Discussion for article #226512
Politicians like to think that they are immune from criminal prosecution, but if that is the case, what recourse do we have when they do illegal acts?
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Itâs called corruption. Some can be facetious and call it criminalization of politics or whatever they want. What Perry was doing is not the way the system was meant to work. Free speech has nothing to do with it. Perry was trying to shut down the apparatus that watchdogs politicians and their graft. What was he trying to cover up?
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Pretty amazing this article could be written without mention of a politically motivated investigation into a minor land deal being turned into a $100,000,000 impeachment circus over a blowjob. How were you able to reach around the elephant in the room to type on your keyboard? Are you sure you arenât a PhD. in Contortionism?
EDIT: by the way, for anyone crying tears over how âpersecutedâ poor Tom DeLay is, letâs be clear on a couple of details.
He was convicted of money laundering (âtaking money donated to his political action committee and feeding it into a number of Texas Republicanâs campaignsâ) in 2010. The 2 judges that overturned the conviction in 2013 based it upon the fiction that checks are not actual money.
You think Iâm shitting you?
Read on:
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This case has some really odd roots - and those may have a lot to do with why itâs difficult for those outside of the sphere of the Texas public corruption prosecution service to get a handle on.
Why is it that the âonlyâ prosecution authority for state public corruption lies within one, single country attorneyâs office? One would expect, looking at other states, either thereâd be the same authority in EVERY prosecution office in the state - every county - or that thereâd be a single state prosecution agency thatâs independent of the state legislature and governorâs office.
I think this must be getting portrayed wrongly in the national press. Instead, I think it has to be the case that EVERY elected county attorney has the power to pursue allegations of public corruption, through investigation followed by grand jury proceedings where warranted followed by trial in the case of grand jury indictment, but that all the other county attorneys have somehow come to be âstrippedâ of that function. How? Iâm thinking by combination of election campaign commitments to reduce budgets by various means, including cutting certain functions that are considered vital in other states, and by various measures taken out at the state level, starting with the legislatures, to eliminate funding for âunusedâ power.
Otherwise, one would expect the Texas legislatures would have just got rid of the authority by housing it in a single âindependentâ body. (Note that Governor Perry has been trying to have the authority entirely housed with the state AG â which would seem to destroy the entire idea of an effective watchdog on public corruption. I should think that the Texas state constitution would be the big stumbling block to the legislature doing that.).
If so, that is, if Iâm right on how this has come about, then it makes sense that the court-appointed lead prosecutor here is saying heâs âtroubledâ by what looks like the sort of conduct thatâs grist for election campaigns rather than the courts. If whatâs happened here is that the state Republican party has effectively found a way to drastically limit but not constitutionally kill the capacity of county attorneys to pursue public corruption, and THEN the partyâs governor has acted to kill indirectly a power that cannot be killed off directly, that IS troubling, and may indeed reflect that rarest of criminal prosecution animals: a criminal act or conspiracy to effect an unlawful purpose by superficially or arguably lawful means.
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This article said nothing.
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At minimum the DA owes Perry a ham sandwich for indicting him.
What politics are you talking about exactly? Republicans indicted Rick Perry. Not Democrats. 3rd District. Judge Stubblefield, Judge Richardson, and prosecutor McCrum are all Rs.
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Which way does the slippery slope go here? Do you have to have a notarized statement from all the defendants saying that money paid to one entity is intended to be unlawfully transferred to another one? Does a governor have to put in writing something like âshoot that baby or I will veto your funding and shut down your officeâ before thereâs an actionable misuse of power?
As far as I can tell, under this expanded âdonât criminalize politicsâ theory, Nixonâs firing of Attorneys General until he found someone who would (try to) shut down the investigation against him would be within the law as well, since everyone in the AGâs office serves at the pleasure of the president.
One of the problems here is that so much of the corruption that goes on isnât really bribery, which at least in theory involves officials doing something they wouldnât otherwise do in return for a reward, Nowadays the corrupt politicians and businesspeople are simply all playing on the same team and naturally sharing the profits.
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This is not the criminalization of politics. This is the criminalization of extortion.
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They have it exactly backward; itâs the politicization of criminal acts, namely gaining favorable influence, a place at the table, in exchange for âcampaign donationsâ. The Roberts Five got it wrong in Citizens United and its companion cases.
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Donât be too quick to equate an indictment with actual wrongdoing ??
Okâ 1⌠2⌠3⌠â I waited 3 seconds â Seemed like a lifetime-- I hope they flush the SOB ! !
Republicans have used this procedure before, mostly famous with Ken Starrâs $70 million investigation and attempted impeachment of Bill Clinton. There has been non-stop talk of impeachment with Obama.
While the charges against Perry may be weak, under our judicial system they are still allowed to be brought.
âBut donât be too quick to equate an indictment with actual wrongdoing by the governor, regardless of your political orientation.â
These guys fudge the law every waking moment, it is just a matter of whether the prosecutors and grand juries want to pursue charges, the ever-impending guilt by a thousand cuts simply goes with the job these days.
Which suggests one must be a crook to get into the game in the first place. Until we make ethics a real issue and not just a codeword for not getting caught we will suffer these crooks.
If TeaXans do it in TeaXas⌠it;s not criminal.
Just the cost of doing business the fickle Con way.
What the article doesnât point out:
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Perry is accused of violating state, not Federal law; the special prosecutor in this case was appointed by a state judge and then investigated and presented his evidence to a local grand jury.
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The Public Integrity Unit that Perry defunded was in the process of investigating the governors office for corrupt use of public money when Perry started making his threats.
A lot of people here in Texas know first-hand of Perrys deep corruption and see the chances of this case proceeding to a conviction as much better than 50/50.
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Anyone who thinks this law wonât stand up constitutionally should realize itâs the same law which caused the indictment and impeachment of Gov James âPaâ Ferguson in 1917.
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And the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals chose not to simply uphold that overturning of the conviction based on dubious reasoning from those judges and chose to hear the case themselves. DeLay had to appear in court again just two months ago. Unfortunately, the court wonât rule until sometime in 2015, but his conviction might be reinstated.
Of course, the Court consists of 8 Republicans and 1 Democrat, so maybe it wonât be.
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The DA did not indict him. A REPUBLICAN special prosecutor made the case to a grand jury under a REPUBLICAN judge, and they decided to indict him.
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Serious lack of understanding of criminal law in this piece. Look no further than these quotes:
âŚthis indictment will not fly because the law potentially violates the First AmendmentâŚ
We donât know yet whether Rick Perry violated the law and whether the law he is accused of violating is constitutional.
Even if we take the incredibly ridiculous assumption that coercion = free speech, it isnât up to the jury that Rick Perry will be tried in front of to decide whether or not the law violates the constitution. He can go to jail just fine under the law, even if the law is unconstitutional. He may be able to get that conviction subsequently overturned on that reasoning, but that doesnât help him in the short term.
Of course, Perry has been in office for 14 years now, almost every single judge in the upper parts of the judicial branch is one of his hand picked buddies. Like Tom DeLay, who was also rightfully found guilty, he will never see he inside of a jail cell.
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