Did you hear the one about Donald Trump, you know, that says that, in a legal sense, he is just like everyone else? Yep, I sure did, and when I heard it, I started laughing so hard I couldn’t stop and then I fell on the ground rolling over and over. Best joke I’ve heard in a long time.
If you’ve been watching his many trials, he has been given every break, one free pass after another, and, if he is elected in November, we’ll watch as every one of his trials is no longer in effect.
Yes, and he’ll continue to be treated like everyone else, won’t he? Fat chance.
Donald Trump is a master manipulator; he knows just how to take advantage of other people in his own very clever way. He’s been doing it for many years and has been very successful at it in many different ways. He will go down in American history as the man who went up against the U.S. court system and made many of the courts bend to his dictates.
This court system is extensive, with courts all over America, and I’d say that most of its judges try their best to stay apolitical. But, there is a growing number of them, appointed by a Democratic or Republican president, that will carry on their work in a politicized manner, much to their shame and detriment.
In this article about Trump and the U.S. court system, we will concentrate most of our remarks on the U.S. Supreme Court, together with some discussion involving several state courts. How about the Supreme Court, the greatest in the land, where the best interpretation of the law and our Constitution should be found? However, in today’s political atmosphere, it rarely is.
Let’s make some comparisons between Supreme Court Justices from years past with those who are “occupying” those positions today. The following comments on three of these famous justices are from the William & Mary Law School starting with John Marshall, Chief Justice, 1801-1835: “Marshall is best known for two important contributions to modern U.S. government. First, he established the power and prestige of the judiciary department, so that it could claim equal status with Congress and the Executive in a balanced government of separated powers. He asserted the judiciary’s authority to expound the Constitution as paramount law and to hold the other branches accountable to that law.”
“Second, Marshall interpreted the Constitution in ways that significantly enhanced the powers of the federal government. He believed that those powers, though enumerated, should be construed expansively to accomplish the great ends of government. Though limited, federal power was supreme within its allotted sphere, superseding state power whenever there was a conflict. Marshall’s opinions were later used to justify the great expansion of the federal government in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.”
“Next, there is Thurgood Marshall Assoc. Justice Supreme Court 1967-1991.Biography.com tells us of this first African-American justice’s greatest achievements: “In 1967, President Johnson nominated Marshall to serve on the bench before which he had successfully argued so many times before the United States Supreme Court. On October 2, 1967, Marshall was sworn in as a Supreme Court justice, becoming the first African American to serve on the nation’s highest court. Marshall joined a liberal Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, which aligned with Marshall’s views on politics and the Constitution.”
“As a Supreme Court justice, he consistently supported rulings upholding strong protection of individual rights and liberal interpretations of controversial social issues. He was part of the majority that ruled in favor of the right to abortion in the landmark 1973 case Roe v. Wade, among several other cases. In the 1972 case Furman v. Georgia, which led to a de facto moratorium on the death penalty, Marshall articulated his opinion that the death penalty was unconstitutional in all circumstances.”
“Oliver Wendall Holmes Chief Justice Supreme Court 1902-1932. Serving on the Supreme Court for more than 29 years, Holmes became one of the most influential judges in U.S. history, who is still widely cited today. He earned his nickname “The Great Dissenter” not because he dissented frequently from the Court’s majority opinion, but because his dissenting opinions were so forceful and persuasive. A committed defender of the First Amendment, Holmes is known for the “clear and present danger” doctrine, which held that the U.S. government could restrict speech only when it posed a “clear and present danger” to the national interest. “
These three great justices were an example of those in the court system that put America and its people first, above all other interests, in its most serious deliberations. They strictly followed the law. They interpreted it, they used it to address and solve problems. They didn’t try to reshape it for the benefit of powerful interests “who would take care of them.”
On the other hand, this current Supreme Court, aka, the Chief Subsidiary of Trump, Inc. is probably the very worst in history. It can take existing laws or the Constitution, and reshape them as it wishes. I have found no great achievements or exemplary actions from them or their fellow Republican justices, so there is no comparison with the greatness of the past.
There are six Republican justices on this court, but three who stand out from the pack. Clarence Thomas has set new records for traveling around the world for free thanks to his billionaire mentor, Harlan Crow. Next, is Samuel Alito, who flies right-wing flags at his houses so that everyone knows what his political identity is. Then we have useless Chief Justice John Roberts who watches all this political nonsense going on, the trips, and bending to Trump, and does nothing whatsoever about any of it. He has no intent to create and put into effect effective ethical rules.
Trump’s immunity decision by the nation’s highest court shows the great degree that the Trumpians will go to show the power that they possess, “Supreme” power that has no laws or the Constitution to back it up.
What happened in the Georgia Trump case? The court system put the election case on hold due to a motion by Michael Roman, one of Trump’s many co-defendants, who had asked to have DA Willis disqualified from prosecuting the case against Trump and his co-defendants due to an “improper” relationship with then-Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade. The motion also claimed that Willis financially benefited from the investigation and the relationship. This charge should have been dismissed by Judge McAfee but, as expected, he gave in to the Trump forces.
Judge Aileen Cannon is a complete disgrace to her profession. She is so clearly nothing more than Trump’s handmaiden based on her highly questionable rulings in his favor, that she should be disbarred. She recently threw out the Trump Documents case, an open-and-shut, critically important case in American history. Let’s see what her useless bosses in the Southern District of Florida decide to do. I don’t think they will dare to dismiss this Trump’s personally appointed judge.
Delay, delay, and delay, one appeal after another, and on and on and on, the courts become more and more politicized all the time. Urgency in initiating the start of cases, the deliberations, the appeals, forget it. Most of the courts work at a snail’s pace, no matter how critically important cases may be, and Trump loves it.
If Trump, with the help of his courts is elected president, then, for the first time in this nation’s history, we will have a several-times convicted criminal as Commander-in-Chief. A person who is amid a severe cognitive decline, one who has made it clear that he will replace our democracy with an authoritarian government, who will make alliances with dictators ruling China, Russia, North Korea, and Hungary.
And, all of us better remember that, if Trump becomes the president, he will be the one with his finger on the nuclear button.
Can you comprehend what living in America will be like if this lying, manipulating, low-level politician somehow becomes our next president? We will be trying to exist in a living nightmare with no end in sight. And who will be responsible for doing this to us and our country besides Trump? It will be the U.S. court system, once a solid foundation of America, that shoved the law aside and caved into Trump, the criminal, and killed our democracy.
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