“If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable” – Louis D. Brandeis

By Glen Reaux

With under 6 weeks until what will probably be the most important presidential election in this nation’s history, the incumbent, Donald J. Trump the self-proclaimed “Big Brain” has yet to provide a plausible answer to Joe Biden’s “Build Back better” platform.  Instead of providing a positive message of hope for the future, Trump is still sowing racist animus, fear, and divisiveness. He has no dream or platform for the American people to vote on, just his cultish personality.  His answer to the American people is to divide and conquer them.  While his antics are obviously falling on the deaf ears of an intelligent citizenry, it still plays well to members of the Trumpism cult as evidenced by the poll results of the past six months.  Under a Biden led nation, many Americans are hoping for a plan that will “Build Back Better via a Trump Crimes Commission and Restructuring the Supreme Court.”  Attempting to repair the damage that Trump has done to our great nation without addressing Trump’s crimes and restructuring the Supreme Court would only lead to futility, failure, and a cancerous sore that would never allow the country to heal.  Without healing, this nation can never rebuild and become the quintessential democracy that the world has grown to love, respect, and depend upon.

To “Build Back Better”, the cancerous sore that is Trump’s legacy of racism, divisiveness, fear, and corruption which was only made possible with the complicity of the Republican-controlled Senate must be healed.  It can’t be healed by way of traditional political solutions that centered on forgiving one’s opponent and reaching across the aisle for bipartisan cooperation.  No!  This traditional solution will only be perceived by the Republican Senate as a weakness.  It will not change their behavior or foster cooperation across the aisle.  If fact, without suffering consequences for their actions that have led to our democracy’s near destruction, they will only be emboldened to embrace the next want-to-be dictator and continue to place party-over-country.  The Republican Senate fears an ethnically diverse and empowered citizenry as an existential threat to their party and has been criminal in their support of “Big Brain” Trump.  And like Trump, the criminals within the Senate must be charged and face the justice of the American people, hence, the need for a Trump Crimes Commission.  To “Build Back Better” the lawlessness of this administration which is now spreading rampantly throughout Republican lawmakers and prominent, big-money Republican supporters like “shit through a goose” must be dealt with.  This lawlessness is now affecting the American citizenry, which is following the example exhibited by its elected officials.  According to Louis Dembitz Brandeis, an American lawyer and associate justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939, “If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.”  There is no better way to make the law respectable than by proving that per the constitution, “no one is above the law” not the politicians, judges, law enforcement, or so-called President Trump.  There is no better way to do this than a “Trump Crimes Commission” to investigate government corruption and internal threats to the constitution.  We need it to restore a sense of normalcy to the nation and to restore the institutions destroyed by Trump and his Republican minions.

Just what does a Trump Crimes Commission look like?  For starters, it is not a kangaroo court led by Bill Barr or impotent Bob Mueller who placed “party” over the country.  The commission should be a series of public, nonpartisan congressional hearings and investigations into the unethical and illegal actions perpetrated on behalf of Donald Trump by government officials, lawmakers, and foreign actors.  If individuals have broken laws, we must refer them along with the evidence to federal and other legal authorities that will determine whether to pursue legal prosecution.  If individuals have breached ethical standards or have violated their oaths of office, they would face ethical review authorities.  In 2016, Senate Majority Leader and Trump minion Mitch Mcconnell the self-declared Grim Reaper violated his oath of office and defied the constitution by denying President Obama a Supreme Court nominee hearing.  Evidence, testimonies, and records must be published on the commission’s website for availability to the public and journalistic organizations to provide full transparency.

Republican lawmakers and officials must face the music and explain to America their reasoning for becoming Trump’s loyal minions.  They have been trashing the constitution and violating their oaths of office whenever the opportunity presented itself.  Many of these officials are traitors and by definition have committed treason ⁽¹⁾:

 18 U.S. Code§ 2381.Treason

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

Bill Barr, Attorney General – Perjury

It’s a federal offense if anyone intentionally “falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact” or makes a “materially false” statement before Congress.  In April 2019, Barr testified falsely to Congress on specific issues relative to his 4-page summary, which misrepresented the findings of the Mueller Report.

In the same Senate hearing, Sen. Kamala Harris asked Barr a meticulously worded question: “Has the president or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone?” After hesitating, Barr bumbling answered: “I don’t know.”   This was a lie.  Attorney General Barr had assigned the top federal prosecutor in Connecticut to examine the origins of the Russia investigation.   President Trump had long called for this investigation.

Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State – Hatch Act Violation

August 25, 2020, using federal resources, while on a diplomat trip to Jerusalem, Mike Pompeo gave a speech to the Republican National Convention endorsing Donald Trump for president in violation of the Hatch Act.  The Hatch Act of 1939, was designed to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities. Its main provision prohibits civil service employees in the executive branch of the federal government, except the president and vice president, from engaging in some forms of political activity.  These provisions prevent the use of government resources and buildings.  The penalty structure for violations of the Hatch Act by federal employees includes removal from federal service, reduction in grade, debarment from federal employment for a period not to exceed 5 years, suspension, reprimand, or a civil penalty not to exceed $1,000.

Devin Nunes, Representative – Treason

Throughout 2019,  Representative Nunes of California promoted the Russian conspiracy theory that Ukraine was responsible for hacking the 2016 presidential election.  The intelligence community had advised Congress that the theory was created by the Russians and had no merit, in fact.  Despite this, Nunes persisted in promoting the theory which was used as a defense for Trump and a false accusation against former Vice President Biden.  In 2018, Nunes used taxpayer money to travel to Vienna to meet with a Ukrainian prosecutor who helped Russia develop this conspiracy theory.  Accompanying him on the trip was Lev Parnas, who is under incitement for illegal campaign contributions to Donald Trump.

Louis DeJoy, Post Master General – Campaign Finance Law Violations

Dating back to October 2014, Trump campaign donor and political appointee devised and executed an illegal scheme to make campaign contributions to the Republican Party.  DeJoy’s now-retired director of human resources reported to the Washington Post that “Louis was a national fundraiser for the Republican Party.  He asked employees for money. We gave him the money, and then he reciprocated by giving us big bonuses.”  This campaign finance scheme is called a “straw donation” and prohibited by law.

As a reward to Donald Trump for appointing him to Postmaster General in June of this year,  DeJoy implemented a change in postal procedures that immediately slowed mail delivery nationally.  These changes were designed to have a negative impact on mail-in voting, which heavily favors the Democrats placing Trump’s re-election in jeopardy.  On September 17^th, Judge Stanley Bastian in Eastern Washington’s US District Court enjoin Trump administration postal policies as harmful to voters’ ability to cast ballots this November and deliberately suppressive to voters.  The Judge ordered that DeJoy immediately stop all actions and to reverse all changes made under his administration.  Judge Bastian wrote:

“Although not necessarily apparent on the surface, at the heart of DeJoy’s and the Postal Service’s actions is voter disenfranchisement … This is evident in President Trump’s highly partisan words and tweets, the actual impact of the changes on primary elections that resulted in uncounted ballots, and recent attempts and lawsuits by the Republican National Committee and President Trump’s campaign to stop the States’ efforts to bypass the Postal Service by utilizing ballot drop boxes, as well as the timing of the changes.”

“It is easy to conclude that the recent Postal Services’ changes are an intentional effort on the part of the current Administration to disrupt and challenge the legitimacy of upcoming local, state, and federal elections, especially given that 72% of the … high-speed mail sorting machines that were decommissioned were located in counties where Hillary Clinton received the most votes in 2016.”

Postmaster Dejoy should also be prosecuted for lying to Congress,  On August 24th, Dejoy testified before the House Oversight Committee.  Through the course of his testimony, he told several lies about knowledge of the procedural changes that he implemented and his changes in scheduling and overtime for employees.  On Tuesday, September 16th, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs published a report on DeJoys management of the postal system which corroborates the evidence that DeJoys lied to Congress.  The Report is provided below.

While it is obvious that criminal activity and corruption has run rampant in the Trump administration and among his minions both elected officials and donors, these are only a few of the many that need to be investigated and if the evidence is sufficient, brought to justice. Keep in mind, that the self-proclaimed “Big Brain” Donald Trump’s crimes range from nearly one hundred violations of the Emoluments Clause of the constitution, dozens of Hatch Act violations committed during the 2020 campaign season, perjury by submitting false written statements to the Mueller Investigation to being an unindicted co-conspirator of campaign finance law violations which led to the conviction and jailing of his former attorney Michael Cohen.

Over the past twenty years, the Supreme Court has been the single most important factor in the deterioration of the American legal system, the destruction of voting rights, and the disenfranchisement of millions of Americans.  It has become the most politically biased institution in American politics.  Never in their wildest dreams did the founding fathers perceive that American justice and society would be placed in such jeopardy by the one body charged with the preservation of our democracy.

Article III, Section I states that “The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” Although the Constitution establishes the Supreme Court, it permits Congress to decide how to organize it.  This means that the structure of 9 Supreme Court justices is based upon tradition and not the constitution.  Throughout history, the number of Supreme Court Justices has fluctuated between 6 and 10 members.

In 1789 Congress passed the Judiciary Act, setting the number at six: a chief justice and five associates.  Congress increased the number of justices to seven in 1807.  The number was bumped up to nine in 1837.  And in 1863, it was increased to 10. In 1866, Congress passed the Judicial Circuits Act, which shrank the number of justices down to seven.  The act also prevented President Andrew Johnson from appointing anyone new to the court. Three years later, in 1869, Congress raised the number of justices to nine.  It has stayed at nine since, but that number can be changed with an act of congress.

Today, 5 Republican Justices dominate the Court.  Since the George W. Bush administration; with grave intent, they have effectively provided rulings that have benefitted corporations over people and the Republican party over the nation’s citizenry.  The Court has not been a representative of lady justice or the American people.  “Dark Money” has become its master and this is quickly leading down the road to becoming a fascist nation in the image of Nazi Germany.

Recently, in July 2019, RUCHO ET AL. v. COMMON CAUSE ET AL. ^{2}, the Republican-controlled court voted strictly down party lines in a 5-4 decision.  The Supreme Court has barred any legal challenges to partisan gerrymandering.  Chief Justice Roberts wrote: “We conclude that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts.”

In a very passionate dissent from the bench, Justice Elena Kagan said that American democracy will suffer due to the Court’s ruling:

“The practices challenged in these cases imperil our system of government,” she said. “Part of the court’s role in that system is to defend its foundations. None is more important than free and fair elections.”

Adding that she was “deeply saddened” by the ruling she was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor.

On behalf of the Republican Justices, Chief Justice Roberts wrote:

“Federal judges have no license to reallocate political power between the two major political parties, with no plausible grant of authority in the Constitution and no legal standards to limit and direct their decisions,”

In the opinion provided by the 4 dissenting Justices, Justice Kagan said, “the court had abdicated one of its most crucial responsibilities.

“The only way to understand the majority’s opinion is as follows: In the face of grievous harm to democratic governance and flagrant infringements on individuals’ rights — in the face of escalating partisan manipulation whose compatibility with this nation’s values and law no one defends — the majority declines to provide any remedy. For the first time in this nation’s history, the majority declares that it can do nothing about an acknowledged constitutional violation because it has searched high and low and cannot find a workable legal standard to apply.”

This decision by the Republican Justices immediately disenfranchised millions of citizens.  In some states that recently re-instituted voter suppression and gerrymandering activities due to the Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act in 2013 by the Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder ^{3}, this is a signal that many Jim Crow styled laws will now be permitted by the Courts.  Officials in Shelby County, Alabama, sued in federal court over Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the part of the law that requires states with a history of racial discrimination to get any changes to their voting laws or procedures cleared by either the Justice Department or by a federal court.  Another section of the law, Section 4, outlined a formula that defined which areas of the country were subject to the law.  Supreme Court Justices ruled in a 5-4 decision that the formula for determining which states need preclearance from the DOJ was too broad.  The Supreme Court did not strike down preclearance as unconstitutional.

In a June 2018 ruling, in Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute ^{4} the Court ruled that the State of Ohio could purge voters from their rolls if registered voters miss voting for two years, they are sent registration confirmation notices. If they do not respond and do not vote over the following four years, they are purged.  In 2015, Ohio purged hundreds of thousands of people, mostly ethnic minorities from the voter rolls, have continued these policies since then and now thanks to the partisan Republican-controlled Supreme Court, Ohio will continue these activities into the foreseeable future.

These decisions by the Republican-controlled Supreme Court provided the Republican Party with an unprecedented legal edge and tactical advantage by allowing unconstitutional voter suppression to become standard operating procedure during national elections.  However, the Court placed our democracy in grave danger by creating an avenue for Dark Money and foreign governments to delegitimize our elections with its decision on Citizen’s United v. Federal Election Commission in January 2010.  The Court ruling stated that political contributions by corporations are a form of free speech, thus allowing for the buying and selling of our democracy to the highest bidder.

In March 2016, eight months before the presidential election, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell refused to allow then-President Barack Obama to present a nominee for the Supreme Court.  McConnell stated that since 2016 was a presidential election year, only the incoming President would be allowed to submit a nominee.  This was an unprecedented violation of the constitution.  Less than two months before the 2020 election, on September 18^th, Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away.  Without hesitation, Mitch McConnell immediately stated that a vote on Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee would be held before the end of the year, giving the Republican Party a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court.

Despite the statements by Mitch McConnell which denied President Obama a Supreme Court nomination and established new unprecedented procedures dealing with Supreme Court nominations, Mitch McConnell has now sworn to change this precedence and rush through a Republican nominee to take the seat of the Honorable Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who recently passed away.

In light of these unjust Supreme Court decisions, and the obvious bias and lack of constitutional respect exhibited by Republican lawmakers, the only way to guarantee that Biden’s plan to build back better will succeed is to break with tradition.  The Supreme Court must once again become the fair and unbiased court of the people, a symbol of Lady Justice.  The only way to achieve that is to restructure the Supreme Court by increasing the number of Justices to 13.  This would allow for the appointment of four new Justices to balance the power of the court and undo the damage that the Republicans have done to our democracy.  Without this much-needed correction to our legal system, we are doomed to failure and ultimately a fascist government under another Republican want-to-be dictator like Donald self-proclaimed “Big Brain” Trump.

https://www.gofundme.com/xplicit-news

Links Sources and Documentation

1. Treason: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2381
2. RUCHO ET AL. COMMON CAUSE ET AL: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-422_9ol1.pdf
3. Shelby County v. Holder: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-96_6k47.pdf
4. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-980_f2q3.pdf

Copyright © 2019, Glen Reaux, all rights reserved