Less than two weeks after reports that New York Attorney General Letitia James was seeking to depose Donald Trump in her investigation into his business practices, Trump is suing to end her investigation. He’s doing that at least in part with lawyers paid for by the Republican National Commitee, which has spent more than $120,000 on Trump’s legal bills relating to the investigations by James and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Laura Clawson noted at DailyKos (12/20).
“Her mission is guided solely by political animus and a desire to harass, intimidate, and retaliate against a private citizen who she views as a political opponent,” the suit, filed Dec. 20, claims. Where to even start?
First, Trump is the guy who really reintroduced to the US the idea of overtly trying to criminalize your political opponents, campaigning on “Lock her up” chants and trying to use the power of the presidency to get another country to investigate the person who ultimately defeated him in 2020. It’s predictable but hilarious that he would go all woe-is-me over himself facing an investigation. And note that, unlike Trump’s ideas of how to go after his political opponents, James is doing things by the book. She’s carrying out a methodical investigation. She’s using legal means to try to get Trump to sit for a deposition, as is standard in such a matter.
Second, when it comes to an investigation into his business practices, Trump is “a private citizen.” When it comes to documents relating to the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol, he’s trying to assert executive privilege, essentially on the claim that he is not a private citizen. He has also leaned on the “special solicitude accorded former Presidents” in his efforts to keep the House Ways and Means Committee from getting his tax returns. (Yet another investigation, Vance’s criminal investigation into Trump’s business practices, already has his tax returns.)
It’s kind of appropriate that this is a legal version of some of the business practices James and Vance are investigating, in which Trump would give vastly different assessments of the value of his assets depending on what was most profitable for him. If he was angling for lower taxes, his buildings were worth practically nothing. If he was trying to get a loan, his buildings were the most valuable property in all of Manhattan. In one case, he told lenders a building was worth $527 million while telling tax officials the same building was worth $16.9 million. Similarly, Trump is either a private citizen or a possessor of executive privilege, depending on which lawsuit or investigation you look at.
The new lawsuit trying to force James to end her investigation sure makes it seem like Trump is sweating over it. And of course this investigation, along with Vance’s and the one by Westchester County District Attorney Mimi Rocah, won’t just go away if Republicans retake the House.
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON SAYS TRUMP WILL BE INDICTED IN N.Y. Former president Donald Trump will soon be indicted for criminal racketeering under New York state law, according to Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist David Cay Johnston, John Wright reported at RawStory.com (12/18).
Johnston indicated that the charges will stem from Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance’s ongoing investigation into whether Trump’s company misled lenders or tax authorities about the value of its properties.
“I anticipate they’re going to bring a racketeering charge against Trump,” Johnston said. “Certainly Trump’s team, when he’s indicted, and I’m certain he will be indicted, is going to try to lay the blame on everybody else, and so what the prosecutors want to show that is if (Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer) Allen Weisselberg phonied up documents, it was at the direction of Donald Trump.”
Trump put out a statement (12/18) that said, in a classic example of gaslighting, “All the Democrats want to do is put people in jail. They are vicious, violent and Radical Left Thugs. They are destroying people’s lives, which is the only thing they are good at. They couldn’t get out of Afghanistan without disgracing our Country. The economy and inflation are a disaster. They’re letting thugs and murderers into our Country—their DA’s, AG’s and Dem Law Enforcement are out of control. This is what happens in communist countries and dictatorships, and they don’t think they’ll be held accountable for rigging the 2020 Presidential Election. The Jan. 6 Unselect Committee is a coverup for what took place on November 3rd, and the people of our Country won’t stand it.”
KINZINGER: HOUSE JAN. 6 COMMITTEE IS CONDUCTING CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION OF TRUMP. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) confirmed that the Jan. 6 Committee’s investigation into the insurrection at the Capitol has assumed the trappings of a criminal one, as he told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he and his colleagues on the committee are looking into whether Donald Trump broke the law, Darrell Lucus noted at DailyKos (12/19).
“I don’t want to go there yet to say, ‘Do I believe he has (committed a crime),’ I think that’s obviously a pretty big thing to say. We want to know though, and I think we’ll — by the end of our investigation and by the time our report is out — have a pretty good idea,” Kinzinger said.
“We’ll be able to have out on the public record anything (the) Justice Department needs maybe in pursuit of that,” said Kinzinger, one of two Republican members of the committee, adding, “Nobody, Jake, is above the law. Nobody. Not the (former) president. He’s not a king.”
HOUSE COMMITTEE: TRUMP DELIBERATELY SUPPRESSED COVID-19 DATA. The House Oversight Committee reported that Donald Trump was responsible for both “critical failures” and, in what should be the first step in a criminal indictment, “deliberate efforts to undermine the nation’s coronavirus response for political purposes,” Mark Sumner noted at DailyKos (12/20).
We’ve known since last year that Trump’s team repeatedly took actions, not to prevent infections, but to deliberately increase them, Sumner noted.
HHS political appointee Paul Alexander demanded that CDC stop publishing scientific reports he believed were damaging to Trump. CDC officials were then ordered to delete Alexander’s emails to cover up this attempt to quash vital public data.
Dr. Deborah Birx has confirmed that Dr. Scott Atlas was brought into the COVID-19 team specifically to reduce the level of testing across the nation, generating a false impression that case loads were falling.
The report also shows Trump’s team did with COVID-19 what they did with every other project while he was in charge: opened it up to corruption and “left the federal government vulnerable to fraud and profiteering.”
“How Donald Trump managed the COVID-19 crisis wasn’t a litany of errors. It wasn’t even just a cascade of crimes. It was an attempted genocide, one in which Trump repeatedly took actions designed to cause more deaths out of a mistaken impression that those deaths would mostly affect urban areas in blue states. They didn’t just commit a crime against humanity, they knew it, because they devoted resources to trying to cover up that crime,” Sumner noted.
“What Trump did leading up to Jan. 6 is unforgivable and deserves criminal prosecution. What he did in handling COVID-19 is far worse.”
FIVE REPUBLICAN GOVS DEMAND COVID VAX EXEMPTION FOR NATIONAL GUARDS. Republican governors of five states are asking (or demanding, depending how you read it) that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III exempt their states’ National Guards from the military’s vaccination requirements. Separately, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced he would refuse to enforce the mandate, Laura Clawson noted at DailyKos (12/18).
The governors—Iowa’s Kim Reynolds, Nebraska’s Pete Ricketts, Mississippi’s Tate Reeves, Wyoming’s Mark Gordon, and Alaska’s Mike Dunleavy—sent Austin a letter arguing “that the National Guard is under the command and control of the Governor of each state unless those members are called to active service under Title 10,” and as such, shouldn’t be subject to the mandate. The group letter follows an attempt by Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt to get his state’s National Guard exempted from the requirement. That attempt was not only rejected, it was followed by a reiteration of the Defense Department’s authority to mandate vaccination.
“The secretary of defense has the authority to require these vaccines for all members of the force, including the National Guard, as I said, even in a Title 32 status,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said in November. In Title 32 status, which includes monthly drills, the federal government pays for National Guard activities but the state governor remains at the top of the chain of command. “When (guardsmen are) called up for their monthly training, they’re still federally funded,” Kirby continued. “So (the secretary) has those authorities. And he believes and this is a larger point that vaccinated forces are a more ready force.”
While Republican governors seek to be exempted from the vaccination mandate or say they’ll defy it on behalf of their states’ National Guard troops, members of the active-duty military have overwhelmingly complied with the requirement. The Air Force was the first to begin discharging service members who refused to get vaccinated, and discharged just 27 people, having reached a 97% vaccination rate. There may ultimately be more people discharged after the Air Force finishes processing exemption requests, but the percentage will remain very low.
Other branches of the military haven’t yet begun discharging people who refuse, but the Army has announced a 98% overall vaccination rate, including 96% of active-duty soldiers.
Austin has emphasized that vaccination is a military readiness issue, including for National Guard troops. But some members of the National Guard are getting mixed messages, thanks to their governors rushing to politicize the issue.
SOCIALIST HANDILY BEATS RIGHT-WINGER IN CHILE PREZ RACE. Socialist Gabriel Boric’s victory in Chile’s high-stakes presidential election Sunday was hailed by progressives worldwide as an inspiring example of how a democratic groundswell can overcome deeply entrenched forces of reaction and chart a path toward a more just, equal, and sustainable future, Jake Johnson noted at CommonDreams (12/20).
Riding a massive wave of anger at Chile’s “neoliberal” political establishment and the economic inequities it has perpetuated, Boric—a 35-year-old former student activist—handily defeated José Antonio Kast, a lawyer and politician whom one commentator characterized as “easily as reactionary as far-right dictator Augusto Pinochet,” the leader of the US-backed military junta that seized power in 1973 and ruled Chile for nearly two decades.
With 99.95% of ballots counted, CNN reported (12/20), Boric won with 55.87% of the vote, securing victory over his right-wing opponent, Jose Antonio Kast, who trailed with 44.13%, according to the Electoral Service of Chile. Boric will be sworn in as President on March 11.
Kast conceded the election to Boric and congratulated his opponent “on his great triumph.”
“At last. The specter of Pinochet is removed from Chile,” declared former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, a co-founder of Progressive International, which sent members of its observatory to monitor the election and ensure fairness.
“Congratulations to fellow Progressive International member Gabriel Boric,” Varoufakis added. “The hard work to redistribute wealth in Chile begins now.”
The Peace and Justice Project, an organization founded by former British Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn, expressed hope that Boric’s resounding win will usher in “a bright new dawn in Latin American politics.”
Boric, who ran on the promise to undo the lingering vestiges of Pinochet’s regime, will become the youngest president in Chile’s history when he takes office in March. The transition of power comes amid national turmoil fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic and deep-seated economic and political crises that have made the South American nation one of the most unequal OECD countries.
In November, Chileans voted by an overwhelming margin to rewrite the nation’s Pinochet-era constitution, an indication of the widespread desire for systemic change.
“If Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism, it will also be its grave. Do not be afraid of the youth changing this country,” said Boric, who has vowed to cancel student debt, impose higher taxes on the wealthy, oppose environmentally destructive mining initiatives, and scrap Chile’s private pension system—another leftover from the Pinochet regime.
“We are a generation that emerged in public life demanding our rights be respected as rights and not treated like consumer goods or a business,” Boric said in his victory speech. “We no longer will permit that the poor keep paying the price of Chile’s inequality.”
From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2022
Blog | Current Issue | Back Issues | Essays | Links
About the Progressive Populist | How to Subscribe | How to Contact Us