Like the US Constitution, nepotism laws are so quaint, so passé.
But they said that doesn’t mean the President should
have brought a direct relative like Jared Kushner into
his administration in the first place, nor does it
eliminate concerns about conflicts of interest.
And no President with ANY sense of propriety would have …
Full Stop
This unprecedent does NOT view himself as a servant of the people…or anyone else ,
setting precedents.
next president should get a lot of leeway from what this administration is doing
but we all know IOKIYAR, and not the other way around
Figure this guy will shit the bed so bigly that there will be an ethics constitutional amendment for the next Dem president to have to follow
It’s not like he swore an oath on TWO Bibles to “…the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Just another broken promise from President Crybaby, and he doesn’t care who knows it.
If DOJ had ruled that Trump could not appoint Kushner to a senior role and he had disregarded their decision, she argued it would have damaged the agency’s standing and sent the message that the President can flout the law.
“It would essentially set us on the path to lawlessness," Clark said. “Rather than invite the President to move forward on the path to lawlessness, the DOJ found a way to accommodate him.”
IANAL, so I’m in no position to judge the merits of the DoJ’s decision. But as a general matter, I sure hope their reasoning wasn’t Clark’s; if we’re now operating in a system in which we won’t call something illegal because, well, the president will do it anyway, we’re saying the president can do anything. I know Nixon claimed so, but we’ve historically never been one of the countries where that was actually the case. Oh, well, one more item on the authoritarian checklist…
Not really. To “…the best of my ability,” is a built in escape clause for the resident of little ability.
Hey wasn’t nepotism on the table? It was here a second ago and now it’s gone. Where’s nepotism?
Fun Fact: The Lincoln Bible is tentatively scheduled to be returned to the National Archives next Friday following decontamination at the U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center.
I don’t really care if Jared is Trump’s son-in-law / competition for Ivanka’s pussy. I don’t care if he’s working in the White House. What I do care about is that he’s giving Drumpf cover for his anti-Semitism, offering him free and positive coverage in his own newspaper, and providing a conduit to running the Drumpf-pyre. That’s what I care about.
There will be so many scandals waiting to explode from these maniacs.
The only issue is how many innocent people will be hurt, or die.
As a voter, I am very concerned by this appointment. Jared is ,however, to the best of my knowledge, subject to the ethical requirements of avoiding conflicts of interest. I just hope the media keeps a sharp eye on this mini-me Trump. He has a hand in many businesses and companies, and given that his father is a convicted felon and still part of the family business, one who requires strict oversight.
It is in that empty chair over there. The one Clint Eastwood addressed…
For the 1000th time, so if Hillary would have been elected and appointed Bill Clinton “Special White House Advisor” . . .
Point #1: Hillary wouldn’t have appointed Bill to a similar post as Kushner, given the obvious conflict; and
Point #2: Republicans would have shit their pants and threatened impeachment.
To be fair, didn’t Bill appoint Hillary to be his point-person on Health Care in circa 1994? Or was that only a non-official position (i.e. not paid)?
I have no hassle with the concept of a President appointing a family member as a personal adviser.
But the conflict of interest laws must still apply.
We need a #ThanksJared hashtag on Twitter. Makes me sick that our president needs a family member to keep him balanced, but I’m glad Kushner is there(?)
The sad aspects are that 1) unlike Hillary, Kushner has no relevant experience or skills 2) Trump is so emotionally limited he only trusts close family members.
So intellectually limited. So culturally limited. Lacking in any empathy or ability to think about how others might think or perceive an action or situation. Everything is about him. Absolutely everything.
Oh indeed.
I just think it’s important to focus on what matters. Choosing a family member as a personal adviser seems reasonable.
Having that family member also run a newspaper at the same time? That’s far more concerning.
So. 1977 we had a Democratic President, who was not allowed to appoint his son to a position in the White House - an anti-nepotism precedent that held for 40 years until a Republican wanted to appoint his son-in-law.
Got it. Laws apply to Democrats, not Republicans - as per official opinion by the DoJ.
Clark of Washington University in St. Louis said that … she understands why the DOJ interpreted the statute in a way that avoided the prospect of the President going rogue and rejecting the agency’s advice. If the DOJ had ruled that Trump could not appoint Kushner to a senior role and he had disregarded their decision, she argued it would have damaged the agency’s standing and sent the message that the President can flout the law.
Whereas changing their previous rulings because they’re cowards afraid of the President going rogue doesn’t damage the DoJ at all?
That is extraordinarily flawed logic. Instead of making the point that the President is going rogue from day one, the DoJ has instead shown that they’ll reshape the law and their previous rulings around the whims of a petulant wanna-be dictator. In other words, out of fear that the President will ignore them and send the message that he can flout the law, the DoJ will pre-flout the law for him.
Oh yeah, this is gonna be four long fucking years.