Tag: Trump wants to be a dictator

Authoritarians Are Always Gangsters

Authoritarian governments almost always operate in a style that resembles organized crime outfits. Despite their ostentatious populism, such regimes exist to enrich thuggish rulers and enable corruption in high places. The Trump administration is a perfect example.

But in order to maintain an aura of legitimacy, especially in a country with democratic norms and traditions, authoritarian bosses constantly proclaim their devotion to justice, their determination to right wrongs, and their adherence to law and order. So even as President Donald Trump and his attorney general, Bill Barr, pervert the legal system to cover up official crimes and protect presidential cronies, they are creating a narrative of justification for those acts.

From the very beginning of the Russia investigation, Trump has aimed to derail investigations of appointees and associates who might implicate him in criminal activity. He urged James Comey, then the FBI director, to bury the investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s unlawful conduct. Then he fired Comey, and later he repeatedly tried to get rid of special counsel Robert Mueller. The Mueller Report describes in appalling detail a dozen attempts by Trump to kill the investigation. Continue reading.

Roger Stone asks for new trial

The Hill logoAttorneys for Roger Stone on Friday requested a new trial, a day after saying they were looking into potential bias by a juror who voted to convict the longtime Trump associate of lying to Congress and witness tampering.

The request also comes after President Trump accused the juror of harboring “significant bias” following reports that her social media activity contained posts that were critical of Trump.

“Now it looks like the fore person in the jury, in the Roger Stone case, had significant bias. Add that to everything else, and this is not looking good for the “Justice” Department. @foxandfriends @FoxNews,” Trump tweeted Thursday. Continue reading.

Trump maintains he can intervene in cases after Barr urges him to curb tweeting

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Friday asserted he has “the legal right” to insert himself into the Justice Department’s handling of criminal cases one day after Attorney General William Barr said the president’s tweets were making his job more difficult.

Trump cited Barr’s comments from an ABC News interview in which the attorney general said Trump had not asked him to take certain action in a criminal case.

“This doesn’t mean that I do not have, as President, the legal right to do so, I do, but I have so far chosen not to!” Trump tweeted. Continue reading.

Trump renews his national emergency despite losing the primary rationale for it

Washington Post logoBut a key secondary rationale — fulfilling his campaign promise — remains

One year ago, President Trump capitulated in a fight with Congress over funding for a border wall, deciding instead to enact a national emergency that would allow him to repurpose money for it. After a few legal battles, Trump got his way; the Pentagon freed up billions of dollars and Trump’s wall — a centerpiece of his 2016 campaign — got underway. Mexico wasn’t paying for it as Trump had promised, but someone was, and that was good enough.

There’s stark contrast between that fight and the dry, pro forma announcement from the White House on Thursday that extended the national emergency for a second year. Congress is mandated to review the declaration every six months and has done so, but its determination that the emergency should be ended was met with presidential vetoes.

Paired with Thursday’s announcement was a news report on how the Pentagon was still reorganizing pools of money to meet Trump’s needs. Another $3.8 billion will be diverted from purchasing new aircraft and drones, upgrading vehicles and making other purchases so that more wall can be built in this crucial election year. Continue reading.

Trump Places Loyalists in Key Jobs Inside the White House While Raging Against Enemies Outside

New York Times logoPresident Trump had a busy morning on Twitter and the radio, in a tirade that rivaled his most grievance-filled moments since becoming president.

WASHINGTON — President Trump made a number of staff moves on Thursday to ensure he will be surrounded by a cadre of loyalists at the White House even as he raged against an ever-growing cast of perceived enemies that included his former chief of staff, an impeachment witness, a juror he accused of bias and a Democratic rival.

The White House announced the return of Hope Hicks, the president’s former communications director and one of his closest advisers. The move consolidated the position of Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and adviser, and signaled the waning influence of Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff.

Ms. Hicks will serve as a counselor to the president, reporting to Mr. Kushner. Her return to the president’s side after his acquittal in the impeachment inquiry is an indication that Mr. Trump is seeking to reassemble as best he can the small, intensely devoted team of family members and friends who helped guide him to an improbable victory in 2016. Continue reading.

Trump is taking a sledgehammer to judicial independence

When Trump interferes with the proper exercise of power, as he did with Roger Stone, he puts at risk the life, liberty and reputation of every American

During a radio interview in November 2017 Donald Trump talked openly about his frustration with the fact that “because I’m the president of the United States, I am not supposed to be involved with the justice department … I’m not supposed to be doing the kind of things that I would love to be doing.”

The Department of Justice’s sudden about-face in the Roger Stone case is just the latest indication that Trump no longer will put up with that particular frustration and will, when it suits him, weaponize that department.

On Monday, federal prosecutors filed a sentencing memo recommending that Stone serve a jail term of seven to nine years after having been found guilty last year of crimes including obstruction of justice, lying to Congress and witness tampering. That recommendation hewed closely to the federal sentencing guidelines. Continue reading.

Trump lashes out with a dangerous lie at the federal judge overseeing Roger Stone’s case

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump lashed out Tuesday night at Amy Berman Jackson, a federal judge who has overseen several key cases that arose from former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. She is currently presiding over the case against longtime Trump friend Roger Stone, who is due to be sentenced soon after being found guilty of lying to Congress and attempting to impede its Russia investigation.

In response to a tweet naming Jackson, Trump tweeted: “Is this the Judge that put Paul Manafort in SOLITARY CONFINEMENT, something that not even mobster Al Capone had to endure? How did she treat Crooked Hillary Clinton? Just asking!”

Judge Jackson did send Manafort to prison ahead of his trial in the summer of 2018, finding that he had violated the terms of his release. But judges do not determine the conditions prisoners are kept in; those decisions are made by the prisons and jails that house inmates. Continue reading.

Trump attacks federal judge, prosecutors in Twitter tirade defending Roger Stone

Washington Post logoAs the fallout from the controversy surrounding Roger Stone’s prison term continued Tuesday night, President Trump defended his longtime confidant by firing off a barrage of heated tweets attacking the federal judge and prosecutors involved in the case.

Over the course of roughly two hours, Trump cranked out six blasts about the handling of Stone’s sentencing, including one that targeted U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is presiding over the case.

He implied that Jackson harbored some broad bias, linking the Stone case to her role in the sentencing of his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and her dismissal of a lawsuit against former secretary of state Hillary Clinton related to Benghazi, Libya. Continue reading.

Prosecutors quit amid escalating Justice Dept. fight over Roger Stone’s prison term

Washington Post logoAll four career prosecutors handling the case against Roger Stone withdrew from the legal proceedings Tuesday — and one quit his job entirely — after the Justice Department signaled it planned to undercut their sentencing recommendation for President Trump’s longtime friend and confidant.

The sudden and dramatic moves came after prosecutors and their superiors had argued for days over the appropriate penalty for Stone, and exposed what some career Justice Department employees say is a continuing pattern of the historically independent law enforcement institution being bent to Trump’s political will.

Almost simultaneously, Trump decided to revoke the nomination to a top Treasury Department post of his former U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia, who had supervised the Stone case when it went to trial. Continue reading.

Trump’s latest rally stunts are designed to get you to surrender

Washington Post logoIn the end, many of President Trump’s ugliest degradations — the nonstop lying, the constant efforts to undermine faith in our political system, the relentless delegitimization of the opposition — often seem to converge in some sense on a single, overarching goal:

To get you to give up.

To give up on what, exactly? On the prospects for accountability for Trump, via mediating institutions such as the media, or via other branches of government, or even via the next election, and more broadly, on the very notion that our political system is capable of rendering outcomes that have not been thoroughly corrupted to their core. Continue reading.