Before We Just Slide Into Dictatorship, Do You Think That Maybe We Could Get a Ruling on Subpoenas?
February 14th 2020
William Barr - Caricature (DonkeyHotey)
By Dartagnan (of the Daily Kos community)
So William Barr says, sure, he’ll be happy to explain why he intervened to put the kibosh on his own Justice Department team’s sentencing recommendation for convicted liar and witness tamperer, Roger Stone. Just as soon as he gets around to it.
Just let me consult my busy calendar, he says...How’s about March 31, at the earliest? No? That doesn’t satisfy you? You think by that time I won’t have shut down every single investigation into Trump’s money laundering operation for Putin, Inc., purged every Justice Department employee who took his oath to the Constitution seriously, and muscled Ukraine into concocting more dirt on Joe Biden’s son—and anyone else, for that matter-- just to make sure the big guy enjoys an easy sail to re-election and my dominionist “end-times” pals can finish constructing their Death Star to blow up any remaining vestiges of American Democracy?
And then, you think I won’t just show up and lie, assuming I show up at all? Because one word from the big guy and I’ll just spend the week sipping Valpolicella in sunny Italy dredging up some more lies on the taxpayer’s dime! Or, maybe sharing a vodka toast, Skyping with my cronies in Kyiv! All he’s got to do is say, “don’t show up,” and I’m gone, boys! What, you’re going to do something about it, Congress? What are you going to do? Subpoena me?
The most egregious failure of the Democratic Congress in this Impeachment saga has been their reflexive unwillingness to call this Administration’s bluff and subpoena everyone from John Bolton to Mick Mulvaney to Stephen Miller--all of these psychopathic wretches all the way up to the fat, sociopathic, serial sexual assaulter himself, to testify before Congress. Oh no, we can’t do that—it’ll take years to wind through the Courts, the thinking went. And when it eventually makes its way to the Supremes, even worse, the thinking goes, the result could be a potentially disastrous ruling, eviscerating the Congress’ power of oversight, even oversight of a patently lawless administration, one that has scoffed at the very idea of legal process.
The thinking has been, well with the current makeup of the Supreme Court and its deference to Executive power, we couldn't possibly risk it. And with a Court now dominated by Federalist Society cultists, including one sexual harasser and an alleged attempted rapist, to boot, well, who knows what kind of country we'd end up with when the dust settles? Best keep our powder dry and hope we can get through what is obviously going to be an election dominated by social media disinformation spun out by the Russian Federation, Facebook and God knows how many others.
I've got some news for you, Congress. We're already there. We’re at DefCon One. We have a thoroughly corrupt Republican Senate eager to rubber-stamp whatever obscene dictatorial impulse this administration churns out as long as it helps their re-election prospects. We have exactly one half of one branch of government, one which, aside from finally deciding to impeach this odious con artist, has meekly deferred to the scary prospect of having its supposed "power" diminished by an ideologue judiciary. And we have a president thumbing his nose at our people’s Congress now that he’s been let off scot-free, and laughing all the way to Deutsche Bank about it.
So, no subpoenas. No exercise of "inherent contempt" to jail these merry scofflaws and compel them to risk a perjury rap. After all, it’s so “rarely” used. We’ll just wait for the Southern District of New York to do our heavy lifting for us, right? Meanwhile every institution from our federal agencies to the US Department of Justice has been shat upon by this team of self-dealing grifters engorging themselves at American citizens' expense.
If this is the America you're willing to settle for, I'll take a pass.
Even Ken Starr wasn't so timid, and all he had to work with was a president lying about a consensual blow job. What do you think he would have done, faced with a Democratic Donald Trump? He would have subpoenaed the fuck out of him, just like he did with Blll Clinton. What do you think a Republican Congress would do? There wouldn't be any handwringing or pearl-clutching over a potential "adverse ruling" from a Supreme Court, no matter how corrupt or cult-infested it was. The raw power of Congress to issue subpoenas is established law, in case anyone forgot.
And if the Roberts cabal says, “oh no we must defer to the text of the Constitution which doesn’t say anything about whether the President must comply with the nation's laws because he's a very special person charged with very solemn duties,” you know what Democrats should do? START A PROCESS TO AMEND THE FUCKING CONSTITUTION. It took a group of men in Philadelphia a few weeks to get that process rolling, as I recall. How hard would it be to pass an Amendment through two-thirds of the states that says the president, upon showing of good cause, can be compelled by Congress to comply with the nation’s laws?
The Federalist Society which has served as a clearinghouse for polluting our Federal Judiciary with Constitutional “originalists" and Executive power fanatics for the past three decades has an endgame in mind and it doesn’t involve anything remotely resembling a representative Republic. It's a Hobbesian fantasy where only the strongest (read: the richest) survive. That has been the end goal of every major conservative majority ruling from Citizens United to Justice Robert's disgraceful opinion gutting the Voting Right Act. If you don’t believe me, take a good look at the country we’ve become over the time that these politicized freaks of judges have been ascendant.
So, go ahead. Serve the subpoenas. When they're ignored, as they certainly will be, file the Motions. Ask for expedited hearings. When they appeal, ask for expedited hearings again. On every issue. Make them sweat. Ask these wonderful judges what could possibly be more important than investigating an Executive that now resembles nothing less than an organized crime syndicate. Ask them what other “pressing matters” they must defer to on their crowded dockets. The worst thing that could possibly happen is we find out just how threadbare our supposed legal system has become. We find out just how limited and pathetic this so-called "democracy" is. We’re certainly not going to be any worse off than where we are now, because these people are not going to stop.
Let's just get it all on record, let the chips fall. Jail the motherfuckers if they don’t cooperate, and let them file their own appeals. The way things are going right now there may never be another chance.
We were told we have a Republic, "if we can keep it."
Well, right now we're losing it.
Posted with permission