Category: Trump Administration

Barrett’s Record: A Conservative Who Would Push the Supreme Court to the Right

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As an appeals court judge, Judge Barrett has issued opinions that have reflected those of her mentor, Justice Antonin Scalia, but with few of his occasional liberal rulings.

WASHINGTON — Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court, has compiled an almost uniformly conservative voting record in cases touching on abortion, gun rights, discrimination and immigration. If she is confirmed, she would move the court slightly but firmly to the right, making compromise less likely and putting at risk the right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade.

Judge Barrett’s judicial opinions, based on a substantial sample of the hundreds of cases that she has considered in her three years on the federal appeals court in Chicago, are marked by care, clarity and a commitment to the interpretive methods used by Justice Antonin Scalia, the giant of conservative jurisprudence for whom she worked as a law clerk from 1998 to 1999.

But while Justice Scalia’s methods occasionally drove him to liberal results, notably in cases on flag burning and the role of juries in criminal cases, Judge Barrett could be a different sort of justice. Continue reading.

‘This is how you normalize a madman’: Scholars and press watchdogs urge corporate media to treat Trump like the authoritarian threat he is

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Major news outlets failed the American people, critics say, when they chose to bury coverage of President Donald Trump’s Wednesday comment that he would not commit to a peaceful transition of power—a statement watchdogs say demanded above-the-fold, front-page headlines that simply did not materialize.

“Newsroom leaders made a considered, intentional decision not to panic after Trump was elected,” Dan Froomkin, editor of PressWatchers.org, wrote in a scathing rebuke of corporate media’s apparent nonchalant attitude towards the president’s rhetoric. “This was an epic, obvious mistake, and everything that has happened since was in some sense entirely predictable.”

Froomkin continued, “They should have gone on a war footing—and by that I don’t mean a partisan war against Trump, I mean a journalistic war against lies, ignorance, and intolerance.”

Critics weighed in on the relative non-importance corporate news outlets assigned—in print and online—to Trump’s latest suggestion that he may not cede the office of the presidency should he lose in November: Continue reading.

Long-Concealed Records Show Trump’s Chronic Losses and Years of Tax Avoidance

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The Times obtained Donald Trump’s tax information extending over more than two decades, revealing struggling properties, vast write-offs, an audit battle and hundreds of millions in debt coming due.

Donald J. Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another $750.

He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.

As the president wages a re-election campaign that polls say he is in danger of losing, his finances are under stress, beset by losses and hundreds of millions of dollars in debt coming due that he has personally guaranteed. Also hanging over him is a decade-long audit battle with the Internal Revenue Service over the legitimacy of a $72.9 million tax refund that he claimed, and received, after declaring huge losses. An adverse ruling could cost him more than $100 million. Continue reading.

Hey, Hands Off Those Military Ballots

When President Donald Trump demands that we “get rid of the ballots,” everyone knows exactly what he means. Since last spring, the aspiring tinpot dictator in the White House has spit out daily tweets full of falsehoods about mail ballots, which he calls “awful,” “terrible” and “ripe for FRAUD.” He pretends to draw a distinction between mail-in ballots and absentee ballots — the method used by him and many others in the White House to vote — but in actual practice, there is no such difference.

Among the malignant effects of that Trump dictate would be the disenfranchisement of millions of American soldiers, their families and other military personnel when the time comes to vote.

It is precisely because so many of our troops and their spouses cast their ballots by mail that we know how safe, secure and generally free from fraud such voting is. As Trump intensified his campaign against mail-in voting, a chorus of former defense officials and retired military officers spoke up against his conspiratorial nonsense. Continue reading.

Trump, White House demand FDA justify tough standards for coronavirus vaccine, raising concerns of political interference

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Some worry the move is an attempt to speed a vaccine before Election Day, which the president has tied to his reelection prospects

On the same day President Trump blasted the Food and Drug Administration’s plan for tougher standards for a coronavirus vaccine as a “political move,” a top White House aide demanded detailed justifications from the agency in what some fear is an attempt to thwart or block the standards designed to boost public trust in a vaccine.

The White House’s involvement appears to go beyond the perfunctory review that agency officials had expected, and is likely to reinforce public concerns that a vaccine may be rushed to benefit the president’s reelection campaign. Polls show that the number of people who say they’re willing to take a coronavirus vaccine if it were available today has nosedived from 72 percent in May to 50 percent as of early this month, according to Pew Research Center, largely because of concerns that politics, rather than science, is driving the process.

Trump has repeatedly said a vaccine would be available by Election Day, or possibly sooner, worrying scientists that he might attempt to intervene in the review process. Companies will begin reporting safety and effectiveness data in coming weeks and months. And in conversations with some advisers, the president has directly tied the vaccine to his reelection chances, according to a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. Continue reading.

The Memo: Trump furor stokes fears of unrest

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Fears are rising across the political spectrum that the nation is close to coming off the rails amid uproar over recent comments by President Trump.

Trump has twice declined in recent days to commit to a peaceful transition of power if he loses November’s election. His remarks are without any clear precedent.

The comments come at a time when the national fabric is being strained by a number of other factors, including the coronavirus pandemic, protests over racial injustice and a political battle over replacing Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died last week. Continue reading.

Barr’s Approach Closes Gap Between Justice Dept. and White House

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The attorney general has brought the department closer to the White House than it has been in a half-century, historians said.

WASHINGTON — When the top federal prosecutor in Washington recently accused the local police of arresting protesters without probable cause, Attorney General William P. Barr stepped in.

Mr. Barr, who has frequently voiced his support for police officers, brought in the U.S. attorney, Michael Sherwin, to meet with the chief of the Washington police and other top law enforcement officials, escalating the local dispute to the top of the Justice Department.

The meeting grew heated, but ultimately, Mr. Sherwin backed down, according to three people familiar with the encounter. Mr. Barr told Mr. Sherwin to write a letter that said he had not meant to imply that the police had acted unlawfully. In a nod to Mr. Sherwin’s original objection, the Washington police are working with prosecutors to identify video and other evidence to back up the arrests. Continue reading.

At Pentagon, fears grow that Trump will pull military into election unrest

Fears are growing that president will try to order military into streets to quell protests. 

WASHINGTON – Senior Pentagon leaders have a lot to worry about — Afghanistan, Russia, Iraq, Syria, Iran, China, Somalia, the Korean Peninsula. But chief among those concerns is whether their commander in chief might order U.S. troops into any chaos involving the coming elections.

President Donald Trump gave officials no solace Wednesday when he again refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power no matter who wins the election. On Thursday, he doubled down by saying he was not sure the election could be “honest.” His hedging, along with his expressed desire in June to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act to send active-duty troops onto American streets to quell protests over the killing of George Floyd, has caused deep anxiety among senior military and Defense Department leaders, who insist they will do all they can to keep the armed forces out of the elections.

“I believe deeply in the principle of an apolitical U.S. military,” Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in written answers to questions from House lawmakers released last month. “In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law, U.S. courts and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S. military. I foresee no role for the U.S. armed forces in this process.” Continue reading.

Republican lawyers brush off Trump’s election comments

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Conservative lawyers are brushing off President Trump’s refusal to commit to a peaceful transition of power if he loses the election to Democratic nominee Joe Biden, saying there are safeguards in place to ensure a proper transition whether the president voluntarily leaves office or not.

Several Republican constitutional and election lawyers told The Hill that Trump’s remarks calling into question a peaceful transition were reckless and undermine confidence in the democratic system.

But they agreed Americans should not be worried about the president refusing to leave office after an election loss, saying the executive branch would no longer be under his control and that he’d effectively be removed for trespassing if he tried to stick around. Continue reading.

Majority says winner of presidential election should nominate next Supreme Court justice, Post-ABC poll finds

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A majority of Americans oppose efforts by President Trump and the Republican-led Senate to fill a Supreme Court vacancy before the presidential election, with most supporters of Democratic candidate Joe Biden saying the issue has raised the stakes of the election, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The Post-ABC poll, conducted Monday to Thursday, finds 38 percent of Americans say the replacement for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died last week, should be nominated by Trump and confirmed by the current Senate, while 57 percent say it should be left to the winner of the presidential election and a Senate vote next year.

Partisans are deeply divided on the issue, though clear majorities of political independents (61 percent) and women (64 percent) say the next justice should be chosen by the winner of this fall’s election, including about half of each group who feel this way “strongly.” Continue reading.