No. of Recommendations: 8
I think these are an accurate formulation of the arguments that can and will be made by those seeking to codify an expansion to some degree of this de facto immunity. I'm not sure if it will be successful in widening such immunity though I'm absolutely sure there are four votes on the court to do so, Roberts being the swing vote and I'm pretty sure he will lean towards an expansion as well.
But while these may be valid arguments, are they valid and comparable to the facts in the present? Absolutely not.
In 1952, the US was at war, needing ammunition produced for the war in Korea and had reconstruction obligations to projects in Europe to resurrect their economies and fend off Russia. Congress had enacted the Defense Production Act providing certain powers to the Executive branch to dictate manufacturing priorities and wage/price controls in industries related to defense. Unionized steel workers were organizing to act as one and strike nationally while steel firms were claiming higher wages would bankrupt the industry. Both parties worked through a government mediation board for months with no progress and both hardened their positions, leaving the country at a point where it might have virtually no new steel being made and would wind up short of shells in Korea in weeks.
I'm not an expert in labor law or aspects related to seizure of private assets in war time but with the benefit of hindsight, it seems like seizing control of the steel mills in an attempt to ensure continued production was not optimal and wasn't "legal" according to terms of the Defense Production Act and related amendments. However, no one at the time or since has argued that Truman seized the mills to force continued production to benefit from it personally. He did it in the process of acting as Commander in Chief to ensure viable support for Korea and our own troops in an active war.
In the Fast & Furious case, the "gun walking" at the core of the case originated in 2006 during a different Administration and all of the investigations into the fiasco indicate the concept of allowing a certain number of guns be sold to criminals to trace them to larger gun running rings originated in the Phoenix bureau of ATF, not in the upper echelons of the Bush or Obama Administrations in the FBI or DOJ or in the Attorney General's office. When the details of the plan became public in 2011 or 2012, it became an opportunity for Republicans in the House and Senate to make partisan points against Obama and Holder. They probably didn't know at that time how far back the program dated. At some point, that animosity triggered a subpoena for documents about internal decisions within the DOJ, which Holder refused at Obama's direction. The judge brought into the case at the appeals level backed the Republican push for a while triggering more litigation that lasted into the Trump Administration.
In hindsight, the fight over Fast & Furious documents appeared to be just partisan grandstanding. This is somewhat obvious because once Democrats reached a position to demand copies of internal DOJ documents regarding the Mueller investigation, the Trump Administration made precisely the same arguments trying to prevent those "internal documents" of the Executive branch from being reviewed by Congress. The courts eventually extricated themselves from the case ruling that Courts were given no authority to settle arguments between the Legislative and Executive branches only involving the two branch's internal operations. (That possibly became the excuse for the recent spike of mutual refusals of subpoenas between DOJ and Congress.)
Again, it's possible to argue that Obama intentionally hindered the ability of another branch of government to do its duties but A), it could be argued the documents were subpoenaed by Congress for exactly the same reason - to interfere with the Executive branch's internal operations and B) Obama was not personally or economically benefiting from his decision.
In contrast with the above examples, every criminal charge made against Trump involves actions which not just PARTLY benefited Trump as a side-effect of some public "good" sought by the action but PRIMARILY benefited Trump. In the case of the catch-and-kill charges, Trump's crimes exclusively benefited HIM alone
* by hiding tawdry personal matters (not a crime)
* by paying large sums of money (not a crime)
* disguised as business expenses (criminal)
* further disguised through tax-grossups to reduce personal and business taxes (criminal)
* to aid a political campaign (not a crime)
* without disclosing said campaign costs (criminal)
In the insurrection case, Trump's crimes exclusively benefited HIM alone
* by increasing the chance enough Republicans would alter electoral slates (criminal)
* by altering legitimate election outcomes and defrauding millions of voters (criminal)
* allowing him to retain power and further delay outcomes in looming personal lawsuits already pending
In the national security documents case, it frankly isn't clear WHO would benefit from Trump's decision to keep the documents. It would be difficult to USE any information in such documents without eventually seeing a link in some other event back to the documents. However, in the event of such a stupid, reckless action, clearly Trump would be the ONLY one to benefit by possibly
* using information within to extort political allies / enemies?
* using information within to extort bribes from foreign business interests or powers?
* seducing his next ex-wife by showing her his big secret document trove?
* autioning them off for cash on ebayforspooks.com?????
There is a UNIVERSE of difference between choices any prior President has made and the choices Trump made before, during and after his Presidency. If the US was ever going to contemplate relaxing that whole "no man is above the law" ideal, Trump is NOT the person to use in justifying a change.
WTH
