The Justice Dept. thinks a lawsuit against Trump over Capitol Attack should go ahead
The Defendants of the President’s Legacy: Bringing Mr. Trump to the Final Stealth in State and Federal Investigations for the Stormy Daniels Cover
It seems that the precedent Ford set has paralyzed a half-century of prosecutors. It seems as if the United States is at a loss because of the Justice Department’s policy of immunity for the president after leaving office.
A new book by a legal pundit and former prosecutor indicates that federal prosecutors in New York contemplated bringing charges against Donald Trump after he left office regarding the Stormy Daniels cover. The draft indictment for Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, Mr. Honig writes, left no doubt: “Trump wasn’t merely a bystander or an unwitting beneficiary of the campaign finance crime. He was the driving force behind the scheme, and likely criminally liable for it.”
The prosecutors felt that they should not be pursuing the former president for campaign finance violations. Now that Mr. Bragg has finished, he will pick up where they left off.
According to theMueller report, the evidence collected around possible obstruction of justice prevented investigators from determining that no criminal conduct occurred. The prosecutor has no desire to pursue the material now that he is out of office. Everyone seems afraid to be the first to make the first move and break the Nixon precedent. Yet other democracies have been willing to bring current and former leaders to justice, including France, Israel and South Korea. In January, the British police fined Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for not wearing a seatbelt, and his predecessor Boris Johnson was fined for hosting parties that violated the country’s Covid lockdown rules. It’s important to understand the principle that the laws apply to everyone if we want to avoid any charges against a powerful figure.
We are able to prosecute state governors. Illinois and Alabama have had governors brought up on state or federal criminal charges, but they have not done so before. More than a dozen members of Congress have faced criminal charges in the last decade, including the former House speaker Dennis Hastert. Democracy chugs along just fine.
A high bar and evidence to prosecute a former president are necessary for a unique case like that of the commander in chief. But in the Stormy Daniels case, Mr. Trump was clearly implicated in court papers. If he’d been anyone else, he almost certainly would have faced felony charges. How is it better for our democracy if he escapes a charge that prosecutors would charge anyone else with?
The lawsuit over his conduct on January 6 argued on Thursday that the former president’s immunity claims should be thrown out. The DOJ recommended that the DC Circuit rule on presidential immunity, but didn’t say anything about the limits on immunity, or what exceptions there are.
“No part of a president’s official responsibilities includes the incitement of imminent private violence,” the Justice Department said in a friend-of-a-court brief that the US DC Circuit Court of Appeals asked the government to file.
The Supreme Court has held that the Constitution gives presidents immunity from being sued over their official actions. The question of whether Mr. Trump’s statements to his supporters regarding the 2020 election results fell within his official job responsibilities has been raised by the lawsuits against him.
Even if the president doesn’t have immunity, Trump argued his speech at the rally that preceded the riots would still be protected because he never told the crowd to do anything.
The Justice Department has argued that Trump cannot be immune in the lawsuits if he was found to have incited violence, something Trump’s new filing called an “unprecedented specific carve out” to presidential immunity.
It is asking the DC Circuit not to give a ruling that would attempt to define when and how the immunity of the president could be established in regards to issues of public concern.
The department’s brief said that it does not express any view on the criminal liability of people connected with the events of January 6, 2021.
Adding to the cost of Mr. Trump’s campaign if the appeals court allowed the Jan. 6 lawsuit to proceed would be a possibility.
Doj’s New Carve Out: Laws that Cannot be Obstructed by the Public Interest in certifying a Presidential Election
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“DOJ’s new carve out is a sui generis rule applied ex post facto that has no underlying principle or explanation beyond ‘we think what President Trump did was bad,’” Trump argued in the new filing. The rule of law doesn’t work this way.
“President Trump’s use of the word ‘fight’ was clearly metaphorical, referring to a political ‘fight,’ not a literal fistfight or other violent interaction,” his filing said. “For example, he stated, in reference to Rudy Giuliani, ‘He’s got guts. He fights, he fights.’ No reasonable person would believe a statement like that that Mr. Giuliani is getting into fist fights.
They stated in their filing that if Congress had certification that was outside of the sphere of the official responsibilities of a president, there would be non-violent actions Trump could have encouraged.
“Urging private citizens to use any means that obstruct Congress from carrying out its constitutional duty to certify a presidential election—a procedure the Framers expressly placed beyond presidential reach—bears no connection to any presidential responsibility,” the lawmakers and police officers said in their Thursday submission.
