This Is How We Do It by Joyce Vance

 

The standard practice for prosecutors who are trying to hold the leaders of a group of criminals accountable is to “go up the chain.” In a drug trafficking case, that means you start with lower-level defendants, perhaps people engaged in hand-to-hand drug buys that are readily provable. Then the prosecutor “flips” that defendant to help prosecutors make a case on his supplier. They continue up the chain as far as they can, reaching larger and larger dealers, regional suppliers, and hopefully, depending on the type of case, they end up able to prosecute the leaders of the drug trafficking organization.

This works when a lower-level defendant understands that by cooperating with prosecutors, he can limit his own criminal exposure, perhaps avoiding prosecution altogether, or being permitted to plead to lower-level charges that carry less time in prison. Some defendants plead guilty to all the charges against them, but receive a favorable recommendation at sentencing from prosecutors because of their cooperation, asking the judge to give them a lower sentence than they would otherwise receive.

Successful cooperation is conditioned on truthful testimony. Cooperating defendants understand that if they lie about anything, the deal is off. Prosecutors drill anyone being offered a deal on this point. And better deals are available to defendants who cooperate early—“first in gets the best deal” is something you’ll hear prosecutors say—when getting the first a break in a case is more crucial.

That brings us to today and Scott Hall, an Atlanta-area bail bondsman who was facing seven charges in the Fulton County case, including a RICO violation and conspiring to steal sensitive election data in Coffee County. This afternoon, with little advance notice, Hall pled guilty to five misdemeanors, will serve five years of probation, pay a $5,000 fine, and agree to cooperate with prosecutors. It’s the sort of deal that is so beneficial to a defendant that it suggests prosecutors believe his cooperation is valuable enough to merit the bargain.

So what might Hall be able to do? It’s not clear how important of a role he played in the overall scheme, and who he might have had direct communications with. But Hall was in the thick of things with Sidney Powell when she went to Coffee County, Georgia on January 7, the day after the insurrection, to carry out her scheme to illegally access voting machines. Hall’s cooperation is a bad sign for Powell. And Powell, in turn, had conversations about pursuing the Big Lie with others in the group and was in the room with Trump during some of the key conversations.

Sidney Powell isn't the only Trump co-defendant who should be concerned by Hall’s plea deal. Hall reportedly had an hour-long call with Jeff Clark on January 2nd. That’s a long time for the Georgia bail bondsman to have been on the line with the Attorney General-wannabe who wanted to push states Biden won to call those results into question based on untrue allegations of fraud to try and swing the electoral vote call to Trump. It’s unlikely the call was just an hour of pleasantries. Precisely what was said and how good Hall’s recollection is—and whether or not he has contemporaneous notes or other verification of what took place during the call—remains to be seen.

If prosecutors follow a typical trajectory, they will work up the chain from Hall to Powell and Clark, and perhaps others. It’s hard to imagine that either of them wants to spend a significant amount of time in state prison in Georgia, especially to protect Donald Trump. So far there’s no sign either one has seriously contemplated a plea. But they know, and now prosecutors do as well, about their interactions with Hall and what testimony he can offer against them. They are now the next step up in the chain.

Prosecutors have already said they will offer deals to both Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, whose trials are set to begin on October 23, although those deals are very unlikely to be as generous as Hall’s given the extent and nature of their conduct. 

But if prosecutors are able to make deals with either of them, or with Jeff Clark, that’s extremely bad news for Donald Trump. And Fani Willis, because she’s indicted local Georgia figures along with Trump and his legal and political advisers, is uniquely suited to make deals like the one with Hall that aren’t available to Special Counsel Jack Smith, who indicted Mr. Trump as a standalone defendant. Any deals Willis makes could benefit both of their cases. Things could get very interesting this week as more defendants begin to feel the squeeze.

Perhaps there will be more plea agreements this coming week.

We’re in this together,

Joyce

 

President Biden's Warning to the American People

 

In Tempe, Arizona, [yesterday], President Joe Biden spoke at the dedication ceremony for a new library, named for the late Arizona senator John McCain, who died in 2018. Biden used the opportunity not only to honor his friend, but to emphasize the themes of democracy and to call out those who are threatening to overturn it. While Biden has made the defense of American democracy central to his presidency, he has never been clearer or more impassioned than he was today. 

Biden recalled that when McCain was dying, he wrote a farewell letter to the nation that he had served in both war and peace. “We are citizens of the world’s greatest republic, a nation of ideals, not blood and soil,” McCain wrote. “Americans never quit…. We never hide from history. We make history.”

Biden reiterated the point he makes often: that the United States is the only nation founded on an idea, articulated in the Declaration of Independence, that we are all created equal and have the right to be treated equally before the law. While “[w]e’ve never fully lived up to that idea,” he said, “we’ve never walked away from it.” Now, though, our faith in that principle is in doubt. 

“[H]istory has brought us to a new time of testing,” Biden said. “[A]ll of us are being asked right now: What will we do to maintain our democracy? Will we, as John wrote, never quit? Will we not hide from history, but make history? Will we put partisanship aside and put country first? I say we must and we will. We will. But it’s not easy.”

Biden laid out exactly what democracy means: “Democracy means rule of the people, not rule of monarchs, not rule of the monied, not rule of the mighty. Regardless of party, that means respecting free and fair elections; accepting the outcome, win or lose. It means you can’t love your country only when you win.”

“Democracy means rejecting and repudiating political violence,” he said. “Regardless of party, such violence is never, never, never acceptable in America. It’s undemocratic, and it must never be normalized to advance political power.”

“Today,” he warned, “democracy is…at risk.” Our political institutions, our Constitution, and “the very character of our nation” are threatened. “Democracy is maintained by adhering to the Constitution and the march to perfecting our union…by protecting and expanding rights with each successive generation.” “For centuries, the American Constitution has been a model for the world,” but in the past few years, he noted, the institutions of our democracy—the judiciary, the legislature, the executive” have been damaged in the eyes of the American people, and even the eyes of the world, by attacks from within.

“I’m here to tell you,” Biden said: “We lose these institutions of our government at our own peril…. Democracy is not a partisan issue. It’s an American issue.”

“[T]here is something dangerous happening in America now,” Biden said. “There is an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs in our democracy: the MAGA Movement.” After high praise for his Republican friend McCain, and recollections of working with Republicans to pass bipartisan legislation throughout his career, Biden made it clear that he does not believe “every Republican,” or even “a majority of Republicans” adheres to the MAGA extremist ideology. But, he said:

“[T]here is no question that today’s Republican Party is driven and intimidated by MAGA Republican extremists. Their extreme agenda, if carried out, would fundamentally alter the institutions of American democracy as we know it.”

The MAGA Republicans, Biden said, are openly “attacking the free press as the enemy of the people, attacking the rule of law as an impediment, fomenting voter suppression and election subversion.” They are “banning books and burying history.” “Extremists in Congress [are] more determined to shut down the government, to burn the place down than to let the people’s business be done.” They are attacking the military—the strongest military in the history of the world—as being “weak and ‘woke’.”

They are “pushing a notion the defeated former President expressed when he was in office and believes applies only to him: This president is above the law, with no limits on power. Trump says the Constitution gave him…’the right to do whatever he wants as President.’ I’ve never even heard a president say that in jest. Not guided by the Constitution or by common service and decency toward our fellow Americans but by vengeance and vindictiveness.”

Biden accurately recounted the plans Trump has announced for a second term: expand presidential power, put federal agencies under the president’s thumb, get rid of the nonpartisan civil service and fill positions with loyalists. Biden quoted MAGA Republicans: “I am your retribution,” “slitting throats” of civil servants, “We must destroy the FBI,” calling the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff a “traitor” and suggesting he should be executed. These extremists, he said, are “the controlling element of the House Republican Party.”

“This is the United States of America,” Biden said. “Did you ever think you’d hear leaders of political parties in the United States of America speak like that? Seizing power, concentrating power, attempting to abuse power, purging and packing key institutions, spewing conspiracy theories, spreading lies for profit and power to divide America in every way, inciting violence against those who risk their lives to keep America safe, weaponizing against the very soul of who we are as Americans.”

“The MAGA extremists across the country have made it clear where they stand,” Biden said. “So, the challenge for the rest of America—for the majority of Americans—is to make clear where we stand. Do we still believe in the Constitution? Do we believe in…basic decency and respect? The whole country should honestly ask itself…what it wants and understand the threats to our democracy.”

Biden knew his own answers: 

“I believe very strongly that the defining feature of our democracy is our Constitution.

“I believe in the separation of powers and checks and balances, that debate and disagreement do not lead to disunion.

“I believe in free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power.

“I believe there is no place in America…for political violence. We have to denounce hate, not embolden it.

“Across the aisle, across the country, I see fellow Americans, not mortal enemies. We’re a great nation because we’re a good people who believe in honor, decency, and respect.”

Pointing to the fact that the majority of the money appropriated for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has gone to Republican-dominated states, he added: “I believe every president should be a president for all Americans” and should “use the Office of the President to unite the nation.”

The job of a president, he said, is to “deliver light, not heat; to make sure democracy delivers for everyone; to know we’re a nation of unlimited possibilities, of wisdom and decency—a nation focused on the future.”

“We’ve faced some tough times in recent years, and I am proud of the progress we made as a country,” Biden said, “But the real credit doesn’t go to me and my administration…. The real heroes of the story are you, the American people.” Now, he said, “I’m asking you that regardless whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, or independent, put the preservation of our democracy before everything else. Put our country first…. We can’t take democracy for granted.” 

“Democracies don’t have to die at the end of a rifle,” Biden said. “They can die when people are silent, when they fail to stand up or condemn the threats to democracy, when people are willing to give away that which is most precious to them because they feel frustrated, disillusioned, tired, alienated.” 

“I get it,” Biden said. But “[f]or all its faults…, American democracy remains the best…[path] forward to prosperity, possibilities, progress, fair play, equality.” He urged people not to sit on the sidelines, but “to build coalitions and community, to remind ourselves there is a clear majority of us who believe in our democracy and are ready to protect it.”

“So,” he said, “let’s never quit. Let’s never hide from history. Let’s make history.” If we do that, he said, “[w]e’ll have proved, through all its imperfections, America is still a place of possibilities, a beacon for the world, a promise realized—where the power forever resides with ‘We the People.’”

“That’s our soul. That’s who we truly are. That’s who we must always be.”

—Heather Cox Richardson

Notes:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/09/28/remarks-by-president-biden-honoring-the-legacy-of-senator-john-mccain-and-the-work-we-must-do-together-to-strengthen-our-democracy/

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/27/politics/john-mccain-farewell-statement/index.html

 

Looking Ahead: The Supreme Court by Joyce Vance

 

While the Court has come a long way from its earlier incarnations, with women and people of color now among its ranks, this is going to be a challenging term. It starts off with a bang, in a case called Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services Association that will be argued on Tuesday, October 3.

You may recall Elizabeth Warren’s tireless work before she became a senator to create a federal agency that would protect consumers from powerful financial interests that were unregulated and under-regulated. That’s the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), an agency that protects students, military families, people doing business with payday lenders, and so much more. The CFPB has been in existence for just over 12 years and has done profoundly impactful work in that time to make sure Americans are treated fairly by banks, lenders and other financial institutions. 

But now, powerful forces who encouraged Republican senators to deny Warren the opportunity to lead the agency she worked so hard to create—she was nominated but the Senate refused to confirm her—are trying to put an end to the CFPB altogether.

The legal issue is a technical one about whether the funding mechanism used for the CFPB, which is somewhat different from the usual path than for most federal agencies, is unconstitutional. One commentator has argued that “they do so based on an interpretation of the Constitution that would invalidate Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and countless other federal programs.”

But the CFPB is not, as the government’s briefs explain, funded in violation of Congress’ power of the purse. And the plaintiffs seem to understand that, arguing for a whole series of funding restrictions that could serve to gut the agency.

The Court doesn’t take a case like this just to say, “Rock on. you’re doing good work.” So we begin this term with concern that an agency that has come to play a big role in protecting us from predatory financial practices will suddenly go missing in action. 

You can be sure that if the Court requires the CFPB to be funded on an annual basis, the MAGA caucus in the House will make sure Elizabeth Warren’s brainchild is no more.

And that’s just the second case the Court will hear this term. It’s unlikely to get better as we progress. There’s a case, Rahimi, where the Court will hear argument about whether, in light of its decision in Bruen that only restrictions on gun possession that were in effect when the country was founded can be enforced today, the Court should invalidate a law that makes it a federal crime for someone subject to a domestic violence protection order to possess a firearm. Sounds like a great idea, right? Let’s give guns back to people who’ve demonstrated a propensity for violence. The research on this is clear. Access to a firearm increases the risk that an incident of domestic violence will escalate into a homicide.

There is much more, including Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, a case where some of Justice Thomas’s friends want to strip away a legal doctrine called Chevron deference that determines when a court should defer to an agency’s interpretation of a law. The endgame is to prevent federal agencies like the EPA from regulating business interests, balancing concerns like protection of the environment with the rights of those engaged in commerce.

Some businesses want out from under that, free to do as they will. The tactic they’ve used in this case is to bring in sympathetic plaintiffs, who make out the case that the big bad government, what conservatives sometimes call “the nanny state” is making life impossible for the little guy.

To develop that narrative, here’s how the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom describes the case, “A National Marine Fisheries Service regulation requires that herring fishing boats allow an additional person on board their small boats to serve as a monitor, tracking compliance with federal regulations. The fishermen must also pay the monitor’s salary of around $700 per day. Overall, the regulation reduces fishing profits by about 20%.

Loper Bright Enterprises, a fishing company in New England, and other fisheries sued to challenge this federal government rule, arguing that NMFS lacked statutory authority to force them to pay for these monitors.” This characterization, of course, completely ignores the rationale for monitoring the industry, but the real point is that the goal of this litigation isn’t to help out the little guy. It’s to protect big business from regulation, and it’s been a long time work in progress.

It’s not clear that there are five votes to reverse Chevron, but it’s not unlikely, either. We may well be in for another term where the Court reverses big precedent. To make things still more interesting, the plaintiffs in Loper Bright Enterprises are represented by staff attorneys for the Koch Network. Justice Thomas, whose secret participation in donor events organized by the Koch Network was revealed in a recent ProPublica story, has not taken steps to recuse himself from participating in the decision.

If there’s one glimmer of hope this term, it’s the prospect that the Court will bench-slap the Alabama legislature into compliance with the Court’s order from last term that Alabama must stop diluting the voting power of its Black citizens. The Court ordered that the legislature, consistent with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, must draw a map to be used for voting for members of the House of Representatives where Black voters have a realistic chance of electing candidates of their choice. 

Despite the surge in Black population to around 26% in the last census, Black voters were stuffed into one of Alabama’s seven Congressional districts, with no shot at electing a second member of Congress because of the way Black voters were spread out among the remaining six districts.

After the Court disallowed the existing map, the legislature adopted a new map that did…exactly what the Court said it couldn’t do. Again.

Now, a three-judge panel has appointed a special master who has come up with new maps that are consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision last term. The panel will pick one of them, and then, presumably, the state of Alabama will appeal again to the Supreme Court (that’s how this type of case works, appeals goes straight from a three-judge panel to the Supremes, cutting out the middleman, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals) and ask them to reconsider their earlier ruling. 

Today, Alabama’s Attorney General gave us a taste of what that argument will be. He argued that the new maps are a “racial gerrymander” i.e., white voters in the state of Alabama are being discriminated against.

Here’s hoping that whatever else it does this term, the Supreme Court will tell the state of Alabama it doesn’t get to flagrantly violate the rule of law. It should tell Alabama that it has no authority to tell the Court that its decisions are wrong and refuse to follow them. Anything less would be a betrayal of the rule of law and would be tantamount to the Court cutting out the legs of its own authority. 

One hopes that even this Court will stand up for the rule of law, which requires parties to follow decisions it renders. If the Court cedes its authority to the MAGA majority in Alabama’s legislature, we’re in deep trouble.

(But I don’t expect that to happen)

We’re in this together,

Joyce

 

In Historic First, Biden Walks Picket Line with Striking UAW Workers

 

["Hey Joe, where are you going with that [bullhorn] in your hands? I said, hey Joe..."]

Joe Biden on Tuesday became the first sitting U.S. president to join striking workers on a picket line, rallying with United Auto Workers members outside of a General Motors plant in Belleville, Michigan as they fight for a fair contract.

"You saved the automobile industry back in 2008," Biden said in brief remarks to the Michigan workers. "You made a lot of sacrifices, you gave up a lot, and the companies were in trouble. But now they're doing incredibly well. You should be doing incredibly well, too."

"Wall Street didn't build the country, the middle class built the country," the president said. "And unions built the middle class. So let's keep going. You deserve what you've earned, and you've earned a hell of a lot more than you're getting paid now."

The president's visit to the picket line comes days after the UAW expanded its strikes to every General Motors and Stellantis parts distribution facility in the U.S., accusing the two companies of refusing to seriously engage with union negotiators.

More than 18,000 autoworkers in 21 states are currently on strike against General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis, pushing the so-called Big Three automakers to deliver significant pay and benefit improvements after years of surging profits and declining real wages. Survey data released Monday shows that public support for the strikes is growing, with 62% of likely U.S. voters—regardless of party affiliation—backing the walkouts.

When asked by a reporter, Biden said he supports a 40% wage increase for UAW workers.

Labor historians say they're not aware of any other case of a sitting U.S. president rallying with striking workers in this way.

"This is genuinely new—I don't think it's ever happened before, a president on a picket line," Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told veteran labor journalist Steven Greenhouse on Tuesday. "Candidates do it frequently and prominent senators, but not a president."

UAW president Shawn Fain, who accompanied Biden at the Belleville picket line, thanked Biden for "being a part of this fight."

"We know the president will do right by the working class," said Fain, "and when we do right by the working class, you can leave the rest to us, because we're going to take care of this business."

Biden visited striking autoworkers a day before former President Donald Trump—the GOP's 2024 presidential front-runner—is scheduled to speak to hundreds of workers at Drake Enterprises, a nonunion auto parts supplier in Clinton Township, Michigan.

Morris Pearl, chair of the Patriotic Millionaires, said in a statement that "the historic significance of President Biden's decision to join striking workers on the picket line cannot be understated."

"Instead of taking on the role of mediator—and falling victim to both-sides-ism in the process—Biden is standing unequivocally with workers who have been denied a share in the prosperity of the Big Three automakers," said Pearl.

"Biden's fight on behalf of workers must not end here," Pearl added. "To ensure his support is more than symbolic, he must use this historic moment to ensure that workers in all industries share in growing prosperity with their employers. While this is an important step, there remains significant work to do. We look forward to seeing which tangible steps President Biden takes to further support American workers."  -Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

A 2-year-old and her dogs

 

A 2-year-old girl who walked barefoot more than three miles with her family’s two dogs was found sleeping off a wooded Michigan trail using the smaller dog as a pillow, authorities said.

Troopers were called to a house in rural Faithorn, Michigan, around 8 p.m. on Wednesday after the toddler, Thea Chase, had wandered away from the home, Michigan State Police Lt. Mark Giannunzio told CNN on Friday.

Faithorn is a small town about a mile east of Wisconsin’s border in northern Michigan.

Brooke Chase, Thea’s mother, said she had an instinct to check on her daughter who had been playing in the yard, and learned the toddler’s uncle told Thea to go inside because she had no shoes on.

When Chase and her brother-in-law realized Thea wasn’t in the house, she said she began to yell. They searched for about 20 minutes before calling Chase’s husband and police.

“When we get a call like that, everything else stops,” Giannunzio said.

Michigan State Police put out requests for drones, search-and-rescue and canine teams, while members of the close-knit community formed their own search party to help locate the child, who was assumed to be somewhere in the heavily wooded area near the home, Giannunzio said.

Around midnight, four hours after police were first notified, a family friend searching for Thea on an all-terrain vehicle came across the Chase family’s Rottweiler, Buddy, who started barking as he approached, according to Chase.

The 2-year-old was discovered a short way off the trail, sleeping on the ground with her head atop Hartley, the family’s English Springer. When the ATV driver tried to get near the toddler to wake her up, the smaller dog growled, Chase said.

“She has those dogs wrapped around her finger,” the mother said.

Chase added she was “in a fog” for the roughly four hours that search teams looked for her daughter. While she stayed in the home with Thea’s younger brother, troopers searched the house multiple times and tried to comfort the mother.

When Thea was returned home on the back of the ATV, the child was giggling and saying, “Hi, Mommy,” Chase said.

The outdoor temperature was about 60 degrees when the toddler was found. Thea was determined to be fine after a medical evaluation, according to Giannunzio.

CNN

"Yesterday New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez was indicted, along with his wife and three New Jersey businessmen" -Joyce Vance

 

DOJ alleges that he agreed to take bribes in exchange for using his official position to benefit the three men, as well as the government of Egypt. The Senator and his wife allegedly accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes, which came in the form of gold bars, cash, and a luxury convertible. Arraignments are set for next Wednesday.

Like all defendants, the Senator and his co-defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. They’ve said they intend to fight the charges. Menendez is required, under Senate rules, to step down from his position as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. NBC is reporting that he is expected to do so. He is up for reelection in 2024.

The 39-page “speaking” indictment charges Senator Menendez and his co-defendants with a sprawling conspiracy. There are detailed allegations that he used his leverage as chair of the Committee to try and pressure a Department of Agriculture official for the benefit of his co-conspirators and that he attempted to intervene in two federal criminal cases, where he pressured federal officials to slow the pace of, or drop, cases.

The charges are:

·       Conspiracy to commit bribery under 18 USC 201, which prohibits the giving or accepting of anything of value to or by a public official, if the thing is given "with intent to influence" an official act, or if it is received by the official "in return for being influenced."

·       Conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud under 18 USC 1346 and 1343, which prohibit a “scheme or artifice to defraud” another of the intangible right of honest services owing to them from an elected official. The concept of honest services, which prosecutors attempted to use broadly after the law was enacted in 1988, has been limited to bribes and kickbacks.

·       Conspiracy to Commit Extortion Under Color of Official Right, 18 USC 1951, is know as the Hobbs Act. Although it was enacted to combat racketeering in labor-management disputes, it is also used for public corruption, when an elected official engages in extortion through misuse of his office.

 

The full indictment can be found here. The government says the conspiracy involved the Senator advising Egyptian officials, through his co-conspirators, that he would approve or remove holds on foreign military financing and sales of military equipment to Egypt, that he had the ability to engage on because of his leadership role on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. His actions were designed to permit a business owned by one of the co-defendants to obtain a profitable monopoly on approval of Halal meat.

The indictment explains, “Because the monopoly resulted in increased costs for U.S. meat suppliers, in or about April and May 2019, the USDA contacted the Government of Egypt and sought reconsideration of its grant of monopoly rights to IS EG Halal.  After being briefed on the USDA’s objections to IS EG Halal’s monopoly by [defendant] HANA and [defendant] NADINE MENENDEZ, on May 23, 2019, MENENDEZ called a high-level USDA official (“Official-1”) and insisted that the USDA stop opposing IS EG Halal’s status as sole halal certifier.  When Official-1 attempted to explain why the monopoly was detrimental to U.S. interests, MENENDEZ reiterated his demand that the USDA stop interfering with IS EG Halal’s monopoly.  Official-1 did not accede to MENENDEZ’s demand, but IS EG Halal nevertheless kept its monopoly.”

Some of the specific allegations include:

·       “Menendez agreed and sought to pressure a senior official at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in an effort to protect a business monopoly granted to his co-defendant…by Egypt.”

·       Menendez tried to “disrupt a criminal case undertaken by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office related to associates of [co-defendant] Uribe.”

·       Menendez tried to “disrupt a federal criminal prosecution brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey against [co-defendant] Daibes.”

There is some history to take into account: the Senator was indicted on unrelated charges in 2015. Menendez was charged with a bribery scheme to trade political favors for luxury vacations, golf outings, campaign donations and expensive flights. His co-defendant, Salomon Melgen, a Florida eye doctor, had already been convicted in a scheme to defraud Medicare of over $90 million.

Menendez’s position was that there was no bribery involved, that any favors that were done occurred because of a long time and very close friendship between the two. His trial, two years later, resulted in a hung jury. Afterwards, the Judge dismissed seven of the 18 charges in the indictment, and DOJ chose not to retry the remainder. Menendez was never convicted. Politico reported that a juror leaving the federal courthouse in Newark after the mistrial said the jury was split, 10-2, with the majority believing the senator was not guilty on most of the 18 counts he faced.

Our elected officials assume the mantel of the public’s trust when they take office. In cases where they abuse it, they must be held accountable. Using public office for personal financial gain is unacceptable. It does not matter which party the person is a member of. But by the same token, DOJ has some legal hurdles it must clear when it brings a case like this one. DOJ has suffered losses in some of its public corruption cases over the last couple of decades, with the Supreme Court limiting the type of conduct that can be charged to a narrow lane, leaving conduct that our common sense might suggest is wrong outside of prosecutors’ jurisdiction. The Court did that, for instance, in cases involving Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (subsequently pardoned by Trump on charges that survived appeal) where it distinguished political horse trading from personal financial gain and Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, where it narrowly defined official acts.

Despite the gravity of the allegations, or perhaps because of them, a case like It was undoubtedly reviewed by the Department’s criminal appellate lawyers, and perhaps, the Solicitor General herself to ensure that it did not run afoul of that body of caselaw. We may learn more this week, including whether Menendez will rehire lawyer Abbe Lowell, who got him off on the earlier charges. Lowell is currently representing Hunter Biden. It’s a small world.

We’re in this together,

Joyce Vance

 

The GOP Is the Party of Corrupt Oligarchy by Ryan Cooper

 

Texas has been a reliably Republican state for over two decades now, producing national figures like George W. Bush, Ted Cruz, and Rick Perry. Recently, the Texas GOP has gotten national attention for a less savory figure: Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was impeached by the Texas House earlier this year for egregious abuse of his powers of office.

That was remarkable given that the House is controlled by Republicans. Yet as Justin Miller reports at the Texas Observer, in the trial in the Texas Senate, Paxton was acquitted on every count. That’s the Republican Party for you—even when some party members attempt to rid themselves of their worst elements, they are slapped down by the rest.

As Christopher Hooks explains at Texas Monthly, Paxton has long been a cat’s-paw for Tim Dunn, a fervently right-wing oil billionaire who has been funding the state’s Republicans for years. When the GOP finally took control of the House and the rest of the state government in 2002 for the first time since the 1870s, Dunn and his fellow oligarchs assumed that they’d have the run of the state.

But because the Texas House elects its Speaker with a simple majority vote of both parties, the remaining Democrats allied with traditional business-minded Republicans to elect the relative moderate Joe Straus as Speaker of the House. This infuriated Dunn not only because Straus is not a febrile reactionary, but because he was the first Jewish Speaker in Texas history. Dunn reportedly told Straus to his face that only Christians should be in offices of state leadership.

But that wasn’t Dunn’s only priority. Another was taking care of the Texas Ethics Commission, which had drawn Dunn’s ire by attempting to impose minimal disclosure requirements on his enormous political spending. He backed Paxton heavily in the attorney general race of 2014, which was decisive. Sure enough, Paxton then cut off legal support for the TEC in its legal battles against Dunn, which put a stop to the disclosure requests.

In office, Paxton’s door was unsurprisingly open to about any conservative with a big bank account, a checkbook, and a functioning pen, which brings us to the impeachment. One was real estate developer Nate Paul, who not only cut campaign checks but also employed Paxton’s mistress, and was facing scrutiny from federal law enforcement. Paxton directed his staff to help Paul fight off the feds. “When they resisted, Paxton threatened to fire them; after they blew the whistle, Paxton did fire them,” Hooks writes.

So a critical mass of House Republicans decided they had had enough of this guy, not least because his record of achieving anything in office is poor. Paxton’s scandals drag the party down—he was also charged with securities fraud in 2015, though he’s managed to drag out the start of the trial for eight years and counting—and he isn’t even very good at filing tendentious lawsuits to give the Fifth Circuit and Supreme Court an excuse to legislate by decree. And then in June, after the impeachment vote, Paul was arrested and charged in federal court with eight counts of making false statements and reports to financial companies.

Ken Paxton might be a corrupt, incompetent doofus. But he is very good at doing what his oligarch paymasters tell him to do, and then activating the conservative grievance industrial complex by claiming to be the victim of a conspiracy when facing accountability of any sort. “This shameful process was curated from the start as an act of political retribution,” he said in a news conference just before being impeached. “Let’s restore the power of this great state to the people, instead of the politicians,” he added, with truly astounding chutzpah.

It worked.

Today’s Republican Party simply selects for this kind of person now. This is what their system produces: toadies and lickspittles for oligarch billionaires, whose bone-deep corruption actually makes them more appealing to the billionaire class. As Hooks points out, Paxton is totally dependent on Dunn’s support, without which he would have fallen years ago.

There are many other examples of this kind of Republican, but none more relevant than Donald Trump, who combines the role of corrupt toady and oligarch billionaire into one person. This was a guy who campaigned on the same kind of hysterical nonsense as previous Republicans, except even more shamelessly, and in office was by far the most corrupt president in American history. When he lost, he claimed to be the victim of a conspiracy, attempted to overthrow the government to stay in office, and in the process nearly got many Republican members of Congress lynched if his mob had caught up with them. But when it came to convicting him for attempting to negate the outcome of the presidential election, the party blinked and acquitted him in the Senate.

Now, both Texas and nationwide, Republicans are saddled with comically corrupt and unpopular leaders who are facing criminal indictments. Trump is facing 91 felony counts in four different jurisdictions, and may face more. Paxton, it seems, will no longer be able to delay his securities fraud trial much longer, and may face more charges relating to the Paul affair.

The political choice for the foreseeable future is clear: If voters want politicians who flagrantly abuse their powers of office to benefit themselves and their oligarch enablers, the Republican Party is the way to go. They just can’t help themselves.

-The American Prospect

 

Ryan Cooper is the Prospect’s managing editor, and author of ‘How Are You Going to Pay for That?: Smart Answers to the Dumbest Question in Politics.’ He was previously a national correspondent for The Week.

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Source URL: https://portside.org/2023-09-19/gop-party-corrupt-oligarchy