The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol is seeking phone records from telecommunications companies as part of its investigation. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told the telecommunications companies not to comply with the Congressional requests and threatened that if they did, the GOP “would not forget it” once they are in power. This is a brazen act of obstructing a congressional investigation. The Department of Justice must address this promptly or else there likely will be more obstructive conduct by McCarty and perhaps others, as lawlessness begets lawlessness.
Army Lieutenant Files Federal Suit Against Two Virginia Cops for Excessive Force/Rights Violations
Two local police officers from Windsor, Virginia, were caught on tape abusing and assaulting an African-American Army Lieutenant, Caron Nazario. The lieutenant has filed a federal lawsuit for assault and violation of constitutional rights. A step-by-step review of the the video of the incident shows why the officers engaged in excessive and abusive force. This is yet another stark and disturbing example of why America is in desperate need of true police reform.
How to Defeat Trump/McGahn/Barr’s Weaponization of the Courts
EDITED: In the video, I mistakenly say that election day is “November 4, 2020.” It is “November 3, 2020.” My apologies for the error.
Trump and his nefarious associates believe they have perfected exploiting the delay in the court system to run out the clock and never be held to account. The fix is not as difficult as you might think.
There’s an abundance of specialized courts created to deal with specific types of cases. For example, there are drug courts, mental health courts, juvenile courts and domestic violence courts. In federal district court in Washington, DC, for example, there is reentry court.
Creating these courts do not require an act of Congress. It simply takes the judicial branch–a co-equal branch of the government–to recognize a particularized need in the criminal justice system and instituting common-sense rule changes to address the need.
If there was ever a need to address a deficiency, it is in the way nefarious actors exploit the delay inherent in the system. DC federal district court can easily remedy this weakness by creating an Inter-Branch Dispute Court (IBDC). When legal disputes erupt between the executive and legislative branches, like the need to enforce the House of Representatives’ subpoena for Don McGahn’s testimony in the impeachment inquiry, the IBDC can give the parties 72 hours to file their briefs, another 72 hours to present their oral arguments and the court decision would be entered within 72 hours of the conclusion of those arguments. The appeals court can follow the same 72/72/72 time table. Justice can be done in a matter of weeks, as opposed to the Trumps and McGahns of the world delay justice for months or years.
This common sense approach to fixing a proceduraly broken judiciary is a must for the health of our democracy.
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States Refer Trump & Postmaster General DeJoy for Criminal Investigation over Slowing the Mail
Donald Trump and his Postmaster General Louis DeJoy appear to be engaged in a criminal conspiracy to slow down the mail (in a transparent attempt to interfere in our free and fair elections) in violation of the federal law, 18 United States Code section 1703, which makes it a crime to delay or destroy the mail. Of course, Attorney General Bill Barr will not initiate a criminal investigation into Trump or DeJoy, as Barr has abandoned his responsibility to represent the interests of the American people and support and defend the Constitution, in favor of supporting and defending Donald Trump. But the good news is that there have now been two criminal referrals of Trump and DeJoy for potentially violating state law and the voting rights of state citizens. Arizona Secretary of State, Katie Hobbs, has made a criminal referral to the Arizona Attorney General, Mark Brnovich. Additionally, US Congressman Bill Pascrell, Jr. has made a criminal referral of Trump and DeJoy to the Attorney General for the state of New Jersey for possible violations of New Jersey voting laws.