Trump Infects Judicial System & DOJ

When I was growing up in America it was all too easy to see corruption and face the reality that who a person was determined how they would be handled by the police and the courts. The mayor’s son was arrested for painting cars in the visitors parking lot of my school. He was never charged. The case just disappeared. Most Americans believe that there are two systems of justice, one for the famous and wealthy and another for the rest of us.

I think we would all like to believe that when facts prove offenses they will be dealt with fairly in the judicial system. We know that our founders wanted to limit the power of judges, so they gave the Chief Executive lots of flexibility in determining how the law was administered. The Executive Branch gets to not only run the Department of Justice that decides which cases are brought to a court, but also which infractions they deem either unworthy of prosecution or below the level for legal action. We put a lot of faith in how they operate because they have the power to ruin a person’s life or allow them to start over and redeem themselves. We can only hope they get it right most of the time.

Let me add a wrinkle here. The President of the United States has the power to appoint judges with congressional confirmation. A president can shape the court by those he appoints. The founders also gave the President the undisputed power to pardon anyone he feels was unjustly charged or convicted. That’s an awesome privilege in the hands of a reasonable person which can be used to overturn the errors of a malicious judge, but what happens if the President is a vindictive lunatic?

Trump bullied, manipulated and forced the DOJ to drop all charges against Michael Flynn, who lied about talking to the Russian ambassador before Trump was sworn into office. Flynn admitted to the infraction in court, twice. He also lied to Mike Pence and this so disturbed the Vice President he demanded that Trump fire Flynn. Trump removed Flynn from government and said it was because he lied, a fact which no one disputes. He plead guilty to the charges and was about to be sentenced when along came William Barr. Attorney General Barr acts more like Trump’s personal attorney instead of caring about American citizens and the law.

Trump keeps declaring himself the “law and order” President while his base claps and cheers and coughs on each other. One thing is crystal clear; Trump is attempting to change the way America does business and, like a third-world dictator, has moved in ways that may make it difficult to recover our democracy when his term is over. If you control the decisions of this country’s judges, why wouldn’t you simply do whatever you want despite your action breaking a law? Trump is undermining the very foundation of our system of government. The three supposedly equal branches are being unduly influenced and controlled by Trump the man, not the President.

The courts don’t always give us logic or reason or even fairness. They give us opinions and those opinions become law.

You might say, “Oh, you’re making a mountain out of a mole hill! Trump’s just joking.” Don’t be such a blind fool. He wakes up every morning asking, “What can I do to take more power and stay here forever?” He’s the demon the forefathers warned us about and if we don’t stand up and demonstrate, we will lose our freedoms and will render the phrase “justice for all” inoperative.

Will other people who lie to the FBI or mislead the courts also get a pass simply because they have a friend in the Oval Office? Does this constitute a precedent, or is it just a goddamn miscarriage of justice? Here is what happened. A US appeals court directed a federal judge to drop the criminal case against President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn. It’s no secret that this demand came from Trump to those in the Justice Department, and it prevents a judicial review to determine the propriety of the request. In other words, the Executive Branch has power over the DOJ and can manipulate which cases are brought to court.

Just as William Barr stood before a national TV audience and declared that the Mueller Report didn’t find any laws that were broken, he has now placed himself above the court, and the disrespect he shows for truth and law is more than appalling.

In any other time, Barr would have been impeached. Attorney Generals Alberto Gonzales, Griffin Bell and General Harry M. Daugherty were on the chopping block, but they all exited rather than go through the embarrassment of impeachment. Their offenses were varied. Daugherty was allegedly involved in kickback scam involving bootleggers and the Congress delayed action.

The case of Griffin Bell is somewhat blurred by time, but five Department of Justice attorneys resigned over A.G. Bell’s reluctance to pursue others in the department for illegal activities related to domestic spying. Bell indicted the Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray, Mark Felt and former FBI Assistant Director Edward Miller for authorizing break-ins of New York City radical political activists’ offices and residences. This was in 1978, long after the Watergate break-in. He must have been a true-blue Democrat because President Jimmy Carter appointed him to be his Attorney General, but Bell only served two years before the chicken shit the fan. Oh, by the way, the spying truly took place. It wasn’t a hoax.

The case against George W. Bush’s A.G. Alberto Gonzales is straightforward. He was politically damaged by Democrats who lost confidence in Gonzales and accused him of excessive politicization of the Attorney General’s office. If my memory serves me right, Alberto Gonzales, kowtowed to Bush and VP Dick Cheney and paved the way for justifications of torture and the onerous Patriot Act. Lifelong Republican William Barr, who served in George H.W. Bush’s administration, is nothing but a political operative for the Red States.

Trump has infected the Department of Justice. All those who work in the DOJ should be wearing masks to protect themselves from the orange dementia virus. I have said this before; the first dismissal by the next president should be William Barr. He’s unworthy of the position and will go down in history as a big, fat liar. I can surely prove he’s fat, and so is the President. They have been eating at the same table for decades and taking everything they wanted. I hold hope that justice will eventually be served. Barr and Trump will not swallow the truth, but time will show how dishonest these “hombres” have been behind the scenes.

Although his sentence might have been only three or four months in jail, the fact that Michael Flynn is going to get off SCOTT FREE disturbs me greatly. It will be the ultimate slap to the face of justice if Trump brings him back into the administration. Of course, we know Trump doesn’t give a rat’s ass about having rats in the People’s House. Disgraceful.

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