Prominent Republicans mock Trump’s legal claims in Supreme Court brief — and blow up president’s ‘absolute immunity’

AlterNet logoA Supreme Court filing lays bare the deep chasm between prominent Republicans who believe in the rule of law and wannabe president for life Donald Trump, whose says he enjoys absolute immunity from any inquiry into his conduct.

Trump audaciously claims that any crimes he may have committed crimes before assuming office cannot even be investigated, not even if he committed murder, in effect trying to extend the protections of bankruptcy law with which he is so familiar to criminal law. No statute, court decision or our Constitution supports this claim of being above the law.

In a friend of the court brief filed Monday the prominent Republicans argue that Trump cannot block the Manhattan district attorney’s garden variety criminal tax fraud investigation. They note that the issue before the high court is a subpoena for business records held by Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA. The firm says it will comply with the subpoena, but Trump’s lawsuit blocked that.  Continue reading.

‘Plausible deniability’: Experts warn on Barr’s ‘carefully staged PR pushback’

AlterNet logo‘Diversionary Tactics’

Attorney General Bill Barr’s record and not his remarks should govern how the people and the press perceive the Justice Dept. chief. So say experts who are weighing in Thursday afternoon after Barr gave an interview to ABC News in which he appears to complain about President Donald Trump’s tweets.

“I’m not going to be bullied or influenced by anybody … whether it’s Congress, a newspaper editorial board, or the president,” Barr told ABC News. “I’m gonna do what I think is right. And you know … I cannot do my job here at the department with a constant background commentary that undercuts me.”

But government, legal, and authoritarianism experts, and some journalists are saying “don’t fall for it,” literally. Those words came from NBC News National Security Contributor Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI Assistant Director, on MSNBC minutes ago.  Continue reading.