Lmao

From the evening blues tonight. If you haven’t read this yet I recommend that you do.

Trump May Face Prosecution — but Not for His War Crimes

Donald Trump’s instantly infamous Georgia phone call has rightly spurred calls for action against the soon-to-be former president. And with good reason: It was a clear attempt by the president of the United States to pressure and threaten state officials to “find” nonexistent votes that would cancel the will of the voters. But when asked on Monday about impeaching Trump for the call, a top House Democrat, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, demurred, using a familiar phrase: “We’re not looking backwards, we’re looking forward.” Jeffries’s words were almost verbatim what then-President Barack Obama said when he decided not to prosecute anyone involved with the CIA’s torture program.
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Trump’s imminent departure from power poses a fascinating question about accountability politics in Washington, D.C. For four years, Trump has flouted basic rules of law, profited off the presidency, used executive powers to protect and enrich his friends, and committed acts amounting to basic crimes that would have been prosecuted if committed by an ordinary person. In short, Trump has abused the powers of the presidency for personal gain.

Calls are mounting for post-presidency prosecution of Trump and with very good reason. But they center around Trump’s personal and brazen crookedness. On the issue of his war crimes? Nothing. There is no movement demanding he be prosecuted under international law for the assassination of an Iranian military official on the territory of a third country. No calls for prosecution for proudly aiding and abetting the genocidal campaign of terror being waged by the Saudis in Yemen. No inquiries planned for his policy changes that allowed for even greater widespread killing of civilians in U.S. military operations.
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The dominant rationale about Obama’s “look forward as opposed to looking backward” doctrine, which he first enunciated as president-elect, was that it would have been catastrophic for morale at the CIA if Obama’s administration prosecuted the torturers. The narrative was that Obama found the abuses of the Bush era appalling, was firmly against them, and would have used the law in an ideal world to seek justice, but was ultimately hamstrung by the complexities of governing and keeping the country safe. Obama, the logic held, couldn’t afford to make an enemy of the CIA. But look no further than the warm friendship that the Obamas developed with the Bush family over these past 12 years to see how utterly vapid that narrative is. Obama has chosen to be a good friend and image rehabilitator of the most culpable figure, Bush. The message is not only that Obama would not hold them accountable for technical reasons, but also that he doesn’t believe they even needed to be held accountable morally. Bush can lead his happy life as a painter and playfully pass mints to Michelle Obama. Torture? War crimes? That’s so 2008.
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The Trump era has brought many comparisons to the demise of Richard Nixon and his notion that “when the president does it, that means it is not illegal.” The comparison is appropriate because Trump actually said, “When somebody is president of the United States, the authority is total. And that’s the way it’s got to be.” But this was essentially what Obama’s Justice Department argued when it intervened in June 2009 to defend former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other U.S. officials accused of torture and death at Guantánamo Bay prison.

The Center for Constitutional Rights had filed a civil suit against Rumsfeld and 23 other military and medical officials “for their role in the illegal detention, torture, inhumane conditions and ultimate deaths” of two Guantánamo prisoners. Attorney General Eric Holder’s office intervened in the case to argue that, under the Westfall Act, Rumsfeld and the others could not be held responsible for their conduct.

The Westfall Act was passed in 1988 as an amendment to the Federal Tort Claims Act “to protect federal employees from personal liability for common law torts committed within the scope of their employment, while providing persons injured by the common law torts of federal employees with an appropriate remedy against the United States.” After Westfall, the government assumed legal responsibility for suits filed against federal employees, effectively blocking attempts to hold individual officials accountable.

That law was used by attorneys general in both the Bush and Obama administrations to attempt to absolve senior Bush officials of liability for their alleged role in crimes and to make the government liable. On June 26, 2009, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division Tony West wrote that “the type of activities alleged against the individual defendants were ‘foreseeable’ and were ‘a direct outgrowth’ of their responsibility to detain and gather intelligence from suspected enemy combatants.” In defending the government’s position, West cited case law, stating “genocide, torture, forced relocation, and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment by individual defendants employed by Department of Defense and State Department were within scope of employment,” and similar cases justifying CIA torture as part of official duty.

It really was an astonishing admission from the Obama Justice Department: Genocide, torture, and forced relocation are just part of the job for some American officials. (West is Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’s brother-in-law and a contender for the attorney general position under Biden).

(This is the 2nd person who has ties to Kamala’s family that is going to be in Biden’s administration. The other one worked for Lift and wants to have California’s prop 22 go national. But Trump and family are the biggest grifters in history. Right? -sd)

I have been seeing many people saying this same thing. "Let’s look forward and not backwards" and people are ticked as hell. But as Jeremy states, US presidents are above the law.

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After all they are all on the same team! SMH

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7 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@humphrey

it also goes into detail for why they didn't. People are really going to see that all presidents are above the law when Trump just walks away. NYC might get him on taxes, but jail time? I doubt it.

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8 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Shahryar's picture

getting rid of Biden.

I've pictured this process as getting rid of each obstacle in turn. Its not just Trump and Biden. There's thousands of 'em! But the first step was removing Trump. After all, if there are trees down on the road you want to take, it doesn't make sense to start with the 2nd tree. Move the 1st, then the 2nd.

We have 4 years to get this done. Forget Bernie or AOC. They'll say good things and even do some good things but they don't know how to take over the Dems.

In two weeks+ I'll have more to say on this. First I want to see Trump actually gone.

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11 users have voted.

@Shahryar [video:https://youtu.be/NITSpcWduvA]

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5 users have voted.

Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes

ggersh's picture

they ain't sending one of their own to jail. No matter the crime they won't do any time

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8 users have voted.

I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

vtcc73's picture

Prosecutions have become,like everything in the US, political. There is no room in a free society for prosecuting people for political crimes. Prosecuting elected political leaders is a really thorny issue. Prosecuting a president for corruption and abuse of power or war crimes is about as tough a choice as there is. The Constitution has a remedy for abuse of power, corruption, and greater crimes like waging an aggressive war for funzies like Shrub the Younger did. Even going after trump for the most egregious (where to start?) crosses the Rubicon. Government would be locked down tight from that point onward. Unfortunately, that is what both sides are counting on. This country has been doing more outrageously illegal things the past 20 years with every administration. They’re not even really pretending to hide what they’re doing.

More unfortunate is the truth that without a reconciliation there is no moving forward. We are stuck with what we have done unjustly. This is the history, I’d call it the soul, of America. We do not examine much less make amends for the wrongs we do. We will continue like we are until we can be honest with ourselves and make the necessary amends.

We barely acknowledge that slavery was written into our Constitution and only abolished by the most damaging war in our history. We never reconciled or atoned for that sin against humanity. It is in our bones. We continue as we always have and won’t stop until we self destruct or have a serious come to Jeebus meeting with ourselves.

And that right there is the problem - us. I’ve said here before that trump is simply a symptom of what is wrong with the people. We have been happy to accept everything our government has done in our name for my entire life except for a brief period where a very small minority of people fought for civil rights for all and against the Vietnam War. We’re fighting among ourselves right now. Half love what their team is doing which is little different from what the people on the other team did that they hated. In less than two weeks the compass will swap poles but nothing will change except who is happy with this sorry state of affairs. It’s fucking insane.

What’s worse is that there is no way out of our situation.

I’m going to leave my comment here, incomplete. I’m in el Centro having a late breakfast before doing errands. I have more for later.

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12 users have voted.

"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..."

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4 users have voted.

"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

edg's picture

If Comey is against it, everyone else should be for it. If Comey is for it, everyone else should be against it.

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5 users have voted.

I am not shocked at all. Trump has a big flappy mouth, God only knows what quiet part he'd let slip out if prosecuted. They may hate him but they'll not take that risk.

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6 users have voted.

Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

snoopydawg's picture

@lizzyh7

Maybe that’s why Trump has been throwing out hints that he might declassify everything including JFK and hopefully 9/11. Imagine knowing all of the dirty secrets. I wonder if that might be in the Wikileaks files. I don’t think that they have crossed the deadman’s red line yet. Hoping with fingers and toes crossed.

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7 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.