All IN THE FAMILY

On December 5, I posted:

“The latest revelations ... strongly suggest that ... i) our president is a criminal, ii) his son is a criminal, iii) his son-in-law may be a criminal, and iv) his former campaign manager, a convicted criminal who has lied about his connections to Russian operatives, is facing a very long prison sentence.”

And,

“This leads ineluctably to the conclusion that members of the TCF will be pardoned before the termination of Trump's presidency in January 2021.”

And,

“Donald is going to have to issue a satchel-full of pardons to his crime family. And who knows, maybe to himself!"

.......

Last week, Donald Trump pardoned 49 criminals. They included child murderers (the Blackwater killers of Iraqi bystanders,) perjurers, fraudsters, and assorted political pond scum. 

Given Trump's announced intention to run again for president in 2024, one assumes that he believes that the hard core of his base will either i) forget these pardons, or ii) conclude that the pardoned felons were really not such bad people after all, or iii) believe the criminals were acting in the national interest, or iv) the convicts had been treated unfairly by Obama socialists at the DOJ, or v) whatever. 

Trump may prove to be correct about 48 of those pardons. But I suggest his base will never be persuaded he was being loyal to populist causes, or to right-wing politicos, or to his feigned conservative beliefs, or to his Evangelical followers, when he pardoned his machetunim. (This yiddish word is a vital addition to the English language because we lack any other word that means, "the parents of your child's spouse.")

Charlie Kushner was a neither a soldier of fortune hired by the United States to support our foreign policy aims, nor a stalwart Republican who did his best to protect Trump from the Mueller investigators, nor a Trump supporter in Congress, nor a former Trump campaign manager. In fact, Charlie Kushner was a died-in-wool Democrat, a billionaire who gave millions to Democratic politicians and was probably the most powerful Democratic donor in the state of New Jersey.

Growing up in a middle-class non-observant Jewish family in Brooklyn, I often heard my parents and other grown-ups comment upon news of the arrest of a prominent person charged with a shameful criminal offense. The first remark was always: "Thank God he's not Jewish."

Well, Charlie Kushner is Jewish, a son of concentration camp survivors who emigrated to the United States in 1949 and went on to raise an observant Jewish family in New Jersey. Charlie's father, immigrant Joseph Kushner, actually had some things in common with son-of-immigrant Fred Trump: they both started out as builders, eventually became real estate moguls, passed on their wealth to sons (Charlie and Donald,) who, in turn, both became tax cheats.

But while Donald has so far avoided being caught, Charlie was done in by a white-hot family feud. Charlie's siblings were pissed off when he made political contributions from family enterprises, using his siblings' names (and money) without their consent, in derogation of federal election laws.

The feud led to intra-family lawsuits, that, in turn, led to a federal criminal investigation. Republican U.S. Attorney Chris Christie feasted on the details. ("This was one of the most loathsome and disgusting crimes I ever prosecuted when I was U.S. Attorney. And I was U.S. Attorney in New Jersey!

There are no redeeming qualities for Charlie Kushner in this tale. In the end he pleaded guilty to 18 counts of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering. He was sentenced to two years in federal prison.

The tax evasion charges arise out of his reporting campaign contributions as deductible office expenses. He cheated the IRS out of some $250,000.

It is the witness tampering charge that is the most salacious. When the federal investigation into illegal campaign contributions started, Charlie's sister and her husband secretly cooperated with the government. When Charlie found out, he hatched a plan that justifies Chris Christie's afore-described adjectival splurge: Charlie hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, secretly taped the liaison, and sent the tape to his sister!

Who does a thing like that? A shande offen dem goyim. (Rough translation, "A shame in front of the gentiles.")

After he got out of prison, and his son went to work for the president, Charlie experienced a political conversion, made a whopping donation to a pro-Trump PAC, and the pardon followed.

So, as I see it, there ain't nobody in Trumpland outside the immediate family who will try to justify, explain, excuse, or forgive that pardon. In Mario Puzo's The Godfather, the protagonist was not the President of the United States, but if he were, the Charlie Kushner story would have been a chapter in the book.

And we ain't finished yet. In the next three weeks, Trump is gonna pardon Clown Rudy, everybody in the TCF down to the grandchild level, and maybe himself.

When you are recovered from your bout of retching, focus on the good news: Trump can forget 2024. Not happenin'.

And that's true whether NY State convicts him or not. One thing for sure, whatever the verdict, the trial will not be pretty for The Donald.

A bientot.

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SECESSION!

AFTER the State of Texas filed an absurd application with the Supreme Court seeking the disenfranchisement of millions of voters in four swing states, and

AFTER 126 Republican members of the United States House of Representatives signed a “Friend of the Court” brief in support of that absurd application, and 

AFTER one third of the states in our republic joined in supporting that absurd application, and 

AFTER our would-be Supreme Leader sought court permission to join in Texas’s absurd application, and

AFTER the Supreme Court, by a vote of 9-0, responded to the applicants with a one-pager that basically read, “Are you fucking kidding me?” 

THEN the distinguished patriot Chairman of the Texas Republican Party issued a statement suggesting a re-do of the firing upon Fort Sumter. Following upon distinguished patriot Rush Limbaugh talking about “trending towards secession,” the distinguished patriot Chair of the Texas Republican Party,  issued this statement:

“Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a union of states that will abide by the constitution.”

That is really a bad idea for two reasons:

1. I have relatives who live in Florida and Ohio, and
2. It probably could not be accomplished peacefully.

Otherwise … .

While the media coverage is chock full of reports on the Supremes’ dismissal of the Texas absurd application, the focus has been on the question whether Trump is now finished, and is it really over. Despite the lunatic cheerleading of the Trumpian Kool-Aid drinkers, the answer is “Yes, it’s really over, and has been since November 4.” 

But I thought I would point out two tidbits that show how truly deranged the Trumpians really are. It is as if the President’s mental illness were contagious. His lies and fantasies float through the Trumpian atmosphere and contaminate all who refuse to use their native intellect as masks that strain out lies and conspiracy fantasies.

Did you know that:

1. In his application to intervene in the absurd Texas lawsuit, Trump’s lawyer was one John Eastman, a Californian who was twice defeated in races for California Attorney General, a post once held by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. A former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Eastman recently raised a hoopla with the reprise of claim akin to Trump’s “birtherism” argument. Eastman wrote an opinion piece in Newsweek Magazine in which he argued that Harris, though born in the United States, was not a native born citizen because her parents were immigrants. Trump then piled on for a bit before dropping the issue. Newsweek later apologized for publishing the Eastman piece.

One would think that before submitting a petition to the Supreme Court of the United States on behalf of the President of the United States, a lawyer would exercise a high degree of care in being both persuasive and accurate. But intellect-maskless Eastman screwed the pooch. 

First, he argued there must have been fraud and misconduct in the election because Trump won Ohio and Florida, and no candidate who won those two states had ever lost a presidential election.

A truly absurd argument. Even if true, so what? Is that proof Trump won this election? Are we supposed to infer that because this was the first time it happened, there must be misconduct? Ridiculous.

But even more important, and as an example of even more incompetent lawyering, Eastman's statement was false!  This was not the first time it happened. In 1960, Richard Nixon carried Ohio and Florida but lost the election to John F. Kennedy.

Finally, my favorite piece of Trumpian lawyer-insanity:

2. Neither Nevada nor California was among the 17 states that joined in filing an amici brief in support of the Texas effort to disenfranchise all voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, and Wisconsin. That was apparently not good enough for a California lawyer who sought Court leave to file another brief supporting Texas’s petition. His motion was styled as being on behalf of “STATE OF NEW CALIFORNIA AND NEW NEVADA STATE.”  

I have read the brief. Nowhere does counsel offer up an explanation of how he has managed to overcome the Constitutional requirements of adding those two new states to the union. Not a mention the chutzpah involved in petitioning the Supreme Court of the United States on behalf of fictional clients. I mean, really, did he think the Justices wouldn’t notice?

I assume the disciplinary officials of the California Bar have already drawn up the charge sheet. Maybe maskless clown Giuliani can rise from his sickbed, wash the mascara from his sideburns, and speak for the defense. That is, if he is still a member of the bar at trial time.

A bientot.

……………………….

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PARDON ME!

 In December, 2018, I wrote:

“The latest revelations from Mueller, by means of the Manafort and Cohen sentencing memoranda, strongly suggest that ... i) our president is a criminal, ii) his son is a criminal, iii) his son-in-law may be a criminal, and iv) his former campaign manager, a convicted criminal who has lied about his connections to Russian operatives, is facing a very long prison sentence.”

And,

“This leads ineluctably to the conclusion that members of the TCF will be pardoned before the termination of Trump's presidency in January, 2021.”

And,

“But there is no way, I suggest, that Trump dares to pardon Flynn before November 3, 2020, and Donald is going to have to issue a satchel-full of pardons to his crime family. And who knows, maybe to himself!” (He waited until November 25 to pardon Flynn, not that the timing seems to have made a material difference.)

...........

Two years later, Trump’s chickens have come home to roost. The press reports that he has recently discussed with advisers issuing pardons for his family members, and clown Giuliani.

That’s not all. We learn from an unsealed but severely redacted court order that the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia is pursuing a bribery investigation involving an unknown person presently in the custody of the federal Bureau of prisons in connection with a possible conspiracy to obtain a pardon or commutation in exchange for campaign contributions. The redacted decision authorized the US Attorney to look at and use in its investigation, a trove of documents from some 50 devices. A claim of attorney-client privilege was rejected by the court. The redactions make it impossible to identify the participants, but it looks like somebody in prison was conspiring to acquire presidential clemency via communications, directly or indirectly, with a Trumpian swamp creature. Is this yet another pardonable person or persons? Or a member of the group mentioned above? We’ll see.

One thing the press seems to miss in its current reporting is the possible negative legal consequences to the President and his clan in connection with a pardon.

 A federal “pardonee” no longer has any Fifth Amendment rights in connection with any inquiry into federal criminal conduct. For example, Flynn’s pardon was for “any and all offenses.” That means he cannot be indicted for any pre-pardon federal offenses. It follows, then, that he cannot claim a Fifth Amendment right to refuse to testify on the ground his answer might tend to incriminate him regarding any federal offense.

But because of the so-called "dual sovereignty" doctrine, a federal conviction does not bar a state conviction for the same misconduct, and visa-versa.

But while a federal pardonee can be prosecuted by the state for federally pardoned conduct, if he is called before a NY state grand jury, he gets the equivalent of a state pardon if he answers questions about any subject; under NY state law he is immune from state prosecution on that subject. The witness, now immune from prosecution by either entity, is thereby stripped of any rights to refuse to testify. On he contrary, the more he talks, the more immunity he gets!

Think of federal pardonee Jared Kushner being asked questions about federal pardonee Donald Jr., or federal pardonee Paul Manafort being asked about pardonee Rudy Giuliani.

Oh, how the rats will play!

The scenario brings to mind one of my favorite recent cartoons: Ivanka, accompanied by her husband, asks her father if they are gonna go to jail, and the President responds, “Well you kids may, but I am going to Russia.”

The crowd had it right: “Lock him up!”

A bientot.

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