Originally published at: The Legal System Should Not Give Trump the Benefit of the Doubt - TPM – Talking Points Memo
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published by Balls and Strikes. On Monday, the Department of Justice filed a misconduct complaint against U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg for the offense of telling colleagues that some judges worried the Trump administration would violate court orders. According to…
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In other words, just because someone lies repeatedly if not constantly, nobody can automatically assume based on what they independently know that what the liar is saying is a lie without the Supreme Court ruling on that specific statement.
Got it.
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So Boasberg’s remarks “eroded public confidence in the judiciary.” And how does that compare to the effect on “public confidence in the judiciary” of Trump’s nomination of someone like Emil Bove to an appellate judgeship?
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Boasberg absolutely let them get away with it like a chicken, not holding anybody in contempt, and this is how his craven shirking of his duty is rewarded. Judges should be using their power to hold the lying Trump DOJ in criminal contempt, not peeing their pants and giving them 12 final warnings and endless delays.
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A “presumption of regularity” would be to make the ridiculous assumption that this is a regular administration, and that we’re living in regular times.
Hats off the Boasberg for having the courage to point out that there is absolutely nothing but bad faith in this regime.
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Every attorney that ignores or disobeys a judge’s order should be brought before their bar association. When it starts costing $$$ maybe…
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With slip in hand, Trump argues, no one can look at his actions too closely, speak about him too harshly, or judge him at all.
They are getting closer and closer to directly asserting that lèse-majesté is a crime in this country.
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There can be no presumption of regularity regarding the actions and words of the Trump Fiefdom. The leader cannot open his mouth without drooling out lies. None of the people he has brought into government are competent, and most are indeed fortunate that they can get out of bed in the morning without having a fatal accident. Their collective actions aim to destroy the United States as a democracy of a free and independent people. They are thugs, all of them, led by a person of limited intelligence who, if he had not spent his life living on other people’s money, would have lived his life as an incompetent thug mugging people in dark alleys. Instead, his supporters among the electorate have loosed his feral stupidity and greed upon the world, and allowed him to destroy the government and society of the United States for generations to come. So fuck the legalisms. Lock the slimy bastard and his asskissers up for life.
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When the judge in a meeting with other judges expressed concern that the bank robber would rob more banks, DOJ issued a blistering memo accusing the judge of “anti-bank robber” bias, and total disrespect for bank robbers.
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It has come to the point where any criticism of Trump’s motives or actions will result in a formal complaint or a lawsuit or some other legal action. Needless to say, a government that behaves like this cannot be regarded as operating in a regular or rule-based manner. It’s just short of a full dictatorship, where rules mean nothing unless they can be weaponized against particular opponents. (See the deployment of complaints of antisemitisim at Harvard and Columbia, or the supposed discrimination in hiring against white people that they accuse the city of Chicago of.) His authority for the government’s right to be regarded as “regular” is a hundred-year-old case. That’s the only thing his minions could find?
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So this was in a private meeting. I wonder which trump-appointed judges reported the statement. And haven’t been sanctioned for eroding confidence in the judiciary.
Not only do we have the lies and the defiance, we have multiple sources and apparently documentary evidence of disregard for legal rulings as a policy. The regular order ship sailed and sank some months ago.
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