The Department of Justice is investigating whether Boeing knowingly lied to Federal Aviation Administration officials while working to get approval for the 737 Max, according to The New York Times.

Over the past several months, The Times reported, prosecutors have questioned several Boeing employees in front of a grand jury. The prosecutors specifically focused on whether Boeing's former chief pilot on the 737 Max project, Mark Forkner, had intentionally lied about a new flight-control system on the plane called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS).

MCAS was designed to make the 737 Max handle essentially identically to the previous version of the plane the 737 New Generation despite the Max planes having larger engines. Under certain conditions in which those larger engines could cause the plane's nose to drift upward potentially causing the plane to stall the MCAS software would activate and automatically adjust the airplane's trim, pointing the nose slightly down.

Design flaws in the MCAS software have been involved in two fatal 737 Max crashes that killed a combined 346 people.

Federal prosecutors issued a subpoena to Forkner last year for documents related to the plane's development, and Forkner invoked the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, according to The Seattle Times.

Forkner described "egregious" problems with MCAS in 2016 messages to another Boeing employee, Patrik Gustavsson, saying the software was "running rampant in the sim," in reference to flight-simulator tests.

In another message, he suggested that he had unintentionally misled the FAA about the issue.

"I basically lied to the regulators (unknowingly)," he said.

Earlier in 2016, Forkner asked the FAA for permission to remove mentions of the MCAS from the pilot manual for the 737 Max, saying it would activate only in rare cases and was designed to run in the background. The FAA approved the request.

"We are cooperating with the Justice Department's investigation," a Boeing spokesperson told The New York Times.

According to The Times, Forkner's lawyers have strongly denied that their client had misled regulators.

"Mark didn't lie to anyone," they said, according to The Times. "He did his job honestly, and his communications to the FAA were honest. As a pilot and Air Force vet, he would never jeopardize the safety of other pilots or their passengers. That is what any fair investigation would find."

The 737 Max has been grounded globally since the second crash, which occurred in March, as it works to complete and gain approval on a fix.

The grounding has led to a crisis at Boeing, which suffered its worst financial year in decades and saw CEO Dennis Muilenburg ousted over his handling of the situation.

Read the original post:

Boeing 737 Max: Prosecutors investigate whether company lied to FAA - Business Insider - Business Insider

Used properly and creatively, new technologies that open up the mind could let us know more about ourselves than we could gain from introspection, control far-flung environments, and even transcend the boundaries of self by participating in multi-brain networks. But such technologies may also allow unprecedented monitoring, loss of autonomy and liberty, discrimination, and loss of the default right to exclude others from the inner mental and physical self.

Existing laws, regulations, and business practices are no match for these prospects. As it stands now, nothing not the Constitution, not federal or state laws, and certainly not the user-consent agreements on neurotech products appropriately defines when and how neurotech devices may be used. Nothing limits access to the newly emerging class of information derived directly from our brains.

This matters greatly because an ability to get inside our minds creates concerns about privacy and autonomy that go beyond those presented by other kinds of data. Data from GPS and social media, for example, can inform others (appropriately or not) of facts we largely already know about ourselves and that we have expressed through our movements, clicks, and posts. Brain-derived data, by contrast, enables others to know things about us that we have not outwardly expressed and that we may not even know about ourselves, since we cannot know the workings of our brains by introspection. Unknown to us and outside of our control, these mental and neurological processes nevertheless may have greater predictive validity than other forms of data about our health and behavior.

WHAT COULD BE done with information derived from the brain? Large stores of data at the population level could advance neurological research. Long-term information about your brain activity could help you make lifestyle choices like identifying the best methods of reducing stress in your life. The data also could help you and your doctor spot neurological problems earlier than generally happens now.

But imagine, as well, the following scenarios:

An employer wants to reduce the risk of on-the-job disability, so it screens applicants for neurological markers that they are predisposed to chronic pain and depression.

A school system equips students with headbands that monitor their state of focus, restricting students cognitive freedom and perhaps justifying cutting back on teachers.

A gaming company tracks a users arousal patterns, fine-tuning the game to his or her precise tastes, inducing behavioral addiction.

A political campaign buys large volumes of neurological data from a data broker to identify individuals with hallmarks of impulsivity and aggression, then targets them with politically radical social media messaging and advertising.

Workers and students in some parts of the world already are made to wear headbands that read their brains EEG signals or are watched by affect recognition systems that monitor their attention and mood. The data from such systems may not truly be helpful or relevant; it may be of middling accuracy or provide an unrepresentative type of insight into performance. But given that employers, education systems, and governments have screened individuals using all kinds of dubious and debunked instruments, from handwriting analysis to spurious personality tests and unreliable polygraphs, even inappropriate neurotechnologies could be put into widespread use and have substantial consequences.

The holes in existing privacy laws are easy to see. Health privacy laws, for example, dictate that if a device transmits information about your mood to your doctor, your doctor has to keep the information confidential. But if the same information is also held by the device manufacturer, or you keep it on an app on your phone, the device manufacturer and app maker are not bound by these obligations. Many of the new neurotech devices dont even have medical applications.

In the realm of criminal law, apart from the warrant requirement under the Fourth Amendment, nothing limits the ability of the state to obtain and use neurological information to probe memory, evaluate veracity, or predict future risk. The Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate oneself and the First Amendment protection against compelled speech also may fail to apply. Just as the state can cause a person to take a blood-alcohol test but cannot make him admit that he is drunk, the state potentially could require a suspect to undergo a neurological test when it cannot compel him to make a statement.

ON THE CUSP of becoming transparent by default, we need to consider how to shape the kind of open-minded world we want.

Frequently, the United States avoids regulation by relying on the notion of consent. We allow individuals to opt into all kinds of things, including the sale of our data. That apparent liberty is taken off the table only in a few cases, mostly relating to sale of the self and physical body. But consent is meaningless where there are great asymmetries of power or knowledge. If employers require certain neurological testing or monitoring, how free is an individual to make the choice not to be employed? If neurological data harvested from an individual today could be used against that person five years into the future, in a way that is currently unforeseeable, how meaningful was the consent? Consent falls apart if a person cannot know the content of that to which they are consenting.

Another option would be to selectively restrict the conduct of companies or organizations that would use neurotechnologies. A visionary piece of legislation preventing discrimination based on biological data, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, GINA, provides a model for how to allow progress in scientific and commercial development while limiting related social ills. The 2008 law prohibits genetic discrimination in employment and health insurance coverage by blocking employers and insurers from mandating DNA testing. But a pitfall of this approach is apparent as well. Only 12 years later, employers and insurers can now obtain genetic information from third-party providers just as law enforcement currently accesses third-party GPS and genetic data.

A third approach could be to regulate neurotech devices and data in a manner that focuses on the values we want to protect, as GINA does, with some of the adaptability of successful anti-discrimination laws. For example, the Americans with Disabilities Act broadly prohibits employers from discriminating based on an individuals disability or the employers perception of disability. This transcends specific facts or acts; it does not specify the conditions that constitute disabilities, the particular conduct that amounts to discrimination, or the particular accommodations that employers have to make. This protects workers who are in jobs that didnt exist when the law was drafted and whose needs can be met with tools that didnt exist at the time.

Neurotech and the information it generates touch on values core to American society, from nondiscrimination to cognitive liberty and self-determination. The right way to guard these values, before we lose them unwittingly, is for authoritative bodies to convene wide-ranging conversations among developers, investors, researchers, citizens of many perspectives, law enforcement, ethicists, lawyers, and lawmakers to describe the precise harms that could occur and values that require safeguards. Eventually, it may even be wise to have a standing body to regulate uses of this technology in light of established, consensus principles.

The key is to start these conversations now and then legislate incrementally and appropriately, so that we do not mindlessly slide into our open-mindedness.

Amanda Pustilnik is a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law and a faculty member at the Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Here is the original post:

The perils of opening the mind - The Boston Globe

from the all-writs-v.-5th-amendment-v.-throwing-away-the-key dept

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has finally decided -- after more than four years -- that the government can't keep someone locked up indefinitely for contempt of court charges.

Former Philadelphia policeman Francis Rawls has been locked up since 2015 for refusing to decrypt external hard drives the government claims contain child porn images. The government's claims are based on Rawls' sister's statements. She said Rawls showed her "hundreds" of child porn images that were located on these drives.

The government obtained an All Writs Order demanding Rawls decrypt the devices. This was challenged by Rawls, but unfortunately he did not preserve a Fifth Amendment challenge, so the Appeals Court let the government have its victory. It was a limited victory. It still had two locked drives Rawls claimed he could not remember the passwords for. But it also had Rawls jailed on civil contempt charges.

Rawls will be a free man again, but probably not for long. He challenged the indefinite incarceration, asserting that the law only provides for a maximum of 18 months in jail for civil contempt charges. The court [PDF] agrees:

On September 30, 2015, Rawls was incarcerated for civil contempt after he failed to comply with a court order that he produce several of his seized devices in a fully unencrypted state. Since that day, more than four years ago, Rawls has been held in federal custody. Rawls seeks release arguing that 28 U.S.C. 1826 limits his maximum permissible confinement for civil contempt to 18 months.

Because we conclude 1826 applies to Rawls, we will reverse the order of the District Court and order Rawls release.

The government argued this statute does not apply to Rawls, since he is the one charged with crimes, rather than a witness to a crime, as 1826(a) states:

Whenever a witness in any proceeding before or ancillary to any court or grand jury of the United States refuses without just cause shown to comply with an order of the court to testify or provide other information, including any book, paper, document, record, recording or other material, the court, upon such refusal, or when such refusal is duly brought to its attention, may summarily order his confinement at a suitable place until such time as the witness is willing to give such testimony or provide such information.

Rawls pointed out he is a witness in this case. The government wants him to give up passwords to hard drives likely containing evidence to be used against him. That makes him both a witness and a criminal suspect. Production of these passwords would be testimonial -- information Rawls may know (the passwords) that the government does not. The simple act of producing passwords is itself testimonial. It allows the government to infer Rawls had control of the drives and knowledge of their contents.

The precedent the government relies on here isn't on point:

There is a significant difference between a contempt confinement for failure to provide information and confinement for failure to stop actively harassing court personnel. Unlike the contemnor in Harris, Rawls is being asked to provide information in a proceeding and is therefore a witness under 1826(a).

Furthermore, as the concurring opinion points out, the government's insistence these hard drives be unlocked and that Rawls remained jailed until they are, appears to be completely redundant and unnecessarily cruel.

[B]ased on the evidence in the record (as briefly summarized by Judge Fuentes), it appears that the Government is insisting that Rawls incarceration for contempt be continued even though it already possesses sufficient evidence of Rawls possession and production of child pornography to obtain a conviction under various subsections of 18 U.S.C. 2251 and 2252. In fact, Rawls own sisters testimony regarding Rawls possession of a video of his two nieces, aged four and six, may very well be sufficient to convict him of possession and/or production of child pornography involving a minor in his custody or control.

The government appears to want to punish Rawls simply for being uncooperative and to continue this punishment as long as possible before he faces an even longer sentence for the alleged crimes.

I therefore cannot fathom why the Government is so insistent upon further gilding the lily with the evidence that may well be in the encrypted files on the disputed hard drives and demanding his imprisonment until he coughs up that evidence. There may well be some justification for insisting that Rawls be imprisoned on contempt charges before his all but certain prosecution for child pornography and the very severe sentences he would be exposed to if convicted for the latter offenses, but such justification for the Governments conduct here certainly escapes me.

This isn't a case where evidence necessary for a conviction remains out of reach. The government already has enough to pursue a decades-long sentence. Starting Rawls off with four years in jail before even bringing the case to trial is punishment for punishment's sake. It does not weaken the government's case if the drives remain encrypted. All it does is prevent the government from stacking counts as high as it apparently wants to, forcing it to work with the illegal images it has already recovered.

The Fifth Amendment question remains undisturbed for now. But at least in cases like these, where the government uses a 200-year-old law to compel decryption, it will only be able to lock up unwilling (but presumptively innocent) "witnesses" for 18 months, rather than for the rest of whatever.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, 5th amendment, contempt, decryption, francis rawls, indefinite confinement, passwords

Here is the original post:

Appeals Court Rules That People Can't Be Locked Up Indefinitely For Refusing To Decrypt Devices - Techdirt

SALEM A confusing situation from back in November that appeared to involve elements of road rage and an alleged carjacking concluded in court Monday, as the three menfacing chargesinvoked their Fifth Amendment right not to testify.

One of the men, Edward Kehoe Jr., 39, of 78 Walnut St., Saugus, was sentenced to 18 months on probation and must take a driving safety class after pleading guilty to driving after license suspension and driving to endanger during a hearing Monday in Salem District Court.

The remaining charges against Kehoe, including carjacking, were dismissed, as were carjacking and assault and battery charges against his friend, Brian Scott, 41, of 338 Main St., Wakefield.

A third man, Isaiah Davis, 23, of 10 Heritage Drive, Salem, was also cleared of charges of assault and battery causing serious bodily injury, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and leaving the scene of a property damage accident.

The three were arrested on the evening of Nov. 1, after a series of events that apparently started when Scott and Kehoe allegedly believed Davis had rear-ended them on Highland Avenue in Salem and then tried to flee. Witnesses said the men followed Davis to his home then pulled him from his car.

Kehoe then hopped into Davis's car and drove it away, over a traffic divider, damaging the vehicle.

Court filings show that punches were thrown throughout the confrontation.

But on Monday, as the case was scheduled for motions, it became clear that each of the three defendants had a Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination that would have been a factor in whether they were willing to testify.

As a result, all but the two charges involving Kehoe's decision to drive Scott's car were dropped.

Judge Carol-Ann Fraser imposed 18 months of probation on Kehoe, with a required National Safety Council driver training class. He will also be required to pay restitution, to be determined April 10.

Kehoe's attorney, Patrick O'Malley, told the judge that his client is still suffering the effects of a head injury he received during the incident.

Courts reporter Julie Manganis can be reached at 978-338-2521, by email at jmanganis@salemnews.com or on Twitter at @SNJulieManganis.

See the original post:

Few answers as three men in November confrontation take the 5th - The Salem News

.current-menu-item > a, .td-header-wrap .black-menu .sf-menu > .current-menu-ancestor > a, .td-header-wrap .black-menu .sf-menu > .current-category-ancestor > a, .td-header-wrap .black-menu .sf-menu > li > a:hover, .td-header-wrap .black-menu .sf-menu > .sfHover > a, .td-header-style-12 .td-header-menu-wrap-full, .sf-menu > .current-menu-item > a:after, .sf-menu > .current-menu-ancestor > a:after, .sf-menu > .current-category-ancestor > a:after, .sf-menu > li:hover > a:after, .sf-menu > .sfHover > a:after, .td-header-style-12 .td-affix, .header-search-wrap .td-drop-down-search:after, .header-search-wrap .td-drop-down-search .btn:hover, input[type=submit]:hover, .td-read-more a, .td-post-category:hover, .td-grid-style-1.td-hover-1 .td-big-grid-post:hover .td-post-category, .td-grid-style-5.td-hover-1 .td-big-grid-post:hover .td-post-category, .td_top_authors .td-active .td-author-post-count, .td_top_authors .td-active .td-author-comments-count, .td_top_authors .td_mod_wrap:hover .td-author-post-count, .td_top_authors .td_mod_wrap:hover .td-author-comments-count, .td-404-sub-sub-title a:hover, .td-search-form-widget .wpb_button:hover, .td-rating-bar-wrap div, .td_category_template_3 .td-current-sub-category, .dropcap, .td_wrapper_video_playlist .td_video_controls_playlist_wrapper, .wpb_default, .wpb_default:hover, .td-left-smart-list:hover, .td-right-smart-list:hover, .woocommerce-checkout .woocommerce input.button:hover, .woocommerce-page .woocommerce a.button:hover, .woocommerce-account div.woocommerce .button:hover, #bbpress-forums button:hover, .bbp_widget_login .button:hover, .td-footer-wrapper .td-post-category, .td-footer-wrapper .widget_product_search input[type="submit"]:hover, .woocommerce .product a.button:hover, .woocommerce .product #respond input#submit:hover, .woocommerce .checkout input#place_order:hover, .woocommerce .woocommerce.widget .button:hover, .single-product .product .summary .cart .button:hover, .woocommerce-cart .woocommerce table.cart .button:hover, .woocommerce-cart .woocommerce .shipping-calculator-form .button:hover, .td-next-prev-wrap a:hover, .td-load-more-wrap a:hover, .td-post-small-box a:hover, .page-nav .current, .page-nav:first-child > div, .td_category_template_8 .td-category-header .td-category a.td-current-sub-category, .td_category_template_4 .td-category-siblings .td-category a:hover, #bbpress-forums .bbp-pagination .current, #bbpress-forums #bbp-single-user-details #bbp-user-navigation li.current a, .td-theme-slider:hover .slide-meta-cat a, a.vc_btn-black:hover, .td-trending-now-wrapper:hover .td-trending-now-title, .td-scroll-up, .td-smart-list-button:hover, .td-weather-information:before, .td-weather-week:before, .td_block_exchange .td-exchange-header:before, .td_block_big_grid_9.td-grid-style-1 .td-post-category, .td_block_big_grid_9.td-grid-style-5 .td-post-category, .td-grid-style-6.td-hover-1 .td-module-thumb:after, .td-pulldown-syle-2 .td-subcat-dropdown ul:after, .td_block_template_9 .td-block-title:after, .td_block_template_15 .td-block-title:before, div.wpforms-container .wpforms-form div.wpforms-submit-container button[type=submit] { background-color: #1e73be; } .td_block_template_4 .td-related-title .td-cur-simple-item:before { border-color: #1e73be transparent transparent transparent !important; } .woocommerce .woocommerce-message .button:hover, .woocommerce .woocommerce-error .button:hover, .woocommerce .woocommerce-info .button:hover { background-color: #1e73be !important; } .td_block_template_4 .td-related-title .td-cur-simple-item, .td_block_template_3 .td-related-title .td-cur-simple-item, .td_block_template_9 .td-related-title:after { background-color: #1e73be; } .woocommerce .product .onsale, .woocommerce.widget .ui-slider .ui-slider-handle { background: none #1e73be; } .woocommerce.widget.widget_layered_nav_filters ul li a { background: none repeat scroll 0 0 #1e73be !important; } a, cite a:hover, .td_mega_menu_sub_cats .cur-sub-cat, .td-mega-span h3 a:hover, .td_mod_mega_menu:hover .entry-title a, .header-search-wrap .result-msg a:hover, .td-header-top-menu .td-drop-down-search .td_module_wrap:hover .entry-title a, .td-header-top-menu .td-icon-search:hover, .td-header-wrap .result-msg a:hover, .top-header-menu li a:hover, .top-header-menu .current-menu-item > a, .top-header-menu .current-menu-ancestor > a, .top-header-menu .current-category-ancestor > a, .td-social-icon-wrap > a:hover, .td-header-sp-top-widget .td-social-icon-wrap a:hover, .td-page-content blockquote p, .td-post-content blockquote p, .mce-content-body blockquote p, .comment-content blockquote p, .wpb_text_column blockquote p, .td_block_text_with_title blockquote p, .td_module_wrap:hover .entry-title a, .td-subcat-filter .td-subcat-list a:hover, .td-subcat-filter .td-subcat-dropdown a:hover, .td_quote_on_blocks, .dropcap2, .dropcap3, .td_top_authors .td-active .td-authors-name a, .td_top_authors .td_mod_wrap:hover .td-authors-name a, .td-post-next-prev-content a:hover, .author-box-wrap .td-author-social a:hover, .td-author-name a:hover, .td-author-url a:hover, .td_mod_related_posts:hover h3 > a, .td-post-template-11 .td-related-title .td-related-left:hover, .td-post-template-11 .td-related-title .td-related-right:hover, .td-post-template-11 .td-related-title .td-cur-simple-item, .td-post-template-11 .td_block_related_posts .td-next-prev-wrap a:hover, .comment-reply-link:hover, .logged-in-as a:hover, #cancel-comment-reply-link:hover, .td-search-query, .td-category-header .td-pulldown-category-filter-link:hover, .td-category-siblings .td-subcat-dropdown a:hover, .td-category-siblings .td-subcat-dropdown a.td-current-sub-category, .widget a:hover, .td_wp_recentcomments a:hover, .archive .widget_archive .current, .archive .widget_archive .current a, .widget_calendar tfoot a:hover, .woocommerce a.added_to_cart:hover, .woocommerce-account .woocommerce-MyAccount-navigation a:hover, #bbpress-forums li.bbp-header .bbp-reply-content span a:hover, #bbpress-forums .bbp-forum-freshness a:hover, #bbpress-forums .bbp-topic-freshness a:hover, #bbpress-forums .bbp-forums-list li a:hover, #bbpress-forums .bbp-forum-title:hover, #bbpress-forums .bbp-topic-permalink:hover, #bbpress-forums .bbp-topic-started-by a:hover, #bbpress-forums .bbp-topic-started-in a:hover, #bbpress-forums .bbp-body .super-sticky li.bbp-topic-title .bbp-topic-permalink, #bbpress-forums .bbp-body .sticky li.bbp-topic-title .bbp-topic-permalink, .widget_display_replies .bbp-author-name, .widget_display_topics .bbp-author-name, .footer-text-wrap .footer-email-wrap a, .td-subfooter-menu li a:hover, .footer-social-wrap a:hover, a.vc_btn-black:hover, .td-smart-list-dropdown-wrap .td-smart-list-button:hover, .td_module_17 .td-read-more a:hover, .td_module_18 .td-read-more a:hover, .td_module_19 .td-post-author-name a:hover, .td-instagram-user a, .td-pulldown-syle-2 .td-subcat-dropdown:hover .td-subcat-more span, .td-pulldown-syle-2 .td-subcat-dropdown:hover .td-subcat-more i, .td-pulldown-syle-3 .td-subcat-dropdown:hover .td-subcat-more span, .td-pulldown-syle-3 .td-subcat-dropdown:hover .td-subcat-more i, .td-block-title-wrap .td-wrapper-pulldown-filter .td-pulldown-filter-display-option:hover, .td-block-title-wrap .td-wrapper-pulldown-filter .td-pulldown-filter-display-option:hover i, .td-block-title-wrap .td-wrapper-pulldown-filter .td-pulldown-filter-link:hover, .td-block-title-wrap .td-wrapper-pulldown-filter .td-pulldown-filter-item .td-cur-simple-item, .td_block_template_2 .td-related-title .td-cur-simple-item, .td_block_template_5 .td-related-title .td-cur-simple-item, .td_block_template_6 .td-related-title .td-cur-simple-item, .td_block_template_7 .td-related-title .td-cur-simple-item, .td_block_template_8 .td-related-title .td-cur-simple-item, .td_block_template_9 .td-related-title .td-cur-simple-item, .td_block_template_10 .td-related-title .td-cur-simple-item, .td_block_template_11 .td-related-title .td-cur-simple-item, .td_block_template_12 .td-related-title .td-cur-simple-item, .td_block_template_13 .td-related-title .td-cur-simple-item, .td_block_template_14 .td-related-title .td-cur-simple-item, .td_block_template_15 .td-related-title .td-cur-simple-item, .td_block_template_16 .td-related-title .td-cur-simple-item, .td_block_template_17 .td-related-title .td-cur-simple-item, .td-theme-wrap .sf-menu ul .td-menu-item > a:hover, .td-theme-wrap .sf-menu ul .sfHover > a, .td-theme-wrap .sf-menu ul .current-menu-ancestor > a, .td-theme-wrap .sf-menu ul .current-category-ancestor > a, .td-theme-wrap .sf-menu ul .current-menu-item > a, .td_outlined_btn { color: #1e73be; } a.vc_btn-black.vc_btn_square_outlined:hover, a.vc_btn-black.vc_btn_outlined:hover, .td-mega-menu-page .wpb_content_element ul li a:hover, .td-theme-wrap .td-aj-search-results .td_module_wrap:hover .entry-title a, .td-theme-wrap .header-search-wrap .result-msg a:hover { color: #1e73be !important; } .td-next-prev-wrap a:hover, .td-load-more-wrap a:hover, .td-post-small-box a:hover, .page-nav .current, .page-nav:first-child > div, .td_category_template_8 .td-category-header .td-category a.td-current-sub-category, .td_category_template_4 .td-category-siblings .td-category a:hover, #bbpress-forums .bbp-pagination .current, .post .td_quote_box, .page .td_quote_box, a.vc_btn-black:hover, .td_block_template_5 .td-block-title > *, .td_outlined_btn { border-color: #1e73be; } .td_wrapper_video_playlist .td_video_currently_playing:after { border-color: #1e73be !important; } .header-search-wrap .td-drop-down-search:before { border-color: transparent transparent #1e73be transparent; } .block-title > span, .block-title > a, .block-title > label, .widgettitle, .widgettitle:after, .td-trending-now-title, .td-trending-now-wrapper:hover .td-trending-now-title, .wpb_tabs li.ui-tabs-active a, .wpb_tabs li:hover a, .vc_tta-container .vc_tta-color-grey.vc_tta-tabs-position-top.vc_tta-style-classic .vc_tta-tabs-container .vc_tta-tab.vc_active > a, .vc_tta-container .vc_tta-color-grey.vc_tta-tabs-position-top.vc_tta-style-classic .vc_tta-tabs-container .vc_tta-tab:hover > a, .td_block_template_1 .td-related-title .td-cur-simple-item, .woocommerce .product .products h2:not(.woocommerce-loop-product__title), .td-subcat-filter .td-subcat-dropdown:hover .td-subcat-more, .td_3D_btn, .td_shadow_btn, .td_default_btn, .td_round_btn, .td_outlined_btn:hover { background-color: #1e73be; } .woocommerce div.product .woocommerce-tabs ul.tabs li.active { background-color: #1e73be !important; } .block-title, .td_block_template_1 .td-related-title, .wpb_tabs .wpb_tabs_nav, .vc_tta-container .vc_tta-color-grey.vc_tta-tabs-position-top.vc_tta-style-classic .vc_tta-tabs-container, .woocommerce div.product .woocommerce-tabs ul.tabs:before { border-color: #1e73be; } .td_block_wrap .td-subcat-item a.td-cur-simple-item { color: #1e73be;} .td-grid-style-4 .entry-title { background-color: rgba(30, 115, 190, 0.7); } .td-header-wrap .td-header-menu-social .td-social-icon-wrap a { color: #dd9933; }]]> .current-menu-item > a, .td-header-wrap .black-menu .sf-menu > .current-menu-ancestor > a, .td-header-wrap .black-menu .sf-menu > .current-category-ancestor > a, .td-header-wrap .black-menu .sf-menu > li > a:hover, .td-header-wrap .black-menu .sf-menu > .sfHover > a, .td-header-style-12 .td-header-menu-wrap-full, .sf-menu > .current-menu-item > a:after, .sf-menu > .current-menu-ancestor > a:after, .sf-menu > .current-category-ancestor > a:after, .sf-menu > li:hover > a:after, .sf-menu > .sfHover > a:after, .td-header-style-12 .td-affix, .header-search-wrap .td-drop-down-search:after, .header-search-wrap .td-drop-down-search .btn:hover, input[type=submit]:hover, .td-read-more a, .td-post-category:hover, .td-grid-style-1.td-hover-1 .td-big-grid-post:hover .td-post-category, .td-grid-style-5.td-hover-1 .td-big-grid-post:hover .td-post-category, .td_top_authors .td-active .td-author-post-count, .td_top_authors .td-active .td-author-comments-count, .td_top_authors .td_mod_wrap:hover .td-author-post-count, .td_top_authors .td_mod_wrap:hover .td-author-comments-count, .td-404-sub-sub-title a:hover, .td-search-form-widget .wpb_button:hover, .td-rating-bar-wrap div, .td_category_template_3 .td-current-sub-category, .dropcap, .td_wrapper_video_playlist .td_video_controls_playlist_wrapper, .wpb_default, .wpb_default:hover, .td-left-smart-list:hover, .td-right-smart-list:hover, .woocommerce-checkout .woocommerce input.button:hover, .woocommerce-page .woocommerce a.button:hover, .woocommerce-account div.woocommerce .button:hover, #bbpress-forums button:hover, .bbp_widget_login .button:hover, .td-footer-wrapper .td-post-category, .td-footer-wrapper .widget_product_search input[type="submit"]:hover, .woocommerce .product a.button:hover, .woocommerce .product #respond input#submit:hover, .woocommerce .checkout input#place_order:hover, .woocommerce .woocommerce.widget .button:hover, .single-product .product .summary .cart .button:hover, .woocommerce-cart .woocommerce table.cart .button:hover, .woocommerce-cart .woocommerce .shipping-calculator-form .button:hover, .td-next-prev-wrap a:hover, .td-load-more-wrap a:hover, .td-post-small-box a:hover, .page-nav .current, .page-nav:first-child > div, .td_category_template_8 .td-category-header .td-category a.td-current-sub-category, .td_category_template_4 .td-category-siblings .td-category a:hover, #bbpress-forums .bbp-pagination .current, #bbpress-forums #bbp-single-user-details #bbp-user-navigation li.current a, .td-theme-slider:hover .slide-meta-cat a, a.vc_btn-black:hover, .td-trending-now-wrapper:hover .td-trending-now-title, .td-scroll-up, .td-smart-list-button:hover, .td-weather-information:before, .td-weather-week:before, .td_block_exchange .td-exchange-header:before, .td_block_big_grid_9.td-grid-style-1 .td-post-category, .td_block_big_grid_9.td-grid-style-5 .td-post-category, .td-grid-style-6.td-hover-1 .td-module-thumb:after, .td-pulldown-syle-2 .td-subcat-dropdown ul:after, .td_block_template_9 .td-block-title:after, .td_block_template_15 .td-block-title:before, div.wpforms-container .wpforms-form div.wpforms-submit-container button[type=submit] { background-color: #749FD4 !important; }]]> .current-category-ancestor > a, .tdm-menu-active-style3 .tdm-header.td-header-wrap .sf-menu > .current-menu-ancestor > a, .tdm-menu-active-style3 .tdm-header.td-header-wrap .sf-menu > .current-menu-item > a, .tdm-menu-active-style3 .tdm-header.td-header-wrap .sf-menu > .sfHover > a, .tdm-menu-active-style3 .tdm-header.td-header-wrap .sf-menu > li > a:hover, .tdm_block_column_content:hover .tdm-col-content-title-url .tdm-title, .tds-button2 .tdm-btn-text, .tds-button2 i, .tds-button5:hover .tdm-btn-text, .tds-button5:hover i, .tds-button6 .tdm-btn-text, .tds-button6 i, .tdm_block_list .tdm-list-item i, .tdm_block_pricing .tdm-pricing-feature i, .tdm-social-item i { color: #1e73be; } .tdm-menu-active-style5 .td-header-menu-wrap .sf-menu > .current-menu-item > a, .tdm-menu-active-style5 .td-header-menu-wrap .sf-menu > .current-menu-ancestor > a, .tdm-menu-active-style5 .td-header-menu-wrap .sf-menu > .current-category-ancestor > a, .tdm-menu-active-style5 .td-header-menu-wrap .sf-menu > li > a:hover, .tdm-menu-active-style5 .td-header-menu-wrap .sf-menu > .sfHover > a, .tds-button1, .tds-button6:after, .tds-title2 .tdm-title-line:after, .tds-title3 .tdm-title-line:after, .tdm_block_pricing.tdm-pricing-featured:before, .tdm_block_pricing.tds_pricing2_block.tdm-pricing-featured .tdm-pricing-header, .tds-progress-bar1 .tdm-progress-bar:after, .tds-progress-bar2 .tdm-progress-bar:after, .tds-social3 .tdm-social-item { background-color: #1e73be; } .tdm-menu-active-style4 .tdm-header .sf-menu > .current-menu-item > a, .tdm-menu-active-style4 .tdm-header .sf-menu > .current-menu-ancestor > a, .tdm-menu-active-style4 .tdm-header .sf-menu > .current-category-ancestor > a, .tdm-menu-active-style4 .tdm-header .sf-menu > li > a:hover, .tdm-menu-active-style4 .tdm-header .sf-menu > .sfHover > a, .tds-button2:before, .tds-button6:before, .tds-progress-bar3 .tdm-progress-bar:after { border-color: #1e73be; } .tdm-btn-style1 {background-color: #1e73be;}.tdm-btn-style2:before { border-color: #1e73be;}.tdm-btn-style2 { color: #1e73be;}.tdm-btn-style3 { -webkit-box-shadow: 0 2px 16px #1e73be; -moz-box-shadow: 0 2px 16px #1e73be; box-shadow: 0 2px 16px #1e73be;}.tdm-btn-style3:hover { -webkit-box-shadow: 0 4px 26px #1e73be; -moz-box-shadow: 0 4px 26px #1e73be; box-shadow: 0 4px 26px #1e73be;}]]>

This week, the Legislature is considering an ill-conceived and wrong-headed package of bills that the authors are peddling as tougher on crime.

But what the bills would do is only increase the costly problem of mass incarceration in Wisconsin, a problem that disproportionately falls on the shoulders of black and brown families.

Heres one example: One of the bills in the package would require the Department of Corrections to begin a revocation proceeding against a former inmate if that person is charged with a new crime. But whatever happened to the presumption of innocence?

These formerly incarcerated people have already served their time and are on probation, parole, or extended supervision. The revocation proceeding could send them back to prison just because theyve been charged with a new crime, not convicted of one. No one else in the United States gets sent to prison for merely being charged with a crime, so why treat former inmates that way?

That would not only be unfair. It would also violate their Fifth Amendment right to due process and their Fourteenth Amendment right to due process and equal protection.

Another bill would expand the list of offenses that deny a prisoner even a chance at early release or early parole. This goes against the whole idea of giving a person a second chance and rewarding someone for good behavior.

Its also inhumane. Currently, if an inmate is very old or very ill, he can petition for a reduced term of confinement. But this bill would not allow prisoners who are convicted of certain crimes to do this, no matter how old or sick they are.

Thats just heartless.

And its costly, ineffective, and discriminatory.

As it is, we put too many people in prison for too long. It costs $37,000 to house one adult male in prison. If this package passes, the additional costs would be huge.

Just the one bill alone that would re-imprison people who are charged with a crime would cost Wisconsin taxpayers $54 million the first year and $156 million every year after that, according to the Department of Corrections.

Whats more, there is no solid evidence that the whole tough on crime approach has actually reduced crime, so why would the tougher on crime approach magically solve the problem?

And if you look at our prison population in Wisconsin, it is disproportionately made up of African Americans: 43 percent of all adult males behind bars in Wisconsin are black. Thats largely because of discriminatory arrests, convictions, and sentencings.

Given this track record, you can bet that black Wisconsinites would take the brunt of the tougher on crime bills.

We need to move beyond the tough on crime and tougher on crime mentality.

It hasnt gotten us anywhere but broke.

Please contact your legislators and urge them to vote no on this package. And please contact Gov. Tony Evers and urge him to veto it.

Jerome Dillard is the executive director of EXPO (Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing)

Prior to joining the Democracy Campaign at the start of 2015, Matt worked at The Progressive magazine for 32 years. For most of those, he was the editor and publisher of The Progressive.

Adjust Font Size

A-A+Reset Font Size

Spotlight Tab Key Navigation

Read this article:

'Tougher on Crime' is no way to go - Wisconsin Examiner

To print this article, all you need is to be registered or login on Mondaq.com.

On January 3, 2019, Axon Enterprise, Inc. ("Axon"), amanufacturer of body-worn cameras for law enforcement, filed a complaint againstthe Federal Trade Commission seeking a declaratory judgment in theDistrict of Arizona. In the complaint, Axon alleges that theFTC's administrative procedures and structure areunconstitutional, and seeks to enjoin the FTC from pursuing anadministrative enforcement action against Axon. Although anantitrust case, the matter provides interesting issues that alsoinvolve the FTC's consumer protection mission.

A little background: On June 14, 2018, the FTC opened aninvestigation into Axon's attempted acquisition of Vievu, whichalso sells public safety camera systems. Axon contends that itcooperated with the FTC's investigation over an 18-monthperiod, only to result in the FTC threatening to sue in anadministrative proceeding unless Axon "surrender[ed] a'blank check' divestiture." Axon protested that it didnot violate the Clayton Act or any other antitrust laws in itsacquisition of Vievu and filed the pending lawsuit, arguing thatthe FTC's structure and administrative adjudication proceduresviolate the U.S. Constitution.

As for the constitutional challenges, Axon first argues that theFTC's administrative procedures whereby it acts asprosecutor, judge, and jury violate Axon's FifthAmendment due process rights. Essentially, Axon asserts that whenthe FTC brings an administrative proceeding against a party, itinfringes on that party's right to a fair trial before aneutral judge in accordance with the Fifth Amendment. Accordingly,subjecting Axon to an FTC administrative proceeding will force itto "submit to a hearing process with a preordainedresult." As Judge Posner noted years ago, "It is too muchto expect men of ordinary character and competence to be able tojudge impartially in cases that they are responsible for havinginstituted in the first place." Remember, however, that Axonis not the first company caught in the FTC's crosshairs toraise this argument, and these prior challenges have failed.

Axon also alleges that the very structure and makeup of the FTCviolate Article II of the Constitution, and therefore anyaction the FTC takes is unconstitutional. Currently, as anindependent agency, FTC Commissioners and Administrative Law Judges(i.e., the judges who hear FTC administrative proceedings) are notsubject to at-will removal by the President. Though FTCCommissioners are nominated by the President and confirmed by theSenate, they can only be removed by the President for"inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance inoffice." Further, FTC-appointed ALJs can only be removed bythe FTC for "good cause." However, Axon alleges that theFTC commissioners and ALJs are "Executive officials exercisinglaw-enforcement power" who are constitutionally required to besubject to at-will removal by the President under Article II.

Important to Axon's "at-will removal" argument isthe fact that in Lucia v.SEC, the Supreme Court recently held that the appointmentof SEC ALJs violated Article II. The Lucia decisiondid not, however, resolve whether statutory "for cause"removal protections afforded administrative law judges areunconstitutional. In moving to preliminarilyenjoin the administrative proceedings, Axon asks the districtcourt to answer this question in the affirmative. Specifically,Axon contends that there is a growing consensus that FTCCommissioners' and ALJs' protection from at-will removalviolates Article II.

The FTC responded to the Axon lawsuit by arguing that thedistrict court lacks jurisdiction over Axon's claims becauseAxon did not follow the review procedure of the FTC Act and did notchallenge any final agency action.

This case provides another example of the increasing focus onthe FTC, along with other independent agencies such as the SEC andCFPB, regarding whether its actions and structure can surviveconstitutional scrutiny. Those who are subject to pressure from theFTC are continuing to challenge its ability to serve as theprosecutor, the judge, and the jury in administrative proceedingsthat have far-reaching implications. As we've writtenpreviously, the FTC's ability to obtain relief in federal courtalso is being re-examined by several courts, including the Third Circuit andthe Supreme Court.

As this case was filed just last month, Axon has several hurdlesto clear before getting to the merits of its claims. One majorhurdle is whether the court will decide to exercise itsjurisdictional discretion under the Declaratory Judgment Act. Wemay not have to wait long, though, as Axon recently requested thatthe district court expedite the proceedings in light of theadministrative proceeding hearing currently scheduled for May 19,2020. Given the Supreme Court's penchant for taking caseschallenging the constitutional and statutory authority ofindependent agencies, those following might want to hit the"record" button.

The content of this article is intended to provide a generalguide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be soughtabout your specific circumstances.

POPULAR ARTICLES ON: Government, Public Sector from United States

Read the original here:

A Constitutional Challenge To Watch: Axon Sets Its Sight On The Structure Of The FTC - Mondaq News Alerts

If you think the Senates vote on Wednesday to acquit President TrumpDonald John TrumpWinners and losers from the New Hampshire primary Sanders on NH victory: Win is 'beginning of the end for Donald Trump' Biden, Warren on ropes after delegate shutout MORE ends the impeachment saga, you havent been paying attention.

Congressional Democrats never believed they could actually remove Trump from power over anything as specious as the Ukraine kerfuffle. No more than they expected that the collusion caper which was already known to be an investigative dry hole by the time of Bob Muellers May 2017 special counsel appointment was a viable vehicle for ousting the president.

Impeachment has always been a partisan pretext. A third-order pretext, as I explained in Ball of Collusion: (1) The counterintelligence investigation launched by the Obama administration was a pretext to monitor Trumps campaign while conducting a criminal investigation without the necessary criminal predicate; (2) the criminal investigation, formally launched on the ludicrous fiction that Trumps constitutionally appropriate firing of FBI director James ComeyJames Brien ComeyThe Hill's Morning Report Trump basks in acquittal; Dems eye recanvass in Iowa Trump holds White House 'celebration' for impeachment acquittal Impeachment is over or is it? MORE could be an obstruction crime, was a pretext for packaging an impeachment inquiry for House Democrats (since the bureau didnt have a crime but knew that impeachment does not require a crime); and (3) the impeachment drama has been a pretext for what all along has been the goal to tumble out enough unsavory information over a long enough time that Trump is rendered unelectable by the time we get to the stretch-run of the 2020 campaign.

This is not to say, of course, that congressional Democrats would not remove the president if they could. The fact that House Democrats hauled out and formally voted two articles of impeachment, rather than contenting themselves with a long-running impeachment inquiry spiced up by the occasional, damning public hearing, shows that if they thought there was any shot at defenestrating Trump, even a remote one, they would take it.

Nevertheless, the principal objective has always been to ensure that the president would get no more than one term, a term that Democrats would endeavor to steep in scandal, hamstringing the administrations capacity to govern and to pursue the agenda on which Trump ran in 2016.

Obviously, the end of the impeachment trial does not mean the end of that strategy. For Democrats, the aim has not changed: End the Trump presidency as soon as possible.

The tactics will need rethinking, though.

The presidents polls have improved over these weeks of skewed, unabashedly partisan impeachment proceedings. He is at his highest standing ever, one that may edge higher after the impressive showmanship and cataloguing of accomplishments in Tuesday nights State of the Union address, complementing boffo economic metrics. Democrats have to be concerned that impeaching Trump on weak charges has improved his reelection prospects.

So does that mean the Senates acquittal is the end of the impeachment gambit?

That question itself strikes many people oddly. Acquittal long has been a foregone conclusion, given that there was never a chance that House Democrats would corral the two-thirds supermajority needed to convict in the GOP-controlled Senate. Acquittal is a term most familiar to us from the criminal law. After an acquittal (or, for that matter, a conviction), Fifth Amendment double-jeopardy principles forbid a successive prosecution for the same charge.

Impeachment, however, is not a criminal prosecution. Indeed, it is not a judicial proceeding at all. It is strictly a political determination on the question of whether political power should be stripped by the Article I political branch. Therefore, the Senates impeachment verdict of acquittal carries no double-jeopardy protection for the president. Nothing in the Constitution would bar the House from re-voting the same impeachment articles on which the president has been acquitted, in addition to any new articles.

That is especially worth noting here, given that the presidents lawyers and congressional Republicans devoted so much energy to castigating House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam SchiffAdam Bennett SchiffDOJ lawyers resign en masse over Roger Stone sentencing George Conway: We might have to impeach Trump again How Lamar Alexander clouds the true meaning of the Constitution MORE (D-Calif.) and other House leaders for their shoddy investigation the failure to make a concerted effort to obtain relevant documentary evidence and to interview key witnesses (former national security adviser John BoltonJohn BoltonOscars see record low ratings with 23.6M viewers Brad Pitt quips he has more time to give Oscars speech than John Bolton had to testify New Qatari prime minister means new opportunities MORE, White House chief of staff Mick MulvaneyJohn (Mick) Michael MulvaneyThe Hill's Morning Report - Sanders, Buttigieg set for Granite State showdown Business groups try to avoid partisan crossfire Mick Mulvaney's job security looks strong following impeachment MORE, et. al.); the lack of due process afforded to the president; the prioritizing of the 2020 political calendar over the demands of a competent, thorough investigation. Those are the kinds of failures that can be cured by time and effort.

The scathing media-Democratic rebukes of the Senate for purportedly failing to subpoena witnesses and documents have been misplaced. The Senates job is to try the case; the Houses job is to investigate and prove that case. The remedy for a shoddy investigation is for the investigators to do the work they previously failed to complete.

I do not expect Schiff et. al. to give up on Ukraine. And if they were to persist in investigating that episode e.g., to subpoena Bolton for the testimony for which many senators clamored they could rationalize it by saying they were simply addressing the Senates concerns.

Notice that Democrats have never abandoned the impeachment inquiry they belatedly voted to conduct in late October, months after they started probing the Ukraine scandal. They continue, moreover, to pursue other lines of investigation the obstruction aspect of Muellers probe, Trumps tax returns, etc.

To be sure, I do not believe House Democrats will vote articles of impeachment again at least, they will not do it again unless they stumble on some previously unknown misconduct that is truly egregious. But I have every expectation that they will continue the impeachment inquiry. They will keep touting the threat of new impeachment articles, and keep railing that the White House is obstructing them.

Remember, the point has never really been to remove the president. Impeachment has been, and remains, an artifice for congressional Democrats to acquire and incrementally disclose unsavory information, with an eye toward Nov. 3, 2020. For Democrats, the main goal is still to defeat Donald Trump. Impeaching him has been a means, not an end.

Former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at National Review Institute, a contributing editor at National Review, and a Fox News contributor. His latest book is Ball of Collusion. Follow him on Twitter @AndrewCMcCarthy.

See the article here:

Impeachment is over or is it? | TheHill - The Hill

GREENFIELD A retired Springfield police lieutenant invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when called to testify Friday in a hearing about evidence in the long-running Nathan Bills cop brawl case.

Retired Springfield Police Lt. Thomas Kennedy appeared in Franklin Superior Court under a subpoena from an attorney for one of 15 defendants in the case.

Kennedy was one of a dozen detectives conducting a criminal investigation into the fight in the summer of 2015. Defense lawyer Shawn Allyn, representing defendant Officer Daniel Billingsley, was expected to quiz Kennedy about photo arrays the police compiled for the alleged civilian victims, who said they were jumped outside by off-duty police officers after a verbal altercation inside the popular East Forest Park bar. Kennedy was also expected to answer a series of questions about video evidence from inside the bar that may or may not have been destroyed.

Instead, Kennedy refused to answer any questions at all.

My client is exercising his constitutional right to decline to testify, said his lawyer, William Bennett, a former longtime Hampden district attorney. Bennett declined to comment following Kennedys brief court appearance.

Kennedy retired from the police department in 2016 and now works as an investigator in the Hampden district attorneys office.

The majority of the defendants in the case are current or former Springfield police officers, plus two of the bars owners. Some are charged in connection with the fight itself while others are implicated in an alleged cover-up. The case was investigated jointly by the state attorney generals office and the FBI.

At issue in a series of pretrial hearings in recent weeks before Judge Mark D. Mason is whether the cover-up defendants were properly advised by the government that they were at risk of being indicted, as opposed to merely being called as witnesses.

While Assistant Attorney General Stephen Carley has argued all were informed of their respective exposures in the case, many defense attorneys have disputed this. The debate has yielded a cascade of motions by defendants seeking to get their charges tossed, which have been argued amid a tangle of other motions to dismiss, suppress evidence and postpone trial dates.

Also testifying Friday was Boston attorney Stanley Wheatley, who represented perjury defendant Officer Joseph DAmour before his grand jury appearance in 2017. DAmour was a brand new patrolman still in training when he responded to the Nathan Bills disturbance. Subsequently, DAmour and others participated in interviews with the FBI, assistant attorneys general and state police before the grand jury session, Wheatley said.

Wheatley testified that DAmour was prepared to cooperate with law enforcement. He said the interview felt collaborative and that he was stunned when DAmour was charged criminally.

I remember saying to ... Carley that I cant believe you indicted this guy; he tried to cooperate. Thats the last time I do that. It made me look bad, Wheatley said under direct examination by DAmours defense lawyer, Michael Packard.

During cross-examination, Assistant Attorney General Andrea Mauro suggested Wheatley lacked experience representing clients in criminal cases and it was he who dropped the ball by not protecting DAmours interests.

Thats one of the reasons people retain attorneys, right? she asked.

Following Wheatleys testimony, Paul Federico, who runs trivia nights at Nathan Bills, said some of the alleged victims in the case drunkenly hassled him and his girlfriend before they began arguing with off-duty police.

They were being aggressive and inappropriate. ... I think they may have touched her, but Im not sure, Federico said, adding that he reported the exchanges to a bar manager, who asked the civilians to leave.

Throughout the case, it has been hotly contested who started the fight, as men on both sides suffered injuries. The city paid out $885,000 in a civil settlement to the civilians in 2018.

Capping a full day of pretrial hearings Friday, Mason denied a motion by the attorney generals office to delay the Nathan Bills trials by four months. They will begin March 30 in Hampden Superior Court.

Visit link:

Retired Springfield police lieutenant takes the 5th in hearing on Nathan Bills brawl - MassLive.com

According to his attorneys, Harvey Weinstein was ready, willing, able, and anxious to take the stand in his own defense. His attorneys apparently thought otherwise about his wisdom in doing so. The defense rested yesterday in the New York sexual assault case without Weinstein taking the opportunity to explain himself or prosecutors an opportunity to tear him to shreds:

Cowardly dodge or smart strategy? Probably a bit of both, but it also might be an indication that the defense thinks theyve introduced enough reasonable doubt as it is:

For 30 minutes, Mr. Weinstein and his lawyers met in a private room; he expressed a desire to tell his side of the story while they advised him not to risk it, according to his spokesman.

But ultimately, Mr. Weinstein and his lawyers returned to the courtroom and told the judge that the defense was resting its case, setting the stage for closing arguments on Thursday. Later, as he left court, Mr. Weinstein was asked if he had considered taking the stand. I wanted to, he said.

His lawyers have argued that Mr. Weinsteins accusers used him and engaged in consensual sexual encounters to advance their careers.

But if Mr. Weinstein were to take the stand, prosecutors would quite likely have tried to elicit testimony that would have portrayed him as a bullish, overbearing figure who had used his influence in the industry to coerce women into unwanted sexual encounters.

Generally speaking, attorneys are loathe to put a client on the witness stand. They lose control of the situation on cross-examination, and clients can destroy neatly constructed strategies with a careless phrase or a poor attitude on the stand. Previously excluded evidence and testimony could suddenly be made relevant for the prosecution, and the jury might take a strong dislike to a defendant during cross-examination. Sometimes clients will refuse to take that advice from a burning need to rebut what has been said in court, but clients are poor judges of effective legal strategy.

It sounds as if Weinstein was just smart enough to finally take his attorneys advice or to pose as if he wanted to testify for the media later.

Its still a risky strategy. In a he said/she said, juries will want to hear whathe said for themselves, not through a defense attorney. The Fifth Amendment means the jury cant take his lack of testimony officially into consideration when determining guilt or innocence, but thats onlyofficially. His lack of response to the claims will still undoubtedly nag at the jurors after all the emotional testimony from the women who leveled allegations of sexual assault against Weinstein.

Closing arguments start tomorrow, and Weinsteins attorneys will argue that theres all sorts of reasonable doubt about these claims. Phelim McAleer, whos been attending the trial and producing the daily verbatim podcast of it, told me yesterday on The Ed Morrissey Show that Weinsteins defense has been very effective at punching some holes in the prosecutors case. Whether that is enough for the jury to overcome that emotional testimony is another question, but Phelim thinks a surprise might be in the works in the jury room and that the media has largely missed that story over the last few weeks.

That makes the decision to rest and go to arguments look more like confidence in their strategy than worry over Weinstein. If the defense succeeds, though, expect a cultural meltdown over the verdict that might rival the O.J. Simpson trial outcome. It will also put enormous pressure on prosecutors in Los Angeles to finish the job on Weinstein.

Follow this link:

Weinstein takes 5: Defense rests without his testimony - Hot Air

A few days ago, The New York Times published significant revelations from a draft manuscript of former National Security Adviser John Boltons memoir, The Room Where It Happened, which is slated for publication this March. In late December, Bolton submitted this manuscript to the government for prepublication review. As news reports have explained, the White House could exploit this process to delay or block publication of Boltons memoir. Days before the Times ran its story, the White House warned Bolton against publishing his book until it had been reviewed and cleared for publication. But what is prepublication review, and how does it apply to Boltons memoir?

Below, we explain the key features of the system and the significant discretion it gives the government to suppress protected speechpotentially including Boltons memoir.

Full disclosure: we believe the governments current system of prepublication review is unconstitutional. The Knight Institute and the ACLU represent five former public servants in an ongoing lawsuit challenging that system on First Amendment and Fifth Amendment grounds.

What is prepublication review?

Prepublication review is the umbrella term for the system of government censorship that prohibits millions of former intelligence-agency employees and military personnellike John Boltonfrom writing or speaking publicly about their government service without first getting the governments approval. The government asserts that the system is intended to prevent the inadvertent disclosure of classified information.

Prepublication review traces back to the CIAs early practice of requiring employees to sign secrecy agreements prohibiting them from publishing manuscripts without first obtaining the agencys consent. In 1980, the Supreme Court decided Snepp v. United States, ruling that the CIA could seize the proceeds earned by a former CIA officer who published a book on the Vietnam War without submitting it for prepublication review. And in 1983, President Ronald Reagan issued a national security directive compelling all intelligence-agency employees with access to highly sensitive information (specifically, sensitive compartmented information or SCI) to sign a nondisclosure agreement requiring prepublication review of their manuscripts. One year later, the directive was suspended in response to congressional pushback, but federal agencies continued to adopt and develop their own prepublication review regimes.

Since the 1980s, the prepublication review system has expanded on every axis. More agencies impose review requirements on more categories of people. Former employees are submitting more material, and in part because of this, agencies are taking more time to complete their reviews. The amount of information designated as classifiedand thereby subject to redaction during reviewhas increased significantly. And prepublication review processes have grown increasingly complex.

Why did Bolton submit his memoir for prepublication review?

Bolton is likely subject to several independent obligations to submit his manuscript for prepublication review.

First, Bolton was a presidential appointee (to the post of National Security Adviser), and presidential appointees are generally required to submit their manuscripts for prepublication review. Instruction 80.04 of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) requires presidential appointees such as Bolton to submit for review all official and non-official information intended for publication that discusses the ODNI, the IC [Intelligence Community], or national security.

Second, given Boltons position, he likely signed government nondisclosure agreements as a condition of access to classified information, and those agreements likely contain prepublication review obligations. For access to SCI in particular, Bolton would most likely have been required to sign Form 4414. That form requires signatories to submit for review any writing or other preparation in any form, including a work of fiction, that contains or purports to contain any SCI or description of activities that produce or relate to SCI or that [the individual has] reason to believe are derived from SCI.

These standards for the submission of manuscripts are broad and vague, and its not always clear whether any particular manuscript must be submitted.

This said, assuming Bolton is in fact subject to one or more of these prepublication review obligations, it is fairly clear that they apply to his book manuscript. The Room Where It Happened is billed as a White House memoir offering a substantive and factual account of [Boltons] time in the room where it happened. Press accounts say that the book discusses, among other things, Trumps policies toward Ukraine, as well as Boltons concern that the President was dispensing personal favors to autocratic leaders. If these accounts are accurate, Bolton was almost certainly obligated to submit his manuscript for prepublication review.

Importantly, the government takes the view that prepublication review is required even where an author is certainas Bolton claims to bethat the manuscript contains no classified information. (In response to that claim, the White House has asserted that Boltons manuscript appears to contain significant amounts of classified information, including top secret information. That claim warrants close scrutiny, as the governments definition of classified information is notoriously expansive and susceptible to misapplication.)

Who is reviewing Boltons manuscript?

Likely the White House and multiple intelligence agencies.

Bolton submitted his manuscript to the National Security Council records office. Given Boltons former position within government and the prepublication review obligations to which he is likely subject, that office likely referred his manuscript to several intelligence agencies for review.

In particular, the Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and whichever agency last authorized Boltons access to SCIwhether the CIA, the NSA, or some other agencyare almost certainly reviewing his manuscript. These agencies, in turn, may have referred the manuscript to other agencies with particular interests (what the government calls equities) in the manuscript. The government generally does not volunteer to authors whether, and to which agencies, it has referred their manuscripts for review, so its possible that not even Bolton knows who has copies of his manuscript.

Its not entirely clear whether the White House Counsel and the West Wing are also reviewing Boltons book. According to one news report, the White House Counsel may be asked to review the book for executive privilege. If this account is accurate, it lends support to the concern that reviewers will redact from Boltons book more than just classified information.

How long will prepublication review of Boltons manuscript take?

For several reasons, its not clear.

To begin with, we dont know for sure which agencys prepublication review proceduresand, by extension, deadlinesapply to the review of Boltons book. Even if we knew which deadlines applied, most prepublication review deadlines are advisory. For example, ODNIs instruction states that review will be completed within 30 calendar days, as priorities and resources allow. That last clause gives ODNI considerable wiggle room, and many agencies have similar exceptions.

Even if firm deadlines applied, its unlikely theyd be followed. For example, Form 4414 theoretically guarantees that prepublication review will be completed within 30 working days. But in practice, delay is the norm. For example, Mark Fallon (a former DOD employee) and Melvin Goodman (a former CIA employee) had to wait eight months and eleven months, respectively, for their books to be reviewed. A manuscript by former CIA analyst Nada Bakos was reportedly under review for over two years. And the CIAs own documents candidly project that the review of book-length manuscripts will take more than one year to complete. These personal experiences and government practices are part of the reason we have filed a lawsuit challenging prepublication review.

Will government reviewers look only for classified information in Boltons book?

No.

Like other aspects of prepublication review, the standards that agencies apply when they examine manuscripts are vague and overbroad. Ostensibly, the sole purpose of prepublication review is to prevent the unauthorized disclosure of classified information. But in reality, many agencies have censoredor have claimed the authority to censormore than just classified information. For example, the CIA demanded that our client Richard Immerman extensively redact portions of his book on the history of the CIA, even though all the information originated from publicly sourced material, including material that the CIA itself had published.

As noted above, one news account suggests that the government may review Boltons book for more than just classified information. According to the report, White House officials may be asked to look for information that President Donald Trumps lawyers claim is protected by their expansive interpretation of executive privilegedespite the holding of one federal appeals court that the government has no legitimate interest in censoring unclassified materials.

Can the government block the publication of Boltons book, or portions of it?

Effectively, yes.

The government can demand that Bolton redact or rewrite any portions of his book that, in the governments view, contain classified information (or, as explained above, any other information it determines may not be published). If Bolton decided to rewrite those portions of his book, he would need to resubmit it for another round of review. It does not appear to be common, but the government could even reject Boltons entire manuscript, if it determined that no part of it could be published.

More indirectly, the government could simply delay its review of Boltons manuscript past the point of its relevance to public discoursefor example, until after the impeachment trial and after the November elections. There are a shocking number of examples of agency censors taking months or even years to complete prepublication review.

If Bolton nevertheless pressed ahead with the publication of his book without final approval, the government could attempt to punish him in a number of ways: by filing a lawsuit to seize the profits from his book, by revoking his security clearance, or by criminally prosecuting him if his book contained classified information.

While the government has several tools it can use to attempt to prevent Boltons book, or portions of it, from seeing the light of day, the one thing the government probably cant do is seek a court order prohibiting Bolton from publishing his book. That would be a dramatic and likely unsuccessful effort, given the Supreme Courts decision in 1971 rejecting the governments request to bar The New York Times from publishing the so-called Pentagon Papers, leaked documents concerning the Vietnam War.

Can Bolton challenge the review of his book?

Yes. If Bolton believes that the review of his book is taking too long, he could ask a court to step in to speed up the process. Last year, Guy Snodgrass, a former top aide to Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, filed a lawsuit alleging that the Department of Defense was deliberately delaying approval of his manuscript as a retaliatory and punishing tactic. Shortly after Snodgrass sued, the Department of Defense cleared his book for publication.

He could also sue to challenge the propriety of any redactions the government insists that he make. Courts are generally very deferential (far too deferential, in our view) to government claims related to classified information, but authors can challenge government redactions as unnecessary or overbroad.

* * *

For more information on the key features of agencies prepublication review regimes, check out our interactivechart.

Visit link:

Explainer: Prepublication Review and How it Applies to Bolton - Just Security

To The Daily Sun,

To be attacked in letters by Dick Burchell, Norm Silber, and Michael Sylvia, all in the space of two days, may be the pinnacle of success for me. A trifecta!

With regard to Burchell, who seemed to suggest that he cannot be a misogynist (despite calling me a harridan, which he did not address) because he likes and respects a woman (his older sister) and has contempt for a man (my husband), the defense seems a bit thin. And when is the last time you heard a man referred to as screechy?

With regard to Silber, its a bit worrisome to find that a lawyer of his self-proclaimed stature does not know the difference between criminal and civil law. He claimed that no adverse inference can be drawn from someone taking the 5th Amendment NONE, as he proclaimed broadly in all caps, as if to shout out how right he is. But how wrong he is. The U.S. Supreme Court (Baxter v. Palmigiano, 425 U.S. 308 (1976)) expressly stated that the Fifth Amendment does not forbid adverse inferences against parties to civil actions when they refuse to testify in response to probative evidence against them: the Amendment does not preclude the inference where the privilege is claimed by a party to a civil cause. Baxter, at 318. The New Hampshire Supreme Court has also ruled that an adverse inference may be drawn in a non-criminal proceeding from a partys assertion of a 5th Amendment right not to testify. Downing v. Monitor Publishing Co., 120 N.H. 383 (1980). Lets hope that Mr. Silber brushes up on his constitutional law and learns the difference between criminal and civil matters before he handles future cases for clients, and before he gives any more lectures to the public on constitutional law. One more suggestion to Mr. Silber: The Jane Fonda analogy, as referring to me, is becoming a bit repetitive. Time to fling some fresh mud, perhaps?

Finally, to Rep. Sylvia, who (ironically?) claimed in his letter that many people have expressed their gratitude to him for taking a stand on the issue (of property rights). Some Belknap County residents might have preferred that Mr. Sylvia take THE stand, i.e. testify about the facts, rather than take a stand. We are still left with a situation where Rep. Sylvia felt above the law and refused to state how he disposed of sewage at his illegal residence. The judge who heard the case brought against Sylvia by the Town of Belmont ruled against him, and it is easy to see why.

Ruth Larson

Alton

More here:

A trifecta of attack letters, and all are wrong - The Laconia Daily Sun

Democrats are pushing to have former White House National Security Adviser John Bolton testify in the U.S. Senate's impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. WGBH News Morning Edition host Joe Mathieu spoke with Northeastern University law professor and WGBH News legal analyst Daniel Medwed about the value of live witness testimony, and how it could play out in the impeachment trial. The transcript below has been edited for clarity.

Joe Mathieu: Some senators, certainly the president's own legal team, say it doesn't matter what a witness would say. It won't change a thing here. Does it matter, the value of live witness testimony versus documents or other testimony we've heard?

Daniel Medwed: Well, I think it does matter, and here's why. Most notably, it is direct evidence firsthand evidence in contrast to secondhand hearsay testimony, for instance. Also, it's live. The jurors in this case, the Senate would get to evaluate the demeanor of the witness in real time in the witness box. And that's a significant advantage. Also, there are other protections to ensure reliability. You have to testify under oath, under penalties of perjury, there's cross-examination, and lawyers have what are called witness impeachment tools available to go after the witnesses.

Mathieu: That's different than impeaching the president, I presume.

Medwed: Yes, that's very important. When I talk about witness impeachment in the generic sense, it's different from the constitutional concept of impeachment in terms of removing a federal officeholder from a position of power. Rather, it refers to the technique of undermining or discrediting a witness on the stand.

There are two broad categories of impeachment. The first is non-character based. It's when you try to say that a witness is not someone who is a liar, who has a poor character for telling the truth, but they have some reason some incentive for lying now. Classic example: witness bias. You point out that a witness has a financial stake in the case or is related to one of the parties or has a longstanding ax to grind with someone affiliated with the case. The other technique is, in fact, character based. That's when you introduce evidence that suggests this person is a liar. They have a poor character for telling the truth.

Mathieu: I can only imagine where that would go with Bolton potentially on the stand. More on the character of a witness. Daniel, as a practical matter, how would you get at that?

Medwed: Well, one very common technique occurs after the witness has testified and you put on your own witness to offer what's called opinion or reputation testimony about truth or veracity. You ask this witness, 'In your opinion, based on your experiences with John Bolton, is he to be trusted?' or, 'What is John Bolton's reputation for honesty in the relevant community?'

Another technique that can be very effective is to simply cross-examine the witness. If you have a good faith basis for believing that the witness has done something in his or her past that reflects dishonesty, you can ask about it. 'Isn't it true that you lied on your law school application or you plagiarized in high school?' Something like that.

Mathieu: So in a courtroom, at least, you can ask witnesses about past acts that go to honesty. If there's a criminal record, for instance, can you ask about past crimes as well?

Medwed: Now, that's a tricky one. On the one hand, the general answer is yes. A witness's criminal record is fair game for impeachment based on the rationale that if you've committed a crime, you've transgressed against society's norms [and] you've violated legal standards. And that, to some extent, is indicative of dishonesty. But on the other hand, especially with criminal defendants, we're wary of dissuading them from testifying, basically pushing them to invoke their Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination for fear that they'll be impeached with their criminal record. So for that reason, the rules are stricter [and] more protective of criminal defendants when allowed, when it goes to impeaching them with their criminal record. At least that's the theory. In practice, Judges are pretty willing to impeach defendants.

Mathieu: We're talking about life in a courtroom. That's where you're from. Does all of this mean the same in the Senate?

Medwed: That's what's been so baffling about watching this impeachment trial unfold, because it really doesn't feel like a trial. A trial is when you present witnesses [and] vet the evidence. It's an adversarial testing of the facts. Here, it's more like a high school debate, with each side raising their arguments in a vacuum. So I think you're right. I can only speculate about whether these courtroom techniques will eventually translate into the well of the Senate.

More:

What Live Witness Testimony Might Look Like In Trump's Impeachment Trial - wgbh.org

ALPENA Several tax foreclosure lawsuits brought against Michigan counties including suits against Alpena, Alcona, Montmorency, and Presque Isle counties are on hold until similar cases can be heard by the Michigan Supreme Court.

The Hemlock-based law firm Outside Legal Counsel is representing clients in 10 lawsuits in various courts in different regions of Michigan. The lawsuits allege its illegal for counties to sell tax-foreclosed property for more than the tax that is owed on that property.

The stakes are high.

How the Michigan Supreme Court decides Rafaeli will dictate how these cases go, said attorney Alan Vander Laan, who represents Alpena, Alcona, and Montmorency counties. If they overrule Rafaeli, then foreclosures in the state of Michigan, and property tax collection as we know it, will end, and the Legislature will have to come up with another scheme. If the court agrees with my view, theres been no taking, then it will be the status quo.

Attorney Philip Ellison, with Outside Legal Counsel, said the cases have been stayed either formally or informally by judges until the Michigan Supreme Court makes a decisions on an Oakland County case.

In that case, Rafaeli vs. Oakland County, Uri Rafaeli represented by the firm Pacific Legal Counsel alleges Oakland County foreclosed on a home owned by Uri Rafaelis business over an $8.41 tax debt. The county sold the property for $24,500 and kept the profits. While most states refund the surplus, Michigan is among a handful of states that allows property theft to fill government coffers, according to Pacific Legal Counsels website.

Ellison said the outcome of that case will ultimately determine how his cases, affecting Northeast Michigan counties, proceed through the courts. Even if the homeowners he represents are 100% successful in their case, they still had to pay all of their taxes, he said.

They actually paid their property taxes the hardest way possible: They lost their house, he said.

Ellison has also filed a second set of lawsuits in U.S. District Court, which he said wasnt until a recent change at the federal level allowed federal courts to hear cases related to the takings clause in the Fifth Amendment, which says private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation.

If the Michigan Supreme Court provides homeowners relief, the federal cases would no longer be necessary, Ellison said.

Attorney Alan Vander Laan, who represents Alpena, Alcona, and Montmorency counties, said those federal cases have also been stayed by the judges waiting for the Michigan Supreme Court to decide the Rafaeli case and for the resolution of another in U.S. circuit court.

Crystal Nelson can be reached at 989-358-5687 or cnelson@thealpenanews.com.

ALPENA Violence in the Alpena County Jail led an Alpena man to be bound over to Alpenas 26th Circuit Court ...

ALPENA The Michigan Association of Counties 2020 legislative agenda will focus on encouraging reforms to the ...

A 71-year-old woman was arrested earlier this month for embezzling money from the checking account of a relative in ...

View post:

Suits against counties on hold | News, Sports, Jobs - Alpena News

Over the course of eight minutes early in the morning on December 27, according to a federal indictment unsealed yesterday, a 30-year-old woman named Tiffany Harris slapped three Jewish womentwo across the face and one on the back of the headas they were walking in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. "Fuck you, Jews," she reportedly said during the second incident.

What Harris allegedly did is obviously a crime, but why is it a federal crime? There is no satisfying practical, moral, or constitutional answer to that question. Making a federal case out of those three slaps nevertheless dramatically increases the maximum sentence Harris faces if she is convicted.

Harris, who was arrested by New York City police officers shortly after the attacks, was initially charged with assault, attempted assault, harassment, and menacing under state law. The most serious of those charges, assault in the third degree, is a Class A misdemeanor, which is punishable by up to a year in jail. If it were charged as a hate crime (based on the allegation that Harris slapped the women "in substantial part because" she perceived them as Jews), it would become a Class E felony, punishable by up to four years in prison.

On top of those state charges, Harris now faces three federal counts under 18 USC 249, which applies to an offender who "willfully causes bodily injury" to someone "because of" that person's "actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin." That crime is a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

If Harris is convicted under both state and federal law, she theoretically could face combined prison sentences as long as 14 years, more than three times the maximum penalty under state lawand 14 times the maximum penalty Harris would face if the assaults were prosecuted in state court without New York's hate crime enhancement. That seems like a disproportionate response to three slaps, whatever the motivation for them.

Since New York already was prosecuting Harris, what purpose is served by a federal indictment? "The use of violence, or the threats of violence, against anyone based on the victim's religion will not be tolerated, and those who engage in such conduct will learn that under federal law there are serious consequences for hate crimes," says Richard Donoghue, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. But it's not as if New York was tolerating such violence. State law not only punishes assault but also punishes it more severely when it is motivated by anti-Semitism.

"Any offensive physical assault is a crime of violence, and it should be obvious that perpetrators need to be held accountable," says William Sweeney, the assistant director in charge at the FBI's New York office. "When one's actions are motivated by their hatred of another group and supported by anti-Semitic sentiments, however, it opens up the possibility of federal criminal charges, which are hard to walk away from. Tiffany Harris now faces up to 10 years in prison for her alleged actions. The lesson to others thinking of behaving as we allege Ms. Harris didknock it off now or we are going to lock you up. The anti-Semitic attacks in this city and elsewhere have been outrageous, and the FBI will use the full extent of the laws at our disposal to protect the community."

Even if you accept the questionable premise that crimes should be punished more severely when they are motivated by bigotry, New York has a hate crime law that already quadrupled the potential punishment for these assaults. It is not obvious why a tenfold increase is more appropriate, let alone why people should be punished twice for the same crime, once under state law and again under federal law. Whether or not you buy the Supreme Court's counterintuitive conclusion that such serial prosecutions do not constitute double jeopardy under the Fifth Amendment, they certainly do not look like justice.

Sweeney's reference to "the anti-Semitic attacks in this city and elsewhere" implies that Harris is being punished not just for her own actions but for the crimes of others as well. If New York City had not recently seen a much-publicized increase in reports of anti-Semitic crimes, the Justice Department probably would not have gotten involved in such a minor case. But how can it be fair to impose extra punishment on a defendant merely because the sort of crime she committed happens to be on the rise? Punishment should be based on the nature of the defendant's crime, regardless of what other people are doing.

Federal hate crime laws invite this sort of capricious, politically motivated intervention, which is especially troubling given their weak constitutional basis. The constitutional rationale for 18 USC 249, for example, is that it serves to eliminate "the badges, incidents, and relics of slavery," a congressional power inferred from the 13th Amendment. If you don't see how prosecuting a black woman for slapping Jews in 2020 is authorized by the amendment that abolished slavery in 1865, you are paying more attention than the Justice Department thinks you should.

Link:

DOJ Intervention Dramatically, Irrationally, and Unconstitutionally Increases the Penalty Faced by a Woman Accused of Slapping Jews - Reason

January 30, 2020 - SACRAMENTO California Attorney General Xavier Becerra yesterday announced leading a coalition of 20 attorneys general filing an amicus brief in support of the children who are plaintiffs inFlores v. Barr. The case, currently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, involves the Trump Administrations attempts to terminate theFloresSettlement Agreement, which has governed the treatment of children in immigration custody since 1997. In the amicus brief, the coalition urges the court to uphold the permanent injunction issued by the district court, preventing the federal government from keeping children in prolonged and unnecessary detention.

Children deserve to be treated with care and compassion. Period,saidAttorney General Becerra.No child should ever be exposed to conditions that are harmful and inappropriate for their age, let alone for prolonged periods of time. Well continue to fight for the rights of the most vulnerable among us.

Last year, afederal court haltedthe Trump Administrations attempts to terminate and replace theFloresSettlement Agreement with an inadequate and unlawful new rule. In a separate case challenging the Trump Administrations rule, a multistate coalition,led by California and Massachusetts, argued that the rule would have interfered with the states abilitiesto help ensure the health, safety, and welfare of children by undermining state licensing requirements for facilities where children are housed. In addition, the rule would have resulted in the vast expansion of family detention centers, which are not state licensed facilities and have historically caused increased trauma in children. Moreover, prolonged detention of children can result in significant long-term negative health consequences. Based on these concerns, the coalition argued the rule exceeded the administration's statutory authority and violated both the Administrative Procedure Act and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

TheFloresSettlement Agreement stems from a class action lawsuit filed before the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in 1985 in response to substandard conditions of confinement for immigrant children. The lawsuit sought to establish standards for how the federal government should handle the detention of children, including plaintiff Jenny Lisette Flores. In particular, the plaintiffs described conditions that included the use of strip searches, forcing children to share living quarters and bathrooms with unknown adults, and denying the release of minors to non-guardian relatives, leading to prolonged and cruel detention of children. Following litigation that moved through the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court, the federal government eventually agreed to a settlement in 1997 resulting, among other things, in:

Attorney General Becerra remains committed to fighting for the human rights of people in California and across the United States. Last year, Attorney General Becerra led a coalition of attorneys general in filing an amicus briefseeking immediate relief under theFloresSettlement Agreementfor children being held for weeks in inhumane conditions without access to basic necessities like soap, clean, water, toothbrushes, showers, or a place to sleep. In 2018, Californialed a coalition of 18 attorneys generalopposing the Trump Administrations initial proposal to circumvent theFloresSettlement Agreement. Earlier this year, Attorney General Becerrablasted a Trump Administration proposalthat would prevent asylum-seekers from becoming self-sufficient while waiting for their cases to be decided. Attorney General Becerra is alsoleading a coalition of attorneys generalagainst the Trump Administrations harmful public charge rule that discourages hardworking immigrantsand their familiesfrom accessing critical health,nutrition,and housing programs that supplement their modest wages and help them make ends meet.

In filing the amicus brief, Attorney General Becerra is joined by the attorneys general ofConnecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia.

A copy of the amicus brief can be foundhere.Source: CA. DOJ

See the original post:

California Attorney General Leads Coalition in Supporting Children Against Federal Attempt to Undermine the Rights of Them in Civil Immigration...

Senator Rick Scott appeared on Fox News with Bret Baier on Tuesday evening to discuss impeachment, and he looked like a deer in headlights throughout most of the questioning. Scott was unable to put his thoughts together, he stuttered and stammered throughout the entire clip, and sounded like he had no idea what he was talking about. Ring of Fires Farron Cousins explains why Scott was panicking so much during this interview.

Transcript:

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Former Florida governor/new Republican Senator Rick Scott, has pretty much made a career of being on the hot seat. Right? Voters here in Florida didnt really like him, although for some reason they voted him in for two terms. He was investigated because his company pulled off the largest Medicare fraud in the history of the United States. And most of us have all seen that interrogation video of Rick Scott where he didnt falter. He was totally cool when he pled the fifth amendment more than 70 times so that he wouldnt go to prison for the crimes his company committed. And he was cool as a cucumber. So it takes a lot to knock this guy off his game. And we saw exactly what it took last night on Bret Baiers Fox news program. And here it is.

Bret Baier: So are you saying that it was a perfect call?

Rick Scott: I mean, theres no perfect calls, but did, did the prison do something wrong? Did he, did he, I mean, did he say, youve got to do an investigation or I wont give you money? No, he didnt do that. And theres no evidence. Theres nobody. Theres nobody that they had that has that, they provide testimony on that said that.

Bret Baier: Right, but what if John Bolton did? What if he would?

Rick Scott: That was, that was the Houses responsibility. They, they look, John Bolton, they, they.

Bret Baier: Im just asking you what theyre saying. I mean, thats, theres saying here is John Bolton, and hes going to say this, allegedly, and what if he does say that? Youre saying there isnt a witness, but he could be that witness. Now you have former White House chief of staff, John Kelly, saying I believe John Bolton. I mean, it seems like this snowball and you say youre confident that witnesses wont be.

Rick Scott: Theyre going to come up with, theyre, the Democrats would, this is just like Kavanaugh. Theyre, Democrats are going to come up with something new every day to keep this going on forever. The Democrats, the House Democrats said they had overwhelming evidence. This was their impeachment. We didnt vote in the Senate to do this impeachment. They had all the time and they, they remember, theyre the ones who.

Again, I lived through eight years of Rick Scott as my governor down here in the state of Florida. Ive, Ive watched the deposition video from start to finish. Again, guy was unflappable, could not draw him off his game, could not make him look scared or confused. And Bret Baier asking a simple question of, hey, what do you think about John Bolton? Right? I mean, theres some crazy allegations. And suddenly Rick Scott turns into a cartoon character with, blah, blah, blah, maybe, de de de de de, Democrats did. So, blah, blah, blah. I dont know, maybe. Bleh. I have never seen Rick Scott do that. And of course he kind of recovers down there at the end and, you know, makes it sound like, you know, I mean, who can really tell what life holds for all of us and maybe the Democrats, they should have done this. They tried Rick, they tried. Your boss, and Im not talking about the people of Florida who are supposed to be your boss.

Im talking about your boss that you actually report to, Donald Trump. Hes the one who wouldnt let John Bolton come and testify. Now, the Democrats, as Ive repeatedly said, should have waited it out. Courts would have eventually sided with them, but it is what it is. But you cant say that what John Bolton is saying now isnt important. You cant pretend like this is somehow the fault of the Democrats. This is something you have to deal with and if you dont deal with it right now in this impeachment trial, then I can promise you based on the responses that you got on Twitter yesterday from this insane clip that you for some reason decided to tweet out because you thought it made you look good. Yeah, answer for it now in the Senate or youre going to answer for it with us in another four years. Were not going to forget this. Were just going to add it onto the long list of reasons why Rick Scott should probably be in a penitentiary instead of serving in the Senate.

Read more:

Rick Scott PANICS When Asked About John Bolton - The Ring of Fire Network - The Ring of Fire Network

RUSH: Denver and Samantha. Great to have you, Samantha. Thank you for waiting. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Such a pleasure to speak you.

RUSH: Yeah. Great to have you here, too.

CALLER: (chuckles) My question is, I know that you and others have made the argument that getting through this trial as quickly as possible is beneficial. We dont want to drag it out any more than the Democrats have dragged it out. You know, it could be potentially damaging to, you know, voter turnout and whatnot. But my question is

RUSH: No. Thats not I dont think that. Thats not why. But go ahead. I dont want to stop you. Go ahead. Ill explain later.

CALLER: Yeah, thats kind of a separate thought. But my question is we have this unique opportunity that Democrats have pretty much pushed themselves into to put people on the stand under oath and really start exposing the corruption thats there. Do you feel that, you know, thats enough of a benefit to, you know, really try to dig into this trial and use it for that purpose?

RUSH: Well, you know, I thought I had an additional minute. I misjudged the clock here. So Im gonna have to answer you after we conclude the call. Its possible, and I know the Democrats dont want that, which is what makes it intriguing to you. The same potential opportunity exists in the next phase of this, which is questions. The senators get to ask questions of both the House managers and the presidents lawyers, and that is maybe a way to treat Schiff as a witness, even though you dont call him as a witness. But let me expand on this when I have a little bit more time. Samantha, thank you very much. Its a great point, and Ill address it when we get back.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Look, very quickly: This is the impeachment trial of Donald Trump. No matter what happens at it, thats what it is. It needs to end with the acquittal ASAP. The purpose of this is not to investigate Democrats. Nobodys watching this anyway.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay, during the break here at the top of the hour, one of the things that I picked up on and this is a good point. I want to go back to our previous caller. The previous caller said, Look, Rush, I know that you want this over. You want the acquittal to be done with it. But wouldnt witnesses be a golden opportunity to bring in all of these corrupt Democrats Plugs Biden and his kid Hunter and just blow em up and just let everybody know whats going on?

I dont think that would happen. But even if it did, Im not in favor of this prolonging itself, because we know what the end of this is. The end of this is an acquittal. To my mind, there is no reason to prolong this. The purpose This is the impeachment trial of Donald Trump. This is not Senate hearings into the corruption of Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, and to try to turn it into that? (sigh) I just think thats I think its stay focused on what this is, get the acquittal and then, if youre hell-bent, do Senate hearings on Biden.

Theres nothing stopping the Republicans. They run it. Do Senate hearings on Hunter Biden. Senate hearings on the corruption in Ukraine, its perfectly within their purview to do it. The longer this goes on, the continuing opportunity the media examine the Democrats have to dirty up the acquittal. They know theres gonna be an acquittal. There isnt any other outcome here that is remotely possible. I mean, youve got maybe one-tenth of 1%.

But it would take far more than is known now. As weve had indicated, even the Democrats realize no evidence has been presented yet! Da Nang Dick Blumenthal, Connecticut, says (summarized), Theres no evidence. We just sat through a presentation bereft of facts and evidence. So heres the thing. They want Bolton and they want a whole bunch of other people. They want witnesses that the House didnt call, by definition.

Now, do the United States senators really want to permit a precedent to be set for future impeachments where the Senate will call witnesses that a House team of managers does not present and does not call and does not work with themselves? That, to me, is something that somebody like Mitch McConnell who loves and adores the Senate. Hes not gonna sit there and permit this. This is not at all what is intended. The House doesnt get a do-over when they dont have a case.

The House doesnt get to show up and present a fact-free case with no evidence and then demand the Senate go out and call additional witnesses that the House didnt call? Sorry, folks. No way. I cant support that. I dont care what the end result of it would be. What happens if Hunter Biden comes in and takes the Fifth Amendment, pleads the fifth? You dont hear from him anyway. All you get to do is presume hes guilty. But the whole point of exposing the corruption of him and his dad? (sigh) I mean, I understand the desire to see that. Dont misunderstand.

But we know what the end result is gonna be, and, as far as Im concerned, the objective is to get there. The president is going to be acquitted. There isnt an impeachable offense that has been presented. There is no evidence of an impeachable offense that has been presented. There is no evidence of misconduct. Theres no evidence of a president abusing his power. Theres no evidence of a president covering up or obstructing anything. Theres no evidence even that Ukraine didnt get its aid when it did.

Theres nothing here, and so allowing this thing to go on and on and on for the purposes of dirtying up the acquittal I mean, where we in favor of the Kavanaugh hearings continuing so we could dirty up Blasey Ford? We wanted that over with! We knew what was happening there. It was a trick. It was aimed at sullying and dirtying up Kavanaugh so that his time on the Supreme Court would be subject to disrespect and disrepute.

What they were really trying to do was get Trump to withdraw the nomination. Why should we allow this thing to go on interminably when what this is, is meddling in the 2020 election? This is how I see it. But this whole notion that somehow the Senate must allow witnesses that have not been part of the case up to now, that somehow the Senate must allow the admittance of documents that have not been part of the case up til now? That just doesnt fly. Theres no way it should. Now, I realize that the Senate trial is not the same as a courtroom trial, by definition.

But still, the nature of precedents is such that this is Were already way out of bounds on what an impeachment trial is supposed to be. Now, whats coming next? Senator questions for the legal teams! Now, the way this works is kind of like the way I used to do it during the Rush to Excellence Tours. I would take questions from the audience sometimes. I didnt do it all the time, cause you never know theyre gonna be any good. What I did is ask the audience to submit their questions in writing. Wed give em cards as they filed into the 10,000-to-15,000 seat arena.

Theyd fill out questions on the cards, they would pass em to people who then while I was doing the show would go through the cards and trying to pick some of the best questions. And at the end, theyd bring the cards to me on stage, Id go through them, and thats how I would choose to answer questions. Its a losing proposition if you do it by handing a microphone to the audience and they start asking questions. You lose control of it. You never know what people are gonna say. Well, the same things possible here in the Senate.

So the same thing happens. The senators are gonna ask questions of both legal teams. They get to ask questions of Schiff and the House managers, and they get to ask questions of the presidents lawyers. But they submit them in writing. Those questions then go to the chief justice, John Roberts, and the chief justice determines the questions that are asked. So if Republican senators want to pretend that Schiff is a witness, if they would

You know, they can ask him questions as though he were a witness, but its like gonna be up to the chief justice to permit that question or those questions. But more importantly, there is no follow-up, and each answer has a scheduled maximum time limit of five minutes. So whoever is answering the question cannot go off on a the filibuster. The chief justice can shut it down after five minutes and whatever the answer is, thats it. There is no follow-up. Nobody gets a follow-up. So it probably isnt going to be loaded with fireworks like everybody thinks.

But there are 16 hours allotted for this: Eight hours for Democrats to ask questions of the presidents lawyers and eight hours for the Republicans (or anybody) to ask questions of the Democrat House managers. Now, thats 16 hours. Thats two, eight-hour days. So theoretically this is Wednesday itd be over by Friday. Technically, if you get to the end of this week and have the vote on witnesses, it will be over. I still think this will be over this week cause of the Hawkeye Cauci.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let me assure with you some headlines here. Lawyer Says Parnas Cannot Attend Senate Trial Due to Ankle Bracelet. So? Who cares! Who cares if Lev Parnas can attend the trial or not?

Chuck Schumer Says There Will Be No Bargaining in Exchange for Hunter Biden Testimony. Whos Chuck You Schumer to say what the Senates gonna do? Chuck Schumer does not run the Senate. Mitch McConnell does. Chuck Schumer Says There Will Be No Bargaining in Exchange for Hunter Biden Testimony. Chuck Schumer Rejects Proposal to Subpoena Bolton Manuscript for Impeachment Trial Chuck Schumer has rejected a proposal by Republican senators to subpoena the manuscript of Bolton, insisting that Bolton has to appear in person.

The manuscript isnt enough. Meanwhile, Adam Pencil Neck Schiff was on PMSNBC yesterday, and he said (paraphrased), Well, no wonder Bolton didnt want to come testify! Hes got this book out there. We didnt know that. We would have loved for Bolton to come testify during our impeachment investigation, but he refused, adding that its pretty clear now why he wouldnt testify. He had a book that was being vetted.

Wait a minute. Bolton refused? I thought Bolton wanted to testify! Somebody help me out here. I thought the narrative was that Bolton wanted to testify. Thats what everybodys been saying. Bolton, hes eager to testify, and now Schiff is saying, He didnt want to testify. He refused. He refused to testify during the House hearings, you know, the hearings that Schiff is conducting in the basement.

Excerpt from:

Why We Need to End This Trial ASAP - RushLimbaugh.com

A three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit recently dismissed a case in which 21 young people asked the courts to demand federal government action on global warming. The panel did not deny the importance and urgency of taking measures to curb global warming, but rather concluded, with reluctance, that the claims were not redressable by the courts.

It is as if an asteroid were barreling toward Earth and the government decided to shut down our only defenses, wrote Josephine Staton, the dissenting judge. Seeking to quash this suit, the government bluntly insists that it has the absolute and unreviewable power to destroy the Nation. The courts, she implied, would not throw up their hands in the asteroid situationwhy, then, should the climate crisis be different? Given the urgency of the climate crisis, Statons analogy suggested, the majoritys argument that it is not our place to do something loses force.

The two judges in the majority were sympathetic to the young plaintiffs. They found that climate change was a crisis demanding immediate action and that the plaintiffs had demonstrated concrete injuries from climate change, injuries that arguably violated constitutional rights. They found that numerous federal policies, including actively encouraging and incentivizing industry use of fossil fuels, were substantial factors in the young peoples demonstrated injuries. They found that the young litigants had successfully demonstrated being harmedand being at risk of risk of further harmby human-caused climate change made worse by such governmental policies.

But the majority halted the case on the grounds that the policy decisions required to redress the harms of the young people were too complex and involved for the courts, and that it was properly the domain of the other branches to address such issues. On such grounds, they shifted the decision to the executive and legislative branches: the very branches responsible for the harmful policies in question.

Certainly the courts cannot solve the climate crisis by fiat, but neither was this the request. And complexity, as the dissenting judge observed, does not disqualify the courts from hearing cases otherwise suitable for judicial consideration. Brown v. Board, for example, ordered the racial desegregation of every U.S. public school, not balking at the fact that the particularities of doing so would be massively complicated. Though the court system cannot solve climate change by itself, a judgement finding that the government is engaging in unconstitutional behavior and ordering it into compliance could still be significant. Even limited moves such as ordering that the government cease to encourage the use of fossil fuels would constitute an important forward step.

The more central issues in the case, however, concern the magnitude of the harms and the urgency with which the harms would have to be redressed. Neither issue involves factual controversies: all three judges fully accepted the scientific consensus that great and irreparable harm will be wrought upon animals and their habitatsincluding humans and their cities and settlementsin the next 30 years. Nor did they deny that we are quickly approaching a point of no return, after which environmental degradation will be so severe that the worst effects of the climate crisis will be somewhere between very difficult and impossible to overcome.

An essential question of the case is when the court should, in the face of inaction by the other two branches, take matters into its own hands. Absent exceeding urgency, it may seem imperative for the courts to step back and urge the young litigants to call their members of Congress and perhaps even support alternative candidates in future election cycles, even if this means that the correction of wrongs may take a regrettably long period of time (91 years, for example, the timespan between the Emancipation Proclamation and the decision in Brown v. Board, as the dissenting judge noted). The two-judge majority echoed this reasoning, writing that the plaintiffs case must be made to the political branches or to the electorate at large, the latter of which can change the composition of the political branches through the ballot box, thereby declining to provide a judicial redress regarding the climate crisis for the young litigants, who will endure the effects of climate change more so than the more aged jurists on the bench.

Given the hostility the current administration and Congress have displayed toward matters of climate change, the suggestion that voters implore their legislators to take reparative steps regarding climate change is not reassuring. Many of the young plaintiffs will not even be able to vote in the next several national elections, so some of them would have to wait at least another two administrations to be able to address their demands for action to the legislative and executive branches. Besides, an essential aspect of the case is that the political branches have failed to act, thereby necessitating judicial intervention.

If the climate crisis were less urgent, the young litigants might have the time to wait for the political process to correct its own wrongs. But by 2028 human civilization will have passed the point of no return for limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. And since climate change works on timescales that exceed two-year election cycles, action is needed now (or better yet, yesterday), not later.

Herein lies an important distinction between this case and Brown v. Board. The 91 years between the Emancipation Proclamation and Brown were exemplative not of laudable judicial restraint but of the momentum of oppression. The injustice, however, could still be rectified 91 years later. School integration came late, but not never. We are not in a situation today to wait 91 years. Here more than ever, justice delayed may truly be justice irrevocably denied.

The fact that the litigants are not adults, and thus not voters, motivates another line of argument not included in the courts opinion or the dissent: an important function of the courts is to address the concerns of persons whose interests are not prioritized by the politicians of the day. While elected officials are not motivated to concern themselves with the worries of non-enfranchised persons, judges are uniquely positioned to ensure the rights of non-voters are observed, including the right to a livable habitat that is implicit in the fundamental right to life invoked in both the Declaration of Independence and the Fifth Amendment.

The argument that the courts cannot intervene in a normally political question even though the entire climate is at stake does not hold water to the rising sea levels, polluted air, decreased biodiversity, deadlier and more frequent natural disasters and other consequences of human-caused climate change. However slow-moving the climate crisis may seem on a day-to-day basis, its urgency means it would be a dereliction of judicial duty for the courts to stay silent.

Whether or not the young litigants will age in a livable habitat is not merely a political question but also a question of fundamental rights. Politics regards groups of people deciding together what to do and how to live. Courts abrogate their responsibility when they pretend their work does not implicate political affairs. The urgency of the climate crisis, coupled with the inaction of the political branches, justifies judicial intervention. As Judge Staton concluded her dissent: determining when a court must step in to protect fundamental rights is not an exact science. In this case, my colleagues say the time is never; I say it is now. We concur with her judgement.

See the original post here:

The climate crisis and the limitations of the courts - The Stanford Daily

Lori Loughlin of Fuller House fame just got even more bad news. Prosecutors expect to call her two daughters to testify against her at her upcoming trial for her role in the infamous college admissions scandal. The trial is expected to be held in October.

Us Weekly reported that if Loughlin continues to plead not guilty to charges of money laundering, fraud, and bribery, prosecutors fully intend to call her daughters Isabella (Bella) and Olivia Jade Giannulli to testify against her. Loughlin and her husband Mossimo Giannulli are each facing 45 years in prison for allegedly paying $500,000 in bribe money to have their two daughters admitted to the University of Southern California as members of the crew team. But, neither girl had ever rowed before.

Lori has been told by the legal team that the United States Attorneys Office will use her daughters as star witnesses in hopes of securing a conviction, a source said, adding that Bella and Olivia had their world turned upside down when their parents were indicted.

The source went on to say that Loughlin asked if there was anything that could be done to prevent the girls from testifying. She was told there wasnt unless there was a change from not guilty to guilty. Accepting a plea bargain would be the only solution.

RELATED: Loughlins Husband Seemingly Joked In Emails About Rejecting Legitimate Approach To Getting Daughters Into USC

The insider explained that Bella and Olivia have already accepted that they will likely have to testify.

The girls seem to grasp the severity of the situation and are taking it very seriously, the source said. Prosecutors plan on asking Bella about the photo she took on a rowing machine prior to being admitted. Bella did so at the direction of her parents.

Subscribe and get our daily emails and follow us on social media.

By opting in, you agree to receive emails with the latest in Lifestyle + Entertainment from TellMeNow. Your information will not be shared with or sold to 3rd parties.

The source also said that Olivia is considering invoking the fifth amendment. She would refuse to testify, but this may be a bad idea. In the end, Bella and Olivia want to stay out of this as much as possible.

They dont want to be in the crosshairs of this mess more than they already are, the source added.

Prosecutors plan to have Loughlin and Giannulli be among the first group of parents brought to trial. Prosecutors filed a memorandum in a Boston court offering two proposals for the trials. Both proposals involve Loughlin and Giannulli being tried first in October.

RELATED: Prosecutors Accuse Lori Loughlin And Mossimo Giannulli Of Withholding Evidence In College Admissions Scandal

The government believes that these groupings, which contemplate that spouses who have been charged together are tried together, will facilitate the efficient presentation of evidence based on the specific conduct in which each of the defendants engaged and the nature of the witnesses and evidence against them, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Rosen wrote in the documents. He went on to hint that some parents may still choose toplead guilty in deals with prosecutors before trial.

The government believes that it is likely that additional defendants will enter into agreements to resolve the charges prior to trial, Rosen wrote. For that reason, the government believes it may be possible to try those defendants who wish to exercise their right to a trial in no more than two trials.

This entire situation has turned into a huge mess for Loughlin. The only way out for her is to plead guilty and take responsibility for her actions. If Loughlin cant do that for herself, she should at least do it for her two daughters. Then wouldnt have to go through the agony of testing against their mother in court.

Read the original:

Lori Loughlin's Daughters Likely To Be Called To Testify Against Her - The MIX

While the media focus for three years of the Trump presidency has centered around Russia collusion and impeachment, the most dangerous collusion of all was happening right out in the open the Trump/Saudi/Israel/UAE drive to war with Iran.

On August 3, 2016 just three months before Donald Trump would win the Electoral College vote and ascend to power Blackwater founder Erik Prince arranged a meeting at Trump Tower. For decades, Prince had been agitating for a war with Iran and, as early as 2010, had developed a fantastical proposal for using mercenaries to wage it.

At this meeting was George Nader, an American citizen who had a long history of being a quiet emissary for the United States in the Middle East. Nader, who had also worked for Blackwater and Prince, was a convicted pedophile in the Czech Republic and is facing similar allegations in the United States. Nader worked as an adviser for the Emirati royals and has close ties to Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince.

There was also an Israeli at the Trump Tower meeting: Joel Zamel. He was there supposedly pitching a multimillion-dollar social media manipulation campaign to the Trump team. Zamels company, Psy-Group, boasts of employing former Israeli intelligence operatives. Nader and Zamel were joined by Donald Trump Jr. According to the New York Times, the purpose of the meeting was primarily to offer help to the Trump team, and it forged relationships between the men and Trump insiders that would develop over the coming months, past the election and well into President Trumps first year in office.

One major common goal ran through the agendas of all the participants in this Trump Tower meeting: regime change in Iran. Trump campaigned on belligerence toward Iran and trashing the Obama-led Iran nuclear deal, and he has followed through on those threats, filling his administration with the most vile, hawkish figures in the U.S. national security establishment. After appointing notorious warmonger John Bolton as national security adviser, Trump fired him last September. But despite reports that Trump had soured on Bolton because of his interventionist posture toward Iran, Boltons firing merely opened the door for the equally belligerent Mike Pompeo to take over the administrations Iran policyat the State Department. Now Pompeo is the public face of the Suleimani assassination, while for his part, the fired Bolton didnt want to be left out of the gruesome victory lap:

Trump, who had no idea who Qassim Suleimani was until it was explained to him live on the radio by conservative journalist Hugh Hewitt in 2015, didnt seem to need many details to know that he wanted to crush the Iranian state.

Much as the neoconservatives came to power in 2001 after the election of George W. Bush with the goal of regime change in Iraq, Trump in his bumbling way assembled a team of extremists who viewed him as their best chance of wiping the Islamic Republic of Iran off the map.

While Barack Obama provided crucial military and intelligence support for Saudi Arabias scorched earth campaign in Yemen, which killed untold numbers of civilians, Trump escalated that mass murder in a blatant effort to draw Iran militarily into a conflict. That was the agenda of the gulf monarchies and Israel, and it coincided neatly with the neoconservative dreams of overthrowing the Iranian government. As the U.S. and Saudi Arabia intensified their military attacks in Yemen, Iran began to insert itself more and more forcefully into Yemeni affairs, though Tehran was careful not to be tricked into offering this Trump/Saudi/UAE/Israel coalition a justification for wider war.

Protesters shout slogans against the United States and Israel as they hold posters with the image of top Iranian commander Qassim Suleimani, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during a demonstration in the Kashmiri town of Magam on Jan. 3, 2020.

Photo: Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/Getty Images

Assassination has been a central component of U.S. policy for many decades, though it has been whitewashed and normalized throughout history, most recently with Obamas favored term, targeted killings. The U.S. Congress has intentionally never legislated the issue of assassination. Lawmakers have avoided evendefiningthe word assassination. While every president since Gerald Ford has upheld an executive order banning assassinations by U.S. personnel, they have each carried out assassinations with little to no congressional outcry.

In 1976, following Church Committee recommendations regarding allegations of assassination plots carried out by U.S. intelligence agencies, Ford signed an executive order banning political assassination. Jimmy Carter subsequently issued a new order strengthening the prohibition by dropping the word political and extending it to include persons employed by or acting on behalf of the United States. In 1981, Ronald Reagan signed Executive Order 12333, which remains in effect today. The language seems clear enough: No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.

As I wrote in August 2017, reflecting on our Drone Papers series from two years earlier, The Obama administration, by institutionalizing a policy of drone-based killings of individuals judged to pose a threat to national security without indictment or trial, through secret processes bequeathed to our political culture,and thus to Donald Trump,a policy of assassination, in direct violation of Executive Order 12333 and, moreover, the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. To date, at least seven U.S. citizens are known to have been killed under this policy, including a 16-year-old boy. Only one American, the radical preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, was said to have been the intended target of a strike.

Theres no justification for assassinating foreign officials, including Suleimani.

While many Democratic politicians are offering their concerns about the consequences of Suleimanis assassination, they are prefacing it with remarks about how atrocious Suleimani was. Framing his assassination that way ultimately benefits the extremist cabal of foreign policy hawks who agitated for this very moment to arrive. Theres no justification for assassinating foreign officials, including Suleimani. This is an aggressive act of war, an offensive act committed by the U.S. on the sovereign territory of a third country, Iraq. This assassination and the potential for a war it raises are, unfortunately, consistent with more than half a century of U.S. aggression against Iran and Iraq.

For three years, many Democrats have told the country that Trump is the gravest threat to a democratic system we have faced. And yet many leading Democrats have voted consistently to give Trump unprecedented military budgets and surveillance powers.

Five months ago, California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna offered an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have prohibited this very type of action, but it was removed from the final bill. Any member who voted for the NDAA a blank check cant now express dismay that Trump may have launched another war in the Middle East, Khanna wrote on Twitter after Suleimanis assassination. My Amendment, which was stripped, would have cut off $$ for any offensive attack against Iran including against officials like Soleimani.

Trump is responsible for whatever comes next. But time and again, the worst foreign policy atrocities of his presidency have been enabled by the very politicians who claim to want him removed from office.

See the original post:

With Suleimani Assassination, Trump Is Doing the Bidding of Washington's Most Vile Cabal - The Intercept