Bob Barr

The Supreme Court Immunity Case is Even Scarier Knowing Trump Threatened to Execute His Critics

Posted by on April 28, 2024 at 2:03 pm. 0 Comments :

Last week the Supreme Court heard arguments on whether a president is entitled to immunity for any crimes he or she may commit while in office. Donald Trump has been frantically posting dozens of utterly ludicrous demands for such immunity because he’s currently facing 88 felony charges for violating laws ranging from campaign finance, to election interference, to inciting an insurrection, and even the Espionage Act.

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Donald Trump

Trump’s signature whining consists entirely of his ridiculous belief that a president cannot function if he has to worry about being prosecuted for unlawful activities. But worrying about being held accountable for criminal acts (e.g. deterrence) is one of the main reasons we have laws. What’s more, not a single president prior to Trump has ever asked for or needed immunity in order to make the difficult decisions required of them.

SEE THIS: Trump Says All Presidents Must Have ‘Total Immunity’ from Crimes – Except for President Biden

The Court specifically addressed certain ghastly hypotheticals in their questioning of Trump’s attorney. And his answers were troubling in the extreme. For instance…

Justice Sonia Sotomayor: If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person and he orders the military to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can give immunity?
Sauer: It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that could well be an official act.

Other equally disturbing scenarios that Trump’s lawyer sanctioned as deserving of immunity were staging a coup, fabricating false slates of electors, and selling nuclear secrets to foreign adversaries. Apparently no act of treason was too much for Trump or the right-wing Justices he appointed.

MORE HERE: Here’s a Summary of the Crimes Trump’s Lawyer Tells the Supreme Court He Has Immunity to Commit

What makes all of this ever more frightening is that it transcends the realm of the hypothetical. In an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Trump’s former Attorney General, Bill Barr, was asked about a report that he was present when Trump suggested executing an actual person who was suspected of leaking information. Which led to the following exchange…

Collins: Do you remember that?
Barr: I remember him being very mad about that. I actually don’t remember him saying, executing. But I wouldn’t dispute it, you know? I mean, it doesn’t sound — I mean, the President would lose his temper and say things like that. I doubt he would have actually carried it out. I don’t, you know.
Collins: But he would say that on other occasions? You said he would lose his temper.
Barr: The President, you know, the President had a — I think people sometimes took him too literally. And he would say things like, similar to that on occasions, to blow off steam. But I wouldn’t take him literally every time he did it.
Collins: Why not?
Barr: Because at the end of the day, it wouldn’t be carried out, and you could talk sense into him.
Collins: But just because it’s not carried out, and you could talk sense into him, doesn’t that still mean that the threat is there?

So Trump has actually considered assassinating Americans who he regards as political foes. This is no longer just fanciful musing. And Barr’s dismissal of Trump’s overt threats is pitifully weak. What would happen in another Trump administration wherein there was no one to talk him out of his murderous intentions? Which, by the way, is precisely the sort of administration that Trump is already planning, should he be reelected. It’s one that would be populated by unflinching loyalists vetted by his family and cult confederates.

Putting together Trump’s already articulated desire to rule as a brutal tyrant in the mold of his hero, Vladimir Putin, with the acceptance by the conservative Justices on the Supreme Court of such barbaric acts, paints a dire picture of what the United States would become under another Trump regime.

It would effectively make Trump an untouchable dictator, capable of monstrous savagery. Or, as he puts it, “retribution” for the wrongs he believes have been inflicted on him. But it would not be anything remotely recognizable as the America described by its Founders, its Constitution, or the aspirations of its citizens. And it must not be permitted to occur. If the Courts will not prevent it, the people must do so by voting overwhelmingly for democracy and liberty and justice.

Which means voting for Democrats up and down the ballot. Because Republicans like Barr, and Lindsey Graham, and Ted Cruz, and Mike Johnson, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, et al, ad infinitum, are all committed to Trump even if he’s convicted of felonious crimes. They’ve said so. Believe them.

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Sean Hannity of Fox News: Americans Should Not See the Mueller Report on Trump that They Paid For

Posted by on February 21, 2019 at 12:53 pm. 3 Comments :

A recent story by CNN is stating that special counsel Robert Mueller is wrapping up his investigation and that a report may be issued as soon as next week. There are some people familiar with the probe who dispute that timeline as unlikely considering the amount of unfinished business, including pending indictments and testimony. But the Trump-fluffers at Fox News are nevertheless preparing for the worst by advocating censorship.

Fox News, Sean Hannity

Sean Hannity took the news from CNN as a warning call. That’s ironic since he generally agrees with Trump that CNN is “fake news.” But he’s apparently concerned that this story is accurate and that something must be done. Specifically, Hannity thinks that any report issued by Mueller should be suppressed and not made available to the public. That’s a peculiar position for someone in the media to take. Under ordinary circumstances, journalists are proponents of full transparency, especially with regard to government affairs.

But Hannity (who is getting trounced in the ratings by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow) has a different point of view (video below). He prefaced his opinion with a brief summary of how special counsel reports are handled and who was responsible for those procedures:

“According to special counsel regulations, Mueller will provide a confidential report to the Attorney General Bob Barr explaining the decisions reached by the special counsel. Next, the attorney general will notify the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate judiciary committees, quote, ‘upon the conclusion of the special counsel’s investigation.’ It is totally in the hands of the attorney general, and his alone to decide what, if any, details can be released in compliance with the law. He can control the timing of the notification over, quote, ‘legitimate investigative or privacy concerns.’

“Now, also, remember, these regulations, they were presented to Congress two decades ago by Democrats, Janet Reno, the AG, Deputy AG Eric Holder. That was after the Starr investigation.”

However, Hannity then goes on to completely misinterpret how those procedures would be applied to the Mueller report. He concluded that imposing certain limitations on releasing information that may have “legitimate investigative or privacy concerns” amounts to a free hand by the newly installed Attorney General, Bob Barr, to withhold whatever he wants. That’s not how it works.

Hannity continued by announcing that he would be traveling to Vietnam with Trump for the summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. And he used that as another excuse to keep the American people from having access to the Mueller report:

“Would it not be wholly inappropriate to actually release the findings when the President is out of the country participating in these high stakes negotiations with with such an important topic?”

Okay then. How about releasing it the following week? Surely Hannity would have another reason why that would also be wholly inappropriate. But what’s really inappropriate is someone in the media arguing in favor of the government keeping secrets from the people. No credible journalist would ever say such a ridiculous thing.

Although there is some dispute on whether or not Hannity is a journalist – mainly by him. On his radio show he insisted that “I’m a journalist but I’m an advocacy journalist.” But on Twitter he angrily noted that “I’m not a journalist jackass. I’m a talk host.” Which raises the question that if he isn’t a “journalist jackass,” then what kind of jackass is he? Hannity later deleted that tweet, but the Internet Archive preserved it here.

Apparently Hannity is whatever he says he is at the time he’s saying it. Like most of what comes out of his mouth, it cannot be taken seriously or relied upon to be operative an hour later. And as for the release of the Mueller report, there are options available to gain access to it without the interference of Trump’s hand-picked Attorney General. For instance, Democrats in Congress are exploring their option for subpoenaing either the report or testimony from Mueller.

Either way, Hannity is not likely to get his wish that the report be kept secret from the American people who paid for it. And Trump’s defenders at State TV (aka Fox News) and other right-wing media outlets are going to have to strain themselves to find ways to justify their advocacy of censorship. In the end, transparency will likely prevail. That’s important because without it the crimes of the President would never be resolved to the satisfaction of the nation he conspired against. No matter how badly Hannity and Trump want that.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.