On today’s BradCast: Boy, if Joe Biden‘s “weaponization” of the Justice Department against Trump and Republicans keeps going like this, there won’t be any Democrats left who haven’t been convicted of a crime! Too bad old Joe didn’t realize he should have just packed the courts with corrupt judges, like Donald Trump did. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]
First up today — after a kick-off by TikTok’s @DanasInspired; a few thoughts on Trump’s appearance at the RNC on Monday night after the weekend’s failed assassination attempt and his naming of Ohio‘s Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate — we start with news about today’s conviction, on all counts, of New Jersey‘s Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez. The three-term U.S. Senator and former chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was found guilty by a jury on Tuesday after a nine-week criminal trial on charges related to abusing his office to protect foreign associates from criminal investigations and to help funnel money to Egyptian officials. In exchange, prosecutors alleged, Menendez and his wife Nadine Menendez collected millions in gifts, cash and gold bars. She was charged as well, though her trial has been postponed for the time being as she undergoes cancer treatment.
Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and NJ’s Democratic Governor Phil Murphy each called for Menendez to resign following the verdict. He had previously vowed to run for re-election as an independent this year, while Democratic Rep. Andy Kim has been nominated by state voters to run for his seat in November against Republican Curtis Bashaw in the Dem-leaning state.
But Menendez’ corruption doesn’t hold a candle to Donald Trump‘s, thanks in no small part to the corrupt jurists Trump appointed to lifetime positions on the federal bench while in office, many of whom are now returning the favor at an alarming rate in recent weeks. On Monday, it was U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon‘s turn, apparently, to use her position to let Trump off the hook. In this case, dismissing his 40-count federal criminal indictment brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith in South Florida for Trump’s theft of thousands of pages of highly classified national security documents upon leaving office; his repeated refusal to return them to the government; and his attempts to hide them from prosecutors and enlist Mar-a-Lago employees to help cover up and/or destroy evidence of the crimes.
In a remarkable 93-page ruling [PDF] issued on Monday, Cannon dismissed the entire federal case against Trump and his co-defendants on the basis that Smith’s appointment as Special Counsel was somehow in violation of the Constitution and federal statutes. The argument made by Trump’s attorneys and accepted by Cannon — who had already been slow-walking the case for months — was similar to those repeatedly rejected for decades by judge after judge, including appellate courts and, as our guest details today, unanimously by the U.S. Supreme Court in Nixon v. U.S. But Cannon, appointed by Trump at the end of his term and seated after he lost the 2020 election, appears to know more about the law than all of those other lesser judges.
We’re joined today by former lifelong Republican and attorney KEITH BARBER, who writes on the law and Constitution for Daily Kos as “KeithDB”, where he detailed Cannon’s ruling yesterday. He explains why both the text of the Constitution and several federal laws written to allow Attorneys General to appoint Special Counsels in cases where it is important to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, prove Cannon’s ruling wrong. But, as he argues today, being right on the law doesn’t actually matter. “She just wanted to dismiss the case because her buddy Trump appointed her [and] gave her that job. It’s time to return the favor, and so she has,” he says.
Barber published a second article yesterday listing more than half a dozen Special Counsels and Special Prosecutors appointed similarly to Smith, from Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski in the Watergate matter to Ken Starr during the Clinton Administration to Robert Mueller‘s probe of Russian interference on Trump’s behalf in the 2016 election to the recent probe of President Biden himself by Special Counsel Robert Hur.
“A lot of people have gone to jail as a result of special counsels appointed by the Attorney General” over the years, Barber tells me. “None of them got the benefit of a rogue judge saying, ‘Nope, all of that is not valid.’ The Republicans and the MAGAs like to talk about this notion of two-tiered justice and how unfair it’s been to Trump. No court accepted the notion that Special Counsels weren’t authorized by statute and weren’t something Attorneys Generals could do until it came to Trump. That is what two-tiered justice looks like.”
If Cannon’s ruling on Monday is correct, Barber asserts, then as part of the Mueller probe, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen‘s three-year prison sentence would have been unconstitutional and Trump associate and convicted pedophile George Nader would need to be freed immediately from his ten-year prison sentence, among other cases convictions that would need to immediately be revisited.
Will this ruling hold up to appellate scrutiny by the conservative 11th Circuit Court of Appeal, much less Trump’s corrupted, packed, stolen and activist U.S. Supreme Court majority? We discuss that and much more.
Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as the misery and power outages continue in Houston, Texas following Hurricane Beryl, thanks in no small part to state Republicans refusal to harden infrastructure for a climate changed world, and as Trump appoints flip-flopping climate science denier J.D. Vance as his Vice-Presidential running mate…
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
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After his incredible run of good fortune in recent weeks, I now know for certain that Trump isn’t charmed.
He’s just the Antichrist.
That’s all.
I swear, he’s got an upside down 666 under his orange hair, for sure.
You’re telling me a .556 NATO round just grazed his ear?
Just prior to the RNC, and just as project 2025 was getting major attention in the media?
I’ve tried and tried to figure out how you’d fake an incident like this (with other casualties as well).
I’m not smart enough to come up with a plan for how to fake something of that magnitude.
It must have been real, right? The mind boggles.
So, the easy answer——- He’s the Antichrist.
One of these days, MTG is going to be standing at the edge of the White House roof, calling down to the crowd: “It’s all for you, Damian, er, I mean, Donald”, just before she, well, you know.
If only America could have ended up in a different movie, like Dead Zone, where Cristopher Walken takes out a deadly president, BEFORE he destroys the world.
But no. For now, it looks like The Omen.
But will it eventually end up like Dr. Strangelove?
“Too bad old Joe didn’t realize he should have just packed the courts with corrupt judges, like Donald Trump did.” – Brad
In the tradition that emerged circa 2009 (Here Come De Conservative Judges – 13).
Jack Smith has filed a formal Notice of Appeal with the 11th Circuit. I anticipate he’ll seek Cannon’s removal from the case altogether.
Ernest @#3,
In the old world state of mind I would say “Great! They will reverse that crazy Cannon judgment AND remove her from the case!”
In the more recent state of mind I wonder if the 11th Circuit has also lost its mind and will say ‘natch’ or if not the Supreme Court of Madness will.
Anyway, thank you for the info.
Would Cannon have turned the case over like that if it hadn’t been *already arranged* for the 11th Court to let it slide??
Yeah, things could be that far gone, even now.