seeing NEW FENCING with interlaced BARRIERS going up for the next 47 miles.
Galen - if ya don't know what you're talking about - please don't.
One more time.
If the wall is such an emergency then why did trump LEAVE THE US AND GO TO VIETNAM to see Kim, shouldn't he be dealing with the WALL EMERGENCY
Why did he go golfing the weekend right after he declared this supposed emergency, shouldn't he be dealing with the WALL EMERGENCY.
Thanks for not answering my question.
Guess you're not in management - it's called delegation - something President's do quite a bit.
If it's a dire emergency then he NOT delegate it to anyone else. That's how we all know it's not a real emergency.
Does the word deflection mean anything to you?
When it looks like those coming here illegally stop supporting democrat causes.
Maybe you should check out the summary of it here,
What you are talking about was agreed to last year by the Congress and, was then funded with the 1.6 billion this year in the Omnibus bill passed by the Democrats, it is to REPAIR EXISTING FENCING AND, TO BUILD 47 MILES OF FENCING not Trumps wall, here's the difference,
I'll ask you a question, how long does it take to build 2000 miles of concrete wall over rough terrain while taking property away from the owners in court cases of "eminent domain"? A couple of months, years or, is it decades? Now, ask yourself this, if it takes longer than a couple of months, is it really an emergency?
By the way, I did answer your question, you just refuse to understand that answer.
Same reason Obama and Bush took vacations and get aways during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the Gulf Oil Spill. Or do you expect Trump to do what no President has ever done and spend all of his time micro managing every last detail of a crisis?
TDS is rampant.
Indeed it is rampant.
And you can prove this? How? By using a false article ment for the ignorant?
It's very obvious you haven't a clue about what the RoW is.
How funny you are doing nothing but talking about your demigod, trump
If you stayed up to date, you'd know that Trump and Congress have ALL agreed that a barrier of any sort is not needed for the entire border due to the natural terrain.
You don't wanna go there Don, right?
Your factcheck is dated 2018, so it's out of date and incorrect.
Your NYDailyNews article is about the "PROTOTYPE" walls - the walls that the bidders were showing to prove their abilities - were taken down after a bidder was selected.
Up-to-date Galen - get up-to-date.
from your link
.
and yes the prototypes were destroyed on 2/27 and 2/28/2019
Yes, they have "evolved"...
Yep, Trump did say that but, in his new budget he wants 8 billion for his wall and, plans to cut Medicare, Medicaid and, Food Stamps to get it.
The point of the links I provided was to show that Trump isn't looking for a fence over only a portion of the border, he is looking for a concrete barrier over all of the border, let me further quote Trump,
When they start voting Republican as illegal aliens then it will be an emergency.
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Don't need to, I'm listening to those who already practice law and, are filing the law suits against this fake emergency of the president. Did you know that FDR tried to declare an emergency during WWII to take over American steel mills, that failed, just like this is going to.
You better find someone else to listen to then.
The moment the president declares a “national emergency”— a decision that is entirely within his discretion —he is able to set aside many of the legal limits on his authority.
§1621. Declaration of national emergency by President; publication in Federal Register; effect on other laws; superseding legislation
(a) With respect to Acts of Congress authorizing the exercise, during the period of a national emergency, of any special or extraordinary power, t he President is authorized to declare such national emergency. Such proclamation shall immediately be transmitted to the Congress and published in the Federal Register.
(b) Any provisions of law conferring powers and authorities to be exercised during a national emergency shall be effective and remain in effect (1) only when the President (in accordance with subsection (a) of this section), specifically declares a national emergency, and (2) only in accordance with this chapter. No law enacted after September 14, 1976, shall supersede this subchapter unless it does so in specific terms, referring to this subchapter, and declaring that the new law supersedes the provisions of this subchapter.
( title II, §201, Sept. 14, 1976, .)
50 USC Ch. 34 : NATIONAL EMERGENCIES
So, according to you we are in a dictatorship not a democracy any longer. Got it. The president can declare anything and, everything an emergency and, there is nothing that can be done about it. Got it. So, the next Democrat that gets elected to the presidency can then declare anything an emergency and, you won't make a peep about it?
And they complained about Obama and his EOs.
Exactly, Obama was the devil incarnate when he was in office, every EO was a declaration that he was "taking over the U.S. for the Muslim Brotherhood" or, the Communists or the Socialists, they couldn't make up their minds what he was, when all they had to do was look at his title to know that, he was the POTUS with the legal right to declare Executive Orders when Congress wouldn't or, couldn't act, there was none of those EO's declared that were because he didn't get what he wanted from them and, then threw a temper tantrum. His emergency declarations were for things like hurricane Sandy, not some fake emergency at the border.
I have GOT TO SEE where I said or even implied that we are in a dictatorship.
You need to stay away from that Maple Syrup Galen
.
"I have a pen and I have a phone". Yup, nothing to complain about.
A new study found President Obama had a historically low win rate at the Supreme Court that "may be the worst since the Zachary Taylor administration." Taylor's presidency lasted little more than a year, from 1849-1850.
Obama's side prevailed in 50.5 percent of cases at the Supreme Court, which was the lowest win rate in data dating back to 1932 included in the study, authored by University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner and Washington University in St. Louis professor Lee Epstein. In the 84 court terms and 13 presidents included in the study, Obama scored worst while President Reagan prevailed most frequently.
Presidents since Reagan have prevailed less frequently at the high court, and the study notes that "some commentators" believe that recent presidents have "aggressively asserted executive power based on strained interpretations of the Constitution and of statutes. " The study notes that under this interpretation, it's possible that the Supreme Court responded by ruling against the president's view more regularly.
"I have a pen and I have a phone".
Learn your history - it was Truman in 1952, not FDR.
You IMPLIED in 2.2.2 that the president can declare an emergency for any reason that suits him, that makes this a dictatorship since that is what dictators do.
Thank you once again for proving my point, presidents cannot declare a national emergency for any and, all reasons.
As the seeder, I did not flag your comment off topic. And I’m certain that it did have value to conservatives here.
Those pesky facts, not alternative facts, but REAL facts.
Yes, they want us to explain it, without using facts like the Constitution or, the definition of the rule of law, it's strange, they love throwing around the Constitution when it benefits them but, when that same document comes back and, bites them in the ass somehow, the facts aren't real.
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not a smidgen of corruption... LOL
A) an outgoing administration that fabricated an investigation on an incoming president cannot be left to stand.
or
B) trump can start investigations on every democrat challenger in 2020 (with no real evidence required - the precedent is set.)
take your pick.
what? you don't want to live in a banana republic with two sets of justice systems?
C) obamas admin has to be charged with treason.... end of discussion.
Agreed and he personally needs to be charged.