Tag: Trump abuse of the rule of law

‘Absolutely daft’: Constitutional law professor explains why Trump’s blanket defiance of subpoenas is ‘without precedent or legal justification’

AlterNet logoWhen Democrats achieved a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2018, it wasn’t difficult to predict that there would be a lot of investigations and subpoenas from Democrat-led House committees. But President Donald Trump has consistently responded to subpoenas — both before and during the Ukraine scandal — by demanding that those in his administration defy them. And according to law professor Frank O. Bowman III, who teaches at the University of Missouri, the anti-subpoena arguments Trump and his allies have been making during his impeachment are “without precedent or legal justification.”

Bowman, in a January 28 article for The Atlantic, explains why Trumpian anti-subpoena assertions are so flawed. And Colin Kalmbacher, in Law & Crime, highlights some of Bowman’s best arguments.

Patrick Philbin, one of Trump’s attorneys, has claimed that the subpoenas issued by House committees prior to a House vote authorizing an impeachment inquiry are not valid. But Bowman strongly disagrees with Philbin’s reasoning — or lack thereof. Continue reading.

Barr’s ‘suspicious’ decision to ignore a federal judge’s order over the release of Flynn transcripts put the AG in major jeopardy: legal scholars

In interviews with a constitutional law scholar and a former federal prosecutor, a conservative columnist for the Washington Post highlighted the fact that Attorney Bill Barr’s refusal to turn over transcripts of phone calls between Donald Trump’s national security advisor Michael Flynn and the Russians is not only suspicious — but puts Barr on the spot with the judge for refusing.

According to Jennifer Rubin, legal scholar Laurence Tribe said Barr may have created a major headache for himself by defying a court order.

Noting that, “Federal prosecutors on Friday declined to make public transcripts of recorded conversations between Michael Flynn and Russia’s ambassador to the United States in December 2016, despite a judge’s order,” Tribe said Barr’s Justice Department broke with legal protocols.

View the complete June 2 article by Tom Boggioni from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Statement by Former Federal Prosecutors: Trump Behavior Would Have Resulted in Multiple Felony Charles for Obstruction

We are former federal prosecutors. We served under both Republican and Democratic administrations at different levels of the federal system: as line attorneys, supervisors, special prosecutors, United States Attorneys, and senior officials at the Department of Justice. The offices in which we served were small, medium, and large; urban, suburban, and rural; and located in all parts of our country.

Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.

The Mueller report describes several acts that satisfy all of the elements for an obstruction charge: conduct that obstructed or attempted to obstruct the truth-finding process, as to which the evidence of corrupt intent and connection to pending proceedings is overwhelming. These include:

View the complete May 6 post (which more former prosecutors have been adding their names to, as of this posting the number was 690) on the Medium website here.