IN THE DEVELOPING REVELATIONS of Trump era surveillance of the electronic communications of members of Congress, their staff and even their minor children, I have yet to see the name of the judge or judges who would have signed off on the dubiously justified subpoenas that allowed the Trump DoJ in the Sessions-Rosenstein-Whitaker-Barr era.
It's clear that there was at least one judge who OKed the surveillance of Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell and others and their name should be made public as should those of other judges who were as much a part of it as the Trump goons in the Department of Justice. The nice, polite and stupid treatment of judges and "justices" as if they are not political players is one of the stupidest of conventions in the media, in politics and in the law. Not when they are some of the baldest and least inhibited of political actors around.
Congress should dump the kid gloves treatment of the Judicial branch which is way out of hand, which has never been the apolitical or non-political entity that it would claim it was even as it has been baldly partisan, never more so in the period when Republican-fascists took complete control of it and, now, especially as Federalist Society fascists are a strong majority of its members. The lower courts are, if anything, even more dominated by Republican-fascists put there by the Federalist Society and the Republican-fascist domination of the Senate.
I don't know how far they would dare to go in defying or reigning in the rogue judicial branch but the Congress shouldn't just lie there and take it from them, either. There should be consequences for judges who issue such subpoenas, even though there is little to no hope that the anti-democratic Senate will remove them by impeachment. The former practice of removing the worst offenders among the judiciary is something that would not happen now. But there must be things the Congress can do to the Republican-fascist dominated judiciary and the Department of Justice. If it doesn't act, if it doesn't let the judges and "justices" understand that it is more than just a co-equal branch, that as a democratically elected branch that it has more legitimacy than the totally non-democratically constituted part of government and that that fact counts for something, we don't need to wonder if the American system is fatally flawed, it will prove to be so.
I want to see all of them. From Sessions down to Barr hauled in front of House Committees and grilled, not allowing them to have Barr style lapses of memory and pretended ignorance protect them as is their style. And that includes the judges who signed off on the subpoenas. I want the Congress to hold them to the same standard that a poor, downtrodden person hauled in front of a judge to answer questions in court would be held to, including the full skepticism of such convenient lapses of memory. Hold them all, judges and all, to the same standard they would practice if they had some hapless nobody in their power.
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