Originally published at: 5 Points On How Trump Is Using Eric Adams To Commandeer The DOJ And NYC - TPM – Talking Points Memo
Less than one month into office, the Trump DOJ has rolled out sweeping new innovations in corruption. In moving to dismiss the case against Mayor Eric Adams as part of an elaborate ploy to gain leverage over the five boroughs, Trump’s acting Deputy Attorney General and former defense attorney Emil Bove has managed to corrupt…
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As far as I know, Judge Ho is an actual arbiter of justice. I eagerly await his decision.
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Conspicuously missing from the documentation is a signed statement from Adams that he agrees with this. It’s a requirement.
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He got his Roy Cohn in this dead eyed bottom feeder.
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But the core of the issue goes to Trump trying to use the case to corrupt both the DOJ and Constitutional limits on his own power. In this case, it’s in the form of a bargain to place New York City under the control of a politician beholden to the federal government. Where might it go next?
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And if he takes the easy way out? What then? When do we put a stop to Diaper Don’s crime spree?
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“Everyone says corruption is everywhere, but for me it seems strange to say that and then not try to put the people guilty of that corruption away.”
– Alexei Navalny
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Governor Hochul has said she’s hesitant to “undo the will of the public” by removing Adams since the public elected him. Perhaps she should read up a bit. Adams’s approval has been plummeting and started doing so before the bribery thing came out. Right now his approval is lower than any recent Mayor at this point in term. 58 % disapprove. Less than 28 % approve of him. Hochul has it backwards. Not removing him is defying the will of the people.
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Judge Ho’s order setting today’s hearing requires the prosecutors to produce the written consent. Hearing starts in about 90 minutes, and it’s going to be interesting. I expect him to set an evidentiary hearing, and I think it is likely he will also appoint an amicus to cross the government’s witnesses and subpoena others to provide contravening testimony and documents.
(This is the good Judge Ho, by the way. The bad Judge Ho is on the Fifth Circuit.)
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5 Points On How Trump Is Using Eric Adams To Commandeer The DOJ And NYC
Part Two: Illinois and Chicago.
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It seems to me that Bove’s part in all of this, plus his other DOJ illegalities, expose himself to serious danger of disbarment. He’s performing illegal, corrupt acts, violating both laws and the Constitution, and just turning up the volume each new day. Happily, disbarment is handled by the national and the various state bar associations, not Trump’s corrupt DOJ or his somnolent pussycat Congress. It would please me no end to see the DC bar kick the process off with a thourough, transparent investigation, followed by the ABA. And the same can be said about all of the attorneys Trump has inflicted upon the DOJ. Hopefully, that would be the start of the cleansing of Trump’s Augean stable of an administration.
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Well, a counterargument would be that we measure the “will of the people” by actual elections, and not by (fickle, easily maniplulated, often deeply flawed) opinion polls.
More to the point, though, the people of New York CIty elected Adams to be their mayor. They did not elect the patient-in-chief to run their city, with Adams as his obedient thrall.
Gov. Hochul needs to get over it, already, and get him outta there.
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Who knew there would be so many Hos?
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And they’re both on the shortlist for SCOTUS. Not the same shortlist, obvs.
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Well, well, here’s a coincidence: Alex Spiro, now representing Eric Adams, is also one of Elon Musk’s lawyers, representing him in some big-ticket matters.
It’s a small world, isn’t it? And who knew Trump’s personal lawyers would wind up running DOJ? Coincidence on coincidence, I’d say.
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Corruption ought to mean more than politics.
Commandeering was prohibited when Democrats tried to enact the Brady Bill.
Now, the billionaires say that it is OK - because they say so.
the Supreme Court’s decision from 1997 in Printz v. United States reaffirmed states’ rights and the Constitution’s anti-commandeering provisions.
In the 5-4 decision, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the majority opinion which struck down part of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act in violation of the 10th Amendment.
Specifically, the Brady Act’s requirement for local sheriffs to perform gun background checks conflicted with the concept of anti-commandeering which had been set out as an important component of federalism in an earlier case, New York v. United States (1992).
The 10th Amendment says that, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” In New York v. United States, Justice O’Connor wrote that a federal waste-management law “would ‘commandeer’ state governments into the service of federal regulatory purposes, and thus would be inconsistent with the Constitution’s division of authority between federal and state governments.”
Unless the SCOTUS sets a new precedent, the Federal government can’t force states to help them enforce federal laws. IANAL
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Doubt that he cares about his license when he is going for power and dirty money.
It’s like we’re in Hunts Point.
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What Hochul is hesitant to do is to fall under the gaze of Sauron. Recognizing the damage that Trump’s ill will would do to NY, which in turn would do her already poor approvals irreparable damage. It’s everyone for themselves these days.
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