Lawfare

Trump’s lawfare against lawfare

It is of course hacky and hysterical to suggest America is turning into a banana republic. How else, though, can a reasonable person interpret Donald Trump’s settlement this week with the Internal Revenue Service?In January, the President and his two oldest sons sued the IRS for $10 billion over the leaking of their personal business tax filings to the press. Because Trump runs the Justice Department, the case was somewhat farcical: "I’m suing myself," Trump wryly admitted last week. "I’ll say, 'Give me X dollars,' and I don’t know what to do with the lawsuit." This week we found out. IRS lawyers felt their case was defensible on various counts: chiefly because the man who leaked the Trump family files wasn’t working for the service when he gave them to the New York Times.

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The Comey dismissal is a miniature constitutional crisis

United States District Court Judge Cameron M. Currie, sitting by designation in the Eastern District of Virginia, yesterday dismissed the federal indictments against former FBI Director James B. Comey and New York attorney general Letitia James. At the crux of the court order is the judge’s finding that President Donald J. Trump’s administration unlawfully appointed Lindsey Halligan, the US Attorney who signed the Comey and James indictments. Taking the now familiar TDS cheap shot, the court order opens with a description of the US Attorney as “a former White House aide with no prior prosecutorial experience.” Attorney General Pamela J. Bondi appointed Ms.

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Let the retribution begin

Let the retribution begin. A federal grand jury in the eastern district of Virginia, a suburb of Washington, DC, has indicted former FBI director James Comey for lying to Congress about leaking classified information to the press. During his four years at the FBI, Comey became a linchpin of the movement among Democrats in Congress and their legacy press supporters to oust Donald Trump during his first term. Trump never forgives and he never forgets.

Comey

Retribution looms for the NeverTrumpers

"My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump," says James Comey, the former FBI director, in a video statement on – naturally – Bluesky. "We will not live on our knees, and you shouldn’t either." The Resistance is strong in that one. To a dwindling number of hardcore NeverTrumpers, Comey is a sort of godfather figure. He seems to love the attention, too. He wrote a self-aggrandizing memoir called A Higher Loyalty, about his fall-out with Donald Trump and the start of the Trump-Russia, Russia, Russia business. Earlier this year, moreover, he was even accused of elliptically threatening Trump’s life, when he posted and then deleted on Instagram an image showing the numbers "86 47" written in seashells on a beach.

Never-Trumpers

Trump’s battle against the tyranny of lawfare

A buzzword of the moment is “lawfare.” What is lawfare? It’s one of those portmanteau words that Lewis Carroll taught us about. A combination of “law” and “warfare,” “lawfare” is distinctly less clever an invention than “chortle” – one of Carroll’s coinages, my beamish boy, which combines the words “chuckle” and “snort.” The word “lawfare” apparently dates back to the late 1950s, though the phenomenon – using and abusing the law in order to conduct political warfare – has come into its own only in the past couple of decades. The fact that there is now an eponymous website devoted to the subject is but one patent of its currency.

lawfare

The ‘Russia Hoax’ and other grudges

Too long, didn’t read, but late last week Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard proclaimed that she had in her possession a full ream of intel conclusively proving that the Obama Administration, in its 11th hour, prepared a fusillade of fake evidence designed to defame President Trump as an agent and dupe of the Russian Government. Trump, somewhat on his heels with the Epstein Files scandal, began screeching online about the Russia Hoax. Today he posted a meme showing various Obama Administration figures, including Obama himself, wearing orange prison jumpsuits, holding up cards with their names on them, with the logo “THE SHADY BUNCH” embossed on top. Very hip, Mr. President, retweet a Beverly Hillbillies joke next. “HOW DID SAMANTHA POWER MAKE ALL THAT MONEY???

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Trump, le Pen and the legal war on politics

A few days ago, Raphaël Glucksmann, a French Member of the European Parliament and co-president of the left-wing Place Publique party, proposed that the United States return the Statue of Liberty to France.  In a speech on March 16, he argued that the US, under the Trump administration, no longer embodies the values of democracy and freedom that the statue represents.  Glucksmann said, “We’re going to say to the Americans who have chosen to side with the tyrants, ‘Give us back the Statue of Liberty.’ We gave it to you as a gift, but apparently you despise it. So it will be just fine here at home.” Be careful what you wish for.

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The last breath of Trump lawfare

One of the outcomes of November’s election is that Americans can once again trust their own eyes and call out the obvious when they see it. President Biden long ago lost the mental acuity to serve as the nation’s chief executive. Progressive causes like climate change, diversity hiring and transgender men participating in women’s sports are ridiculous. And highly dubious prosecutions seemingly launched as political weapons are exactly what they appear to be. In a Friday morning double-header Americans witnessed in real time the crumbling of the last two vestiges of the lawfare campaign against former and future president Donald Trump. What were once touted as a dream of the left to bring down a king will at best be reduced to obscure footnotes in the annals of history.

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How the lawfare campaign against Trump backfired

The effort to bankrupt, disgrace and banish Donald J. Trump to a jail cell in Riker’s Island has instead helped pave his road right back to the Oval Office. The unprecedented abuse of the American legal system fueled plenty of cable news coverage, but it also alienated the electorate. As with President Joe Biden’s mental decline, voters trusted their own eyes over the tale being told on their screens and delivered a decisive verdict against an eight-year politically-motivated lawfare campaign — exit polls showed that Trump voters were more likely to say democracy was under threat.

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The ‘real’ Kamala

I write at the end of July, just on the threshold of the “silly season,” “the months of August and September, when newspapers supply the lack of real news by articles or discussions on trivial topics.” I think the season may have come a bit early this year. That, anyway, is how I am interpreting the sudden tsunami of gossip, prognostication, animadversion and speculation about certified female-of-color Kamala Harris. By the time you read this, some of the frenzy surrounding Harris may have abated. But for the time being the news is full-to-gagging with puppies and unicorn stories about how strong, dynamic and potentially transformative she is. Also, it may not be amiss to point out, she is not Donald Trump. Watching the makeover has been partly amusing, partly alarming.

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Letters

Letters from Spectator readers, September 2024

The cunning of the Democrats’ lawfare Wow! A tour de force of snark! But wonderful for it. My late father-in-law would have said that instead of brushing his teeth in the morning, the author gets a file and sharpens his tongue. As depressing as this article is, it is likely an accurate assessment of what’s going on. Particularly the image of Trump and Biden essentially playing the roles of Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon in the Grumpy Old Men movies. Carry on, America. Down Under, we have our own problems, as well as being affected by yours, same as every other country. — David Gerber Tellingly prescient. The 800-pound gorilla the next generation will be forced to address will be unsustainable entitlement transfer payments.

Tune into Trump’s VP Apprentice show

Welcome to Thunderdome. Well, we finally have it! A list of contestants for Donald Trump’s long-anticipated veepstakes, designed to play out live and on camera in the coming month before the Republican convention — you just know he’s going to make us all wait for the reveal. There are a few surprises in omissions and additions, but not many. Now, this being Trump, he could always swerve at the last minute and have a surprise entry... so Tulsi Gabbard fans, all hope is not lost. But here are the candidates we know for now: Governor Doug Burgum (ND) Ben Carson, former HUD secretary Senator Tom Cotton (Ark.) Representative Byron Donalds (Fla.) Senator Marco Rubio (Fla.) Senator Tim Scott (S.C.) Representative Elise Stefanik (N.Y.

The Trump trial tedium

Donald Trump was falling asleep. The former president of the United States was, as we have all been at one point or another, stuck in an interminably long and boring meeting. This one happened to be in a courtroom, one that he protested was being kept too cold — the presiding judge agreed but said that the choice with their limited thermostat was between too cold and too hot, and it was better not to swelter. So the room was cold, the talk was boring, and the former president was falling asleep.

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Why the Establishment hates Donald Trump

Like many commentators who have struggled to understand the reasons for the inveterate hatred of Donald Trump among the swank people who actually run the country, I have generally come up with two answers. The first is aesthetic.  Trump does not look like, act like or talk like a typical politician. He has a funny hairdo, seems to have a fake tan and his taste in clothes and food are infra dignitatem. He consorts with people who organize fights and other riff-raff. Ronald Reagan was a movie actor, something for which he was mercilessly pilloried by the New Yorker-New York Times set in the run-up to and throughout his presidency. But Donald Trump hosted a demotic reality TV show, which was even worse.

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The injustice of lawfare against Trump

According to President Biden, not since the Civil War has American freedom and democracy been so under assault. In his State of the Union address, Biden characterized January 6 as a day when “insurrectionists stormed this very Capitol and placed a dagger at the throat of American democracy.” With this kind of rhetoric emanating from the White House, it is no wonder a good portion of the country believes that any use of the legal system is justified to protect us from a second Donald Trump administration.  Except... that is not how the law works. By stretching their prosecutorial powers to the breaking point, Democrats are perverting the very system they are claiming to protect.  Take the charade in New York.

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