Weaponizing Regular Court Procedure Is One Of The Main Venues Of Lawerly And Judicial Corruption of Our Government
AS IS OFTEN THE CASE one of the best analyses of the doings among lawyers and judges I read comes from RMJ. After attracting me with a tweet by Ron Filipkowski that says what I feel about the indictment of the original Trump enabler, James Comey:
I honestly don’t care about James Comey.
But I want to live in a democratic republic.
His indictment proves we live in a banana republic, where the autocrat personally orders indictments of his political enemies, and when his own officials refuse he finds new ones that will.
RMJ goes on to comment on a statement by Representative Dan Goldman as to why the prosecution has to fail because it's based on a false summary of testimony by Andrew McCabe* by the sleazy Senator Ted Cruz.
Goldman: Fundamentally, there's a major flaw here, which is that this false statements count is predicated on Ted Cruz's summary of Andy Mccabe's testimony…
Which summary, I understand, was not a fair representation of McCabe’s testimony. The whole perjury charge is based on he said/he said, and it may be what Cruz said, is not what McCabe said. OTOH, all Comey did was stand by his statement, so did he lie? Or did he just testify differently than McCabe did? Aside from the fact that perjury requires a willful lie, not just a misrepresentation or a disagreement between witnesses (why isn’t McCabe indicted? That way lies the malicious prosecution defense Trump has opened the door for.). Perjury is probably going to be impossible to prove in court. Not that Comey should have to incur attorneys fees to remain out of prison. But any lawyer for DOJ who appears in this case can be challenged for ethics violations before the bar that issued their license. I can even see them losing their federal license (not to practice law, but to appear in D.C. federal court). The trial court could easily do that, for the grossly unethical nature of this case.
While I expect that will ultimately work to either win a case by Comey or to get the charges thrown out, that doesn't count on the level of corruption in the higher levels of the federal judiciary put there by Republican-fascists in the Senate, Republican-fascist presidents, mostly Bush II and Trump, and the ultimate corruption of the Roberts Court majority, the most corrupt Supreme Court in our history. They summarily abolish century old laws and nullify and amend even older parts of the Constitution, itself, on behalf of the stupidest, most corrupt, most criminal president in American history, Trump.
These days they aren't even much coming up with a plausibly rational argument for upending even the most "settled" of legal lore, they are ripping up everything, proceedures, regulations, rules, laws, and, yes, even those things in the Constitution that don't serve their financial, political and ideological desires.
They are making WHATEVER THEY WANT the law of the United States.
Eventually you have to look at what motivates Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Goresuch, Kvanaugh and Barrett in what is the most sustained attack on a democratic republic in our history, more effective and longer lasting than the treason of the Confederates, more effective and longer lasting than the Taney Court's imposition of slavery on even the free states, more effective than the Plessey Court imposing American apartheid - which the Roberts Court is reinstalling by overturning the Civil Rights and, especially, the Voting Rights Acts which were the very laws that for the first time sought to make the United States the true democracy it was alleged to be since the Jeffersonian revolution sought to take the first major step in doing that.
They certainly know what they're doing when they enable Trump in breaking the law by nullifying it, they are destroying good government on behalf of Trump family and billionaire oligarch corrupted government. The next time they have one of those Supreme Court Historical Society cotillions I wish one of the invitees would throw that in their faces but, of course, the kind of courtly crooks and corrupt lawyer types that go to those would never do that, making their "honors" have to notice that real People notice they are filthy corrupt liars and crooks, themselves.
They certainly have motives of self-interest in that. All of them either grew up in relative affluence - affluence their chosen profession of the law is generally entered into to pursue, I doubt anyone goes into the law not expecting to make lots of money from it. I suspect some of them either had no talent for or liking for the harder work of lawyering so they went into the somewhat less money making ends of it - though still handsomely compensated. I will note that of all of them, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is the only one who ever acted as a defense lawyer.** I might suspect some of them had a liking for dabbling in the aristocratic folklore that a lifetime in legal scholarship boils down to. But like all folklore, it is flexible and easily bent into whatever form you want it to take or to amend it into a new piece of lore to suit your present purposes. THAT IS PRACTICALLY THE DEFINITION OF A SUPREME COURT DECISION AFTER THE MARBURY V MADISON POWER GRAB BY THE SUPREME COURT, ITSELF. You can read the many posts I made from Government by Judiciary by Louis Boudin [see my archive] to see that that is the actual truth of what they do. As early as 1911, Louis Boudin was warning that under Marbury and its dependent rulings, the first significant one of which was the infamous Dred Scott decision and on which virtually every corrupt ruling by the Rehnquist and Roberts Court rests, the Constitution meant only what a simple majority or more of fewer than ten black robed men said it did - and that given their ability to do so under Marbury, that even that meaning was temporary at best. He noted the frequency of the corruption of that system and its destruction of equality under the law and democracy. Yet Marbury is such a basic part of the folklore of the law - though entirely absent from the Constitution - that it, itself serves as the one and only securely basic law of the United States. Constitutional government under the present Court regime is a fiction.
I do think that ultimate it all comes down to getting the most money for themselves, their families, their class and those who they figure are in the best position to give them more of that. They may have some emotions invested in the bull-shit excuses to overturn egalitarian democratic republican governance to do that, the "Constitutional folklore that they learned from their equally corrupt and fascistic law profs at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc. who, no doubt, learned it from others of the same fascistic and larcenous predilections.
But I think their personal bigotry, prejudice, racism and misogyny are as easily served by the same legal bullshiteese that is the very stuff of lawyer talk and Supreme Court decisions. As was found out in such as the Prigg decision, Dred Scott, Plessy, . . . Dobbs, Shelby County v. Holder, Bronovich v. Democratic National Committee, Trump v United States, there are no limits to the lies, the twisting of words, the outright fabrication that the Supreme Court doesn't get away with because there is no real democratic or even rational limit placed on them. The worst things the president or congress or anyone has ever gotten away with with Supreme Court blessing IS THE REAL DEFINITION OF WHAT IS CONSTITUTIONAL UNDER SUCH A DANGEROUSLY FLAWED CONSTITUTION AS WE HAVE AND HAVE HAD SINCE MARBURY IF NOT FROM THE START. People complaining that Supreme Court decisions aren't based on the letter of the Constitution are fools playing that game because as the Court has proven over and over again in our history, what that letter says doesn't really mean anything except what they say it means.
Until the Constitution is changed to reign in the corrupt Supreme Court, there will be no safety for egalitarian democratic republican government and there will be no such a thing as enduring change for the better. It is the engine of corruption that can demolish even the emergency salvage operation mounted by the Congress after the Civil War and in the adoption of the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts and that rarest of all things under our Constitution, Court led progress such as in Roe v Wade.
The Roberts Court will either be the last of the flagrantly corrupt Supreme Courts or it will be the proof that the reservations of the antifederalists, such as "Brutus" were well founded, far more so than the claims of Madison, Hamilton, John Jay and their colleagues. I would bet that the Roberts Court won't be the last or even the worst of them unless there is sweeping Constitutional reform in the wake of Trump and what I believe will be even worse under Vance.
* I have entirely more respect for Andrew McCabe than I do for Comey and I'd trust what he said far more than the rest of them. I have to say that in this attack on Comey and the one on his daughter, he is getting what he promoted in his sandbagging of Hillary Clinton late in the 2016 campaign, along with the New York Times and other organs of the "free press." Whole lotta karma going down, these days.
** This summary of her CV at her nomination says, interestingly.
Jackson would be the first public defender to become a Supreme Court justice in the history of the Court. She would be the first justice with substantial criminal defense experience since Thurgood Marshall retired in 1991.
It is certainly no accident that the other most recent "justice" to have practiced in that low-compensation area was the first Black Man to have been put on the Court, Thurgood Marshall. Just as it is no accident that no Republican nominee in recent history has had such a history, if there ever was one. There are few who get nominated to the Supreme Court that you'd be tempted to sell as someone uninterested in making money out of the law but she is certainly one of those you could make a case for in that area. None of the Republican-fascists would go into that category.
Considering that the Honorable Ketanji Brown Jackson was one of those the white supremacist idol, Kirk slandered I'm going to give the rest of her qualifications which are compared to the fascists on the Supreme Court:
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is One of the Most Qualified Nominees for the Supreme Court Ever
February 25, 2022
JACKSON WOULD BRING AN UNPARALLELED BREADTH AND DEPTH OF EXPERIENCE
Jackson would be the most experienced trial court judge to join the Supreme Court in almost a century.
Jackson served on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for nearly 8 years, giving her more trial court experience than any sitting Supreme Court justice and more than any justice since Edward Sanford, who was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1923.
Jackson would be only the second sitting justice to serve at all three levels of the federal judiciary.
Only Justice Sonia Sotomayor has also served as a District judge, Circuit judge and Supreme Court justice.
Jackson would bring more years of experience as a judge than four of the sitting justices combined.
Jackson has more than eight years of experience as a judge; that’s more than Justices Thomas, Roberts, Kagan, and Barrett had combined when they were confirmed.
Jackson would be the first public defender to become a Supreme Court justice in the history of the Court.
She would be the first justice with substantial criminal defense experience since Thurgood Marshall retired in 1991.
JACKSON HAS WON BIPARTISAN SUPPORT AND PRAISE
Jackson has been confirmed by the Senate on a bipartisan basis three times. In 2021, Jackson was confirmed to the United States Circuit Court for the District of Columbia with the support of Republican Sens. Murkowski, Collins, and Graham.
Former Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan: “My praise for Ketanji’s intellect, for her character, for her integrity – it is unequivocal.”
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX): “Very impressive background … extensive trial court experience.”
Republican-appointed judge Thomas Griffith, who supported Jackson’s elevation to the D.C. Circuit after observing her work as a judge, recently said: “Her academic record is remarkable. She has a breadth of experience, which is really quite unique.”
When Jackson was nominated to the D.C. Circuit, she received support from Supreme Court clerks for Justices Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist, Kennedy, Souter, and O’Connor.
INDEPENDENT ANALYSTS: JACKSON IS ‘HIGHLY QUALIFIED’ WITH A ‘GLITTERING RESUME’ AND A ‘VERY DISTINGUISHED RECORD’
CNN: “She has a very distinguished record as a trial court judge and now an appellate court judge.”
Boston Globe: “A sterling educational background, a distinguished track record on the federal bench, and a reputation for both brilliance and an even judicial temperament. … A reputation as brilliant and meticulous”
PBS: “Jackson has a resume seemingly tailor-fit for the moment.”
Vox: “Well qualified for the job. … Significant judicial experience.”
CNN: “A glittering resume.”
Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post: “Top-flight academic qualifications”
Elie Honig, CNN Senior Legal Analyst: “Ranking among the absolute finest judges I’ve ever seen in action … a truly exceptional federal judge”
Paul Bulter, Washington Post Columnist: “[A] résumé … from central casting”
SCOTUS Blog: “She would bring a wide range of experiences”
Bloomberg: “The most complete resume [among frontrunners on Biden’s reported list] for a seat on the high court.”
LA Times: “Those who know Jackson say she always drew praise and respect.”
Financial Times: “Her rise in the legal profession has been widely regarded as formidable”
Slate: “A deep understanding of labor law”