OSSINING, N.Y. — For nearly two decades, the Trump Organization has relied on a roving crew of Latin American employees to build fountains and waterfalls, sidewalks and rock walls at the company’s winery and its golf courses from New York to Florida.
Other employees at Trump clubs were so impressed by the laborers — who did strenuous work with heavy stone — that they nicknamed them “Los Picapiedras,” Spanish for “the Flintstones.”
For years, their ranks have included workers who entered the United States illegally, according to two former members of the crew. Another employee, still with the company, said that remains true today.
Trump falsely claims, “if you were President and you had a good economy, you were basically immune from criticism.”
President Donald Trump kicked Tuesday off with a stunning declaration: he believes he should be “immune from criticism.”
Trump announced his expectation in an unusually-early, wide-ranging tweetstorm attacking the free press, including The New York Times, Paul Krugman, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” CNN, and Chris Cuomo. He also attacked the social media platform Twitter and the “Radical Left Democrats.” Starting at 5:59 AM he posted 12 tweets in rapid-fire succession in under two hours.
The President said he longed for the “old days,” when, “if you were President and you had a good economy, you were basically immune from criticism.”
Two Generations of Tax Cheating, and Now He Holds Himself and His Family Above the Law
Donald J. Trump and his team have now openly declared that he is above the law rather than, as our Constitution provides, a public servant whose duty is to faithfully execute the law.
His administration is taking numerous steps that move us in the direction of a Trumpian dictatorship by defeating the rule of law, something I’ve warned about since 2016. We’ll look at one aspect of this today: Trump family taxes.
Trump and his team insist that no one is ever going to see his tax returns, which he promised voters he would make public as every president has done back to Richard Nixon.
Late last month, the Trump Organization decided to clear-cut a bunch of large trees at Trump National DC, its golf course in Loudoun County, Virginia. Then, they just threw all the trees in the Potomac River.
However, it turns out that it was a protected area, and therefore removing the trees — not to mention throwing them in the river — was completely illegal.
First there’s the part where tossing the trees in the river is a safety hazard. Then there’s the fact that regulations require permits to cut down trees on that part of the river because it is designated as being prone to flood. Next, this was no small removal operation; Loudoun County officials said that the golf course cleared nearly three-quarters of an acre of land. Finally, removing the trees leads to increased sediment in the water and ends up, eventually, polluting the Chesapeake Bay.
Yesterday, the stakes of Kavanaugh’s nomination were raised even higher after Michael Cohen alleged under oath Donald Trump was a co-conspirator in a crime meant to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. The Senate should not confirm a nominee that believes the president is above the law, and Senate Republicans should delay his confirmation hearing.
Kavanaugh refused to say that the president must comply with a subpoena or provide records in an investigation.
Our Constitutional system of separation of power and checks and balances provides that the members of each branch of government be protected from legal consequences for performing their constitutionally mandated functions. Thus, Article I of the Constitution explicitly immunizes from arrest all members of Congress “during their attendance at the Sessions of their respected Houses, and in going to and returning from the same.” This immunity, though limited, protects legislators from arrest for actions for which ordinary citizens could be prosecuted. This limited immunity does not put them “above” the law, since it is the law itself that provides the immunity.
Judges, too, are immunized from not only from criminal prosecution, but also from civil liability for actions taken within their judicial authority. This is how the Supreme Court put it in Stump v. Sparkman (in which a young woman sued the circuit judge who had tricked her into being involuntarily sterilized by misinforming her that it was an appendectomy!): “The governing principle of law is well established, and is not questioned by the parties. As early as 1872, the court recognized that it was ‘a general principle of the highest importance to the proper administration of justice that a judicial officer, in exercising the authority vested in him, [should] be free to act upon his own convictions, without apprehension of personal consequences to himself.’” Continue reading “No one is above the law”
OSSINING, N.Y. — For nearly two decades, the Trump Organization has relied on a roving crew of Latin American employees to build fountains and waterfalls, sidewalks and rock walls at the company’s winery and its golf courses from New York to Florida.
