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The Indicted Former President’s Quest for Immunity |
| Jack Smith, Special Counsel prosecuting the defeated former president for complicity with the attempt by the January 6, 2020 insurrectionists to prevent the official counting of the 2020 presidential electoral votes as mandated by the Constitution. |
There’s been a
lot in the news these past few days about presidential ‘immunity’ from civil
and criminal prosecution. A Federal District
court in D.C.’s decision had ruled that former president Trump had none and the
issue was debated this week in a Federal Court of Appeals to which Trump had
appealed. Trump feels that without such immunity, he would certainly lose the
case being brought against him in a D.C. Federal court by our Department of
Justice, where the jury pool is heavily Democratic, regarding his role in the
January 6, 2021, events.
The basic
argument made by Trump’s
lawyers, and he was in the courtroom at the time, was that so long as a president’s impeachment
by the House was not confirmed by the Senate, he retained immunity against
charges against him, a full, confirmed, impeachment process being the only way
of removing a president and with it, his or her immunity from prosecution.
Section 3 of the
Fourteenth Amendment specifically lists those offices where insurrectionists
and those who aid and abet them cannot ever again run for office. The
absence of the presidency from this list, developed in the shadow of the Civil War, was intentional, Trump’s lawyer implied, leaving
the impeachment process as the only way of overriding the presidency’s omission
from this list. Only after an impeachment was
confirmed by the Senate, the former president might then lose his or her
immunity from prosecution.
The Senate on two occasions has twice refused to confirm such impeachments of Trump by the House. This, Trump’s lawyer implied, was the intention of the writers of the Fourteenth Amendment in order to preserve the presidency as a separate and equal branch of government not subservient to the legislative or judicial branches, all three established by our Constitution. This left Trump, whose impeachment by the House was twice not confirmed by the Senate, as unimpeached, and therefore, still immune from prosecution on the DOJ’s charges.
In fact, Trump’s lawyers pointed out, such would be the nature of the immunity of any president who was not thusly successfully impeached; they could do anything he wanted with impunity, even order the hypothetical murder of a political opponent! A president who feared being impeached, and losing that immunity, might even resign before an impeachment might be voted on by the Senate, thereby continuing to retain his 'unimpeached status' and his immunity from prosecution afterwards.
The three judges on the Appeals Court questioned Trump’s lawyer closely and in likelihood, will reject his arguments, as really stretching a point.
Simply
stated, my understanding is that impeachment is a political process, described
in the Constitution, regarding removing a president from office while immunity is
a courtroom legal process and one has nothing to do with the other.
If this matter
gets to the Supreme Court, they will have to figure out a way of either
reversing or confirming whatever the Appeals Court is likely to announce in a few
weeks. They might decline to hear the
case, an action in itself, or suggest that Congress legislate a solution.
I ask whether the SCOTUS can do its job properly without fearing the potentially violent repercussions
that might occur if they agreed with taking away Trump’s immunity, and allowing
his name’s removal from ballots, based upon Sec. 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment? Can the SCOTUS truly wear a blindfold in making this decision?
Marty London, a retired attorney who has ‘been there’ and ‘done that’ (he defended Spiro Agnew, Nixon’s vice-president, against impeachment) has addressed the issue on his blog. Read it at https://londonsbh.blogspot.com/ or CLICK HERE.
The bottom line is that
this matter, if stretched out long enough, can allow Trump to remain on the
ballot in November. That is his
objective. His lawyers know the facts
are against them, but arguing about them, making as many motions as possible, offers further opportunity for delay, which is
what they are being paid to bring about.
JL
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Those Were the Days
When I was
growing up, radio broadcasts were free.
If you had a radio with an antenna, even a ‘crystal set’ that you could
make yourself, you could hear the broadcasts as they were transmitted through
the airwaves. When TV came along in the
1940s, that freedom continued, but not for long.
 |
| Way Back When ... |
Soon, a wired-in
version of TV called ‘cable’ came into existence, supplementing rooftop
antennas. It wasn’t very expensive, at least at first, and it offered hundreds
of channels as opposed to the thirteen free ones that we had become used to,
and vaguely hinted at a reduction in advertising, since subscription fees would
to some extent replace ad revenues. That turned out to be a marketing lie. (Some 'digital' channels can still be picked up by old style rooftop antennas, but their signals don't match 'cable' and few count on them for TV reception. These do not include 'dish' type antennas which operate differently.)
Today, with the
advent and growth of the internet, TV programming is now also available from
sources to which one must subscribe and pay for separately. Slowly, desirable programming is migrating to
‘streamed’ sources such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Peacock, Max, Hulu, etc. replacing
some of what was on ‘cable, and even films traditionally initially
seen only in physical theatre settings. More and more, some athletic events are available only through internet ‘streamed’ channels, at an additional price, rather
than on ‘cable,’ for which we've been accustomed to paying.
There are people
out there whose full-time jobs are devoted to finding ways to get you to pay
for what was once free. No one can deny
that television, in countries where it is run by the government and not the
private sector, does not hold a candle to the variety of choices that we have
here. Nevertheless, even recognizing the
minimal efforts of the Federal Communication Commission to serve the public’s
interests, I wish that the media companies that profit from these arrangements
would get their grubby hands out of my pockets.
JL
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What’s With
Iran?
Naval and military engagement by the Houthis and
Hezbollah in support of Hamas’ war against Israel are occurring because Iran,
whose orders they follow, is in no position to risk getting involved itself. Its economy is sufficiently fragile that taking
that risk with more direct support of Hamas' agenda of eliminating the State of
Israel, with which they politically agree, would be too big a bite for them to
take so they sit on the sidelines, content with providing weapons and training, letting others do their dirty work.
I also suspect that there are unspoken limits to Shia Iran's
commitment to Sunni extremism, which they know can come back to bite them, as
the recent cemetery bombing there by a resurgent ISIS was a symptom. (ISIS and most of the Arab world is mostly Sunni; Iran is mostly Shia.
The division between them goes back a long, long time to the conflict over the
leadership of Islam after the passing of its prophet, Mohammad in 632 A.D.)
(This might be a good place to explain that some Muslims felt that after Mohammad's death, leadership should remain 'in his family,' specifically with his nephew, Ali, and his descendants. These were and continue to be the Shia. Others felt that leadership should be left to scholars and politicians, at that time led by Abu Bakr, and were known as and continue to be the Sunni. Each group initially thought it perfectly acceptable to murder leaders ot the other group and their entire families.)
JL
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JL
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