Nixon had the eighteen-and-a-half-minute gap in the White House tapes. Nixon was a piker. Trump has a SEVEN+ HOUR gap in his phone logs that just happens to fall during the Jan 6 insurrection. There’s almost no conceivable explanation that doesn’t make Trump look awful.
I’m actually quite depressed about this, as I fear that it vastly increases the odds that Governor Evil will become the Republican nominee, and perhaps even the next President.
One more item like this and I’m going to declare a trend.
According to Axios, a bunch of Democrats are planning to play ethics offense against lawyers who signed complaints or phony electoral returns in the meritless attempt to overturn the last election. They’ve created the “65 project“, so named because the courts kicked all 65 lawsuits filed on Trump’s behalf unceremoniously to the curb.
The 65 Project is targeting 111 attorneys in 26 states who were involved to some degree in efforts to challenge or reverse 2020 election results. They include lawyers at large national law firms with many partners and clients and lawyers at smaller, regional firms.
- It will air ads in battleground states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
- It also will push the ABA and every state bar association to codify rules barring certain election challenges and adopt model language stating that “fraudulent and malicious lawsuits to overturn legitimate election results violate the ethical duties lawyers must abide by.”
- It plans to spend about $2.5 million in its first year and will operate through an existing nonprofit called Law Works.
[David] Brock [, founder of Media Matters for America] told Axios in an interview that the idea is to “not only bring the grievances in the bar complaints, but shame them and make them toxic in their communities and in their firms.”
And, indeed, the 65 project filled its first wave of ethics complaint yesterday, against Jenna Ellis, Joseph doGenova and seven others.
Accountability has rarely been a key feature of US politics (see, e.g. Kissinger, Henry), at least not in a sensible way (see, e.g. “Who Lost China?”).
But Priorities USA is trying to gin up some accountability with this pair of new videos:
There’s Off the Hook:
And there’s the even more blunt Chosen a Side :
When I saw the storming of the Capitol live on TV (we had turned on the TV on a whim to see the certification of the vote, not suspecting anything untoward) I had some trouble taking it sufficiently seriously: a man cosplaying as shaman? Really? Surreal, yes, but the end of an era? Rioters moving almost single file between the ropes in a visitors’ area a bit like a tour group? Surely not an invading army. It wasn’t until we saw the violence, the noose, and then read about the parts we had not seen that I started thinking ‘Beer Hall Putch”.
And then, slowly, the drip, drip of revelations–there was a lot more planning for a coup than it had seemed. And Vice President Mike Pence’s finest hour might not have been just refusing to play along with a coup, but his refusal to get into a car and let the Secret Service drive him away from the Capitol.
Well, it’s a year later (unless “every day is Jan. 6th now“?). Things don’t look so great. As Donald Kagan says, Our constitutional crisis is already here. Was 2021 “The year accountability died“? Will the Jan 6 Committee be enough? It’s a lot to ask of a committee.
Meanwhile, at least we can still laugh.
Image from Meme Generator via Crooks & Liars
In general, I’m of the view that we have too many jails and prisons (and far too many private prisons!), and that this is an industry, or social practice if you prefer, where supply tends to create demand for reasons economic and social.
But I’ve learned that we are short of one jail we need. In today’s New York Times explainer on executive privilege (a non-constitutional doctrine invented by courts, but don’t get me started), author Charlie Savage has an aside in his explanation of the convoluted and uncertain way in which Congress enforces its finding of contempt by non-cooperating witnesses:
(In theory, lawmakers could also direct the House sergeant-at-arms to arrest recalcitrant witnesses and detain them until the end of its session, but that “inherent contempt” authority is viewed as obsolete; the Capitol has no prison cell and lawmakers have not tried to use this power since 1935.)
So here’s my very modest proposal: Congress should either build its own little jail, or it should contract with a nearby jurisdiction–or a private prison company–to guarantee to hold anyone arrested by the Sergeant at Arms. I doubt they would actually have to use it; rather, having this capacity on tap would provide a much greater in terrorem effect than the current system which requires first that the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia take up the case, and second that the court fights over it happen quickly–the latter being highly unlikely.
Surely a contingency contract with a per diem per prisoner if required would be a very minor budget item. Stick it in the reconciliation bill please.
Jotwell Blenderlaw