Our #Poly_Newser covers ‘news of the day’ #politics content.
Cryptopolytech Public Press Pass
Barr’s latest anti-Trump broadside raises political stakes of Mar-a-Lago search drama
Subject: 11000000 – Politics
•| Politics |•| 11000000 | •| POLY |
Barr’s latest anti-Trump broadside raises political stakes of Mar-a-Lago search drama
“The opinion, I think, was wrong, and I think the government should appeal it. It’s deeply flawed in a number of ways,” Barr said on Fox on Tuesday.
It was the second time in just a few days that the former attorney general had taken to the network favored by conservatives to hammer Trump on the controversy. And his statements are adding to the swirl of outside interest in the next critical stages of this high-stakes legal process — the search for a third-party official to serve as a “special master” and the Justice Department’s decision on whether to appeal Cannon’s ruling, which would come at the risk of further delays for the probe.
Barr’s outspokenness will have three main consequences. First, such comments by a longtime political and legal conservative will add credibility to growing questions not just about Cannon’s legal reasoning but also whether Monday’s ruling, which delivered several big wins to Trump, was motivated by loyalty to the president who appointed her.
Second, his comments will renew intrigue over his personal transformation — from the attorney general who shielded Trump from the full blast of the Mueller report into his 2016 campaign’s links with Russia into one of the ex-President’s most fervent critics. Whether Barr is being driven by an effort to rehabilitate his reputation as a legal straight shooter, a desire to defend the Justice Department against Trump’s attacks or, is simply right on the facts, is open for debate.
Third, Barr’s latest criticism of his former boss — including that he was wrong to have classified information at Mar-a-Lago — will likely earn him a fresh broadside from the ex-President and his acolytes. Not that Barr cares, since he chuckled when he told Fox that Trump’s definition of a RINO (Republican in name only) is anyone who doesn’t believe the election was stolen.
The DOJ’s dilemma
Barr’s criticism added to that of many legal experts over the quality and potential consequences of Cannon’s legal opinion.
After last week calling Trump’s demand for a “special master” a “red herring,” Barr on Tuesday argued that the fundamentals of the case against Trump and those around him in Florida were already set.
“The government has very strong evidence of what it really needs to determine whether charges are appropriate — which is government documents were taken, classified information was taken and not handled appropriately,” Barr told Fox.
“And there’s some evidence to suggest that they were deceived and none of that really relates to the content of documents. It relates to the fact that there were documents there, and the fact that they were classified and the fact that they were subpoenaed and never delivered.”
The granting of the request for a special master — a step the DOJ vehemently opposed — is a significant complication for prosecutors since it means they will be prevented from reviewing material taken from Trump’s residence for now. An investigation into the potential damage to national security wrought by Trump’s careless handling of the material was allowed to continue.
The comparatively mundane task of finding an official to fulfill the role will be difficult since filings in the case and Trump’s characteristically emotional response to its intricacies suggest agreement between the parties could be close to impossible. Then, given the highly classified nature of some of the material, the person concerned will need to have top security clearances, further narrowing the pool of possible candidates. And the official must be willing to brave the stream of invective that could be flung their way by the former President, who, in an inflammatory campaign trail appearance on Saturday night, branded FBI agents as “vicious monsters.”
The special master’s role will also be complicated by the vague mandate he or she has so far been given by Cannon. Questions of executive privilege — a president’s right to receive private information and advice from officials — has been sparsely litigated, especially in the case of former commanders in chief.
On the face of it, a former president has no established right to make such claims, especially for classified material that did not originate in the White House. But this is an issue that Trump might himself try to challenge in court as part of his frequent strategy of trying to delay accountability.
The same issue weighs on the DOJ’s dilemma over whether to appeal Cannon’s ruling. Many legal scholars have noted that her reasoning that Trump, as an ex-president, is at greater risk of reputational harm than regular Americans appeared to create a whole new category of citizenship under the law. It also provided a potential opening for defense lawyers in any unrelated case to argue that defendants should therefore have the right to a special master — a situation that could considerably clog up the criminal justice system.
For that reason, it might be incumbent on the DOJ to appeal, even though such a move could condemn the Mar-a-Lago case to a long sequence of court challenges that could take months and further delay the investigation.
Ryan Goodman, a professor at NYU Law, told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Tuesday evening that the department should make an urgent appeal to at least release the injunction on its use of material taken from Trump’s home.
How Trump has politicized the judiciary
At times, her Monday opinion seemed to mirror the conservative criticism of the DOJ — including on the issue of whether Trump had suffered reputational damage from the search. She wrote that there was a need to ensure “the integrity of an orderly process amidst swirling allegations of bias and media leaks.” The most unhinged accusations of bias in this case came from Trump.
At the same time, however, the idea that is circulating on the left that Cannon is nothing but a hack and had to be acting to safeguard Trump’s political interest because she was appointed by him points to a slippery slope. Given that most judges are appointed by presidents, they are all liable to similar charges. If the politicization of the judiciary system continues, it would make it all but impossible in these circumstances for any politician to face true justice for perceived lawlessness.
Of course, this politicization of the legal system has been perpetuated by Trump. Chief Justice John Roberts once issued an extraordinary statement reminding Trump while he was president that there were no Trump judges or Obama judges or Bush judges or Clinton judges but that there was instead an independent judiciary. The statement, released in 2018, followed one of the then-President’s frequent claims that a judge appointed by his predecessor was biased against him.
So, if Cannon is being unfairly maligned for supposed political bias, she is the victim of a trend that originated with the president who appointed her.
‘News of the Day’ content, as reported by public domain newswires.
Source Information (if available)
It appears the above article may have originally appeared on www.cnn.com and has been shared elsewhere on the internet, repeatedly. News articles have become eerily similar to manufacturer descriptions.
We will happily entertain any content removal requests, simply reach out to us. In the interim, please perform due diligence and place any content you deem “privileged” behind a subscription and/or paywall.
First to share? If share image does not populate, please close the share box & re-open or reload page to load the image, Thanks!