Tag Archives: law

Trump Protects Law Enforcement Officers, Judges, & Prosecutors

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On Jan 18, Potus issued an executive order protecting law enforcement officers, judges, prosecutors and their families from threats to their lives and security in the course of performing their duties.

While offices and prosecutors already possess the right to carry a concealed fire arm, the order cuts out the red tape involved, allows for deputizing prosecutors as US marshals, and newly bestows the right to carry concealed weapons to judges.

In addition, investigations of crimes against the foregoing categories will be prioritized and they will be allowed to withhold private information from the public record for their safety.

With this EO, it certainly looks like the Trump administration is preparing carefully for the arrests of powerful people who might be inclined to threaten retribution against officers of the law and the courts for doing their jobs.

The following events are relevant here:

Governor Brian Kemp was probably dissuaded from coming clean on the corruption in the Georgia election and the facts about his relationship with Dominion Voting Systems by the fiery death in very suspicious circumstances of a young intern Harrison Deal. Deal was engaged to the governor’s daughter.
The agent rumored to be investigating the crime was found dead shortly thereafter, leading to speculation that he had been killed as a result of the investigation.

Justice Roberts was said to have been intimidated by the possibility of rioting by left wing groups when he side stepped the substantive issues involved and made the decision to turn down Texas’ election lawsuit on procedural grounds.

On January 14, 2021 indictments were unsealed in New York against 14 of the top bosses of   MS-13, considered to be one of the most dangerous transnational crime gangs, one involved in human and drug trafficking right across Central America. MS-13 gang members act as the foot soldiers of the Mexican drug cartels, selling methamphetamine across borders. The Mexican cartels themselves are the end point of transnational drug shipments that start as far afield as China. The indictments came as a result of Trump’s whole-government approach to prosecuting transnational criminal gangs and they charge the gang leaders with terrorist -related crimes.

“Specifically, the indictment charges the defendants with conspiracy to provide and conceal material support to terrorists, conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, conspiracy to finance terrorism and narco-terrorism conspiracy in connection with the defendants’ leadership of the transnational criminal organization over the past two decades from El Salvador, the United States, Mexico and elsewhere.”

6. Thousands of Chinese researchers who concealed their ties to the Chinese government/military have left their posts and returned  to China fearing arrest, after the arrest of six of them who lied on their visa applications about their ties to the People’s Liberation Army. Other high-profile cases include the arrest of Dr. Charles Lieber, chairman of Harvard’s chemistry department, who received tens of thousands in grant money from the Wuhan Institute of Technology and lied about it to the Pentagon as well as a  top MIT professor who received $19 million in federal grants while concealing his contracts and other ties with PRC entities and has been charged with grant fraud by the DOJ.

The new EO has been issued to make sure that powerful people do not intimidate the officials prosecuting Trump’s war on criminal transnational networks that are operating to corrupt our elections, steal vital research, traffic drugs and human beings between the US and other countries and then launder the proceeds of these activities.

It is a clear sign that he anticipates still more arrests of powerful and dangerous bad actors.

Judged by the Elitest of Elites

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I knew the Supreme Court of the US was weighted heavily in favor of the elite products of high-powered law schools, high-powered federal work experience, and high-powered theories.

But this chart of the make-up of the Supreme Court in recent years at the New York Times (May 2, 2009) was still something of a stunner to me.

One hundred percent of SC justices are former federal judges.

How many now are state judges? Nil.

How many now are private lawyers? Nil.

How many now are elected officials? Nil.

How many now are government lawyers? Nil.

How many now are law professors? Nil.

As Adam Liptak, the SC correspondent at The Times, justifiably complains,

“None of the justices have held elective office. All but one attended law school at Harvard or Yale. And the only three justices in American history who never worked in private practice are on the current court..”

But then Liptak holds up as a model, David Souter, a former attorney-general of the State of New Hampshire.

This, as trial lawyer Norm Pattis points out, is like depending on a sprinter to win a marathon.

“When is the last time a lawyer who made his living from fees earned
representing ordinary working people sat on the Supreme Court?”

But the question could be asked of many more government insitutions.

When was the last time the SEC was staffed with officials from small banks and  thrifts?

When was the last time a mayor from a small-town made it to the White House?

We talk about localism a lot. But in practice we’re heavily prejudiced against it.

A small-town resume, we presume, is fit only for small-towns.

There are a lot of reasons for this but I’ll focus on a couple that strike me at once (and I’ve blogged on them recently):

(1) It used to be that education fitted you to exercise judgment. These days we avoid judgment altogether, confusing it with judgmentalism.

In the absence of the ability to judge (and any common standard to judge by), we become victims of public relations and marketing. When no one can agree on substance, image becomes everything.

Brands rule. Harvard and Yale are the best known national brands, so we outfit our justices in them.

(2) Increasing specialization means that fewer people feel capable of pronouncing judgment about something, even if they felt it was permissble to. They look instead to experts to make their choices for them. The media, which has a disproportionate effect on nearly every choice made,  tends to focus on experts who come from the same educational and socio-economic background. The circle of the elite thus tends to get smaller and clubbier with every year.