Trump calls for investigation of Biden related to pardons and use of an autopen, a dubious move that could put both parties -- especially Trump -- at risk

 

Trump pursues dubious claims against Biden (Reuters)

Donald Trump has ordered an investigation of former President Joe Biden, focusing primarily on whether Biden used an autopen to sign documents in office, a routine presidential practice that Trump alleges was part of a conspiracy by Biden officials to cover up his cognitive decline.

News outlets are reporting that no actions like Trump's ever have been taken in American history, especially against a predecessor in the White House. Legal obstacles probably explain that, including one that is less than a year old. Here is a quick look at perhaps the three most prominent legal issues that are in play

(1) Presidential immunity -- On July 1, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court granted presidential immunity for Trump, protecting him from prosecution for acts committed in his official capacity. Since Trump is alleging that Biden produced invalid documents that were improperly signed while in office, that would be an official act -- meaning Biden is protected by the same immunity that once protected Trump.

(2) Probable cause -- Trump on Wednesday signed a presidential memorandum, directing White House Counsel David Warrington, in consultation with Attorney General Pam Bondi, to investigate "whether certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden's mental state and unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the President." That indicates Trump is considering criminal charges against Biden, and that would require a showing of probable cause. If Trump or his subordinates bring a case without probable cause, they could wind up in legal hot water.

(3) Malicious prosecution and abuse of process -- In a post dated April 9, 2024, we described the risks Trump would be taking by bringing a baseless criminal charge against Biden:

Here is an example of how ignorance can get a president in trouble: Bringing a criminal case against Biden without probable cause could lead to all kinds of legal problems for Trump and his GOP henchmen. One problem could be a lawsuit against Trump & Co., brought by Joe Biden or his family members, for something called malicious prosecution. . . .

Here is an article about the elements of malicious prosecution and a related tort called abuse of process. If Trump and his cohorts are found liable for one of these torts, or perhaps both, they could experience a severe lightening of their wallets.

Associated Press examines a number of issues that Trump's memorandum raises in an article yesterday under the headline "What Trump ordering an investigation into Biden’s actions might mean legally and politically." Will Weissert and Eric Tucker write:

President Donald Trump has ordered an investigation into pardons and other executive actions issued by his predecessor, Joe Biden — launching an extraordinary effort to show that the Democrat hid his cognitive decline and was otherwise too mentally impaired to do the job.

Trump, who turns 79 this month, has long questioned the mental acuity and physical stamina of Biden, and is now directing his administration to use governmental investigative powers to try and back up those assertions. Biden, 82, and now undergoing treatment for prostate cancer, dismissed Trump’s actions as “ridiculous.”

Here’s a look at what Trump is alleging, what impact it could have, and why the country may never have seen anything like this before.

Trump directed his White House counsel and attorney general to begin an investigation into his own allegations that Biden aides hid from the public declining mental acuity in their boss. Trump is also casting doubts on the legitimacy of the Biden White House’s use of the autopen to sign pardons and other documents.

It marks a significant escalation in Trump’s targeting of political adversaries, and could lay the groundwork for arguments by leading Republicans in Congress and around the country that a range of Biden’s actions as president were invalid.

“Essentially, whoever used the autopen was the president,” Trump said Thursday.

He then went further, suggesting that rogue elements within the Biden administration might have effectively faked the president’s signature and governed without his knowledge — especially when it came to pushing policies that appeased the Democratic Party’s far-left wing.

“He didn’t have much of an idea what was going on,” Trump said, though he also acknowledged that he had no evidence to back up those assertions. A Trump fundraising email released a short time later carried the heading, “A robot ran the country?”

Does Trump have evidence to support such claims or even reach a showing of probable cause? We've seen no sign of it so far. But it is early in what could be a historic showdown. Weissert and Tucker write: 

Legal experts are skeptical that the investigation will do much more than fire up Trump's core supporters

“I think it’s more of a political act than one that will have any legal effect,” said Richard Pildes, a constitutional law scholar at New York University School of Law. He added: “I think it’s designed to continue to fuel a narrative that the administration wants to elevate, but courts are not going to second-guess these sorts of executive actions” undertaken by Biden.

Trump has long questioned the legitimacy of pardons his predecessor issued for his family members and other administration officials just before leaving office on Jan. 20, people whom Biden was worried could be targeted by a Trump-led Justice Department.

But Trump has more recently suggested Biden was unaware of immigration policies during his own administration, and said Thursday that aides to his predecessor pushed social issues like transgender rights in ways Biden might not have agreed with.

It is well-established that a president’s executive orders can easily be repealed by a successor issuing new executive actions — something Trump has done repeatedly since retaking the White House. That lets Trump wipe out Biden administration policies without having to prove any were undertaken without Biden’s knowledge — though his predecessor’s pardons and judicial appointments can’t be so easily erased.

“When it comes to completed legal acts like pardons or appointing judges,” Pildes said, a later president “has no power to overturn those actions.”

Can Trump point to a possible crime Biden or his subordinates committed regarding an autopen -- or for that matter, while issuing a pardon? The answer on both scenarios appears to be "it's unlikely," AP reports:

Autopens are writing tools that allow a person’s signature to be affixed automatically to documents. The Justice Department, under Democratic and Republican administrations, has recognized the use of an autopen by presidents to sign legislation and issue pardons for decades — and even Trump himself acknowledges using it.

“Autopens to me are used when thousands of letters come in from young people all over the country and you want to get them back,” Trump said Thursday.

Michigan State University law professor Brian Kalt said the “consensus view is that, as long as the president has directed the use of the autopen in that particular instance, it is valid.”

“The only issue would be if someone else directed the use of the autopen without the President’s approval,” Kalt, an expert on pardons, wrote in an email.

Doesn’t the Constitution give presidents the absolute right to make pardons? Yes. Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution bestows the president with the power “to grant Reprieves and Pardons.”

“A president’s pardons cannot be revoked. If they could, no pardon would ever be final,” American University politics professor Jeffrey Crouch, author of a book on presidential pardons, said in an email. “There is no legal obstacle I am aware of to a president using an autopen on a pardon.”

Kent Greenfield, a Boston College law professor, said, “Once you pardon somebody, you can’t go back and un-pardon them.”

“If it’s done with a president’s authority, I don’t think it matters whether it’s done with an autopen or not,” Greenfield added. “The president’s authority is the president’s authority.”

In Trump vs. United States (2204), the U.S. Supreme Court created presidential immunity, a concept that previously had no place in American law. But it benefited Trump, so he called it a "big win." It is not clear if Trump is aware he might be creating a similar "big win" for his bitter rival, Biden. Weissert and Tucker write:    

Trump’s suggestions that Biden’s administration effectively functioned without his knowledge on key policy matters go beyond questions about pardons and the president using the autopen. Even there, though, the Supreme Court ruled in 2024 that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution. At the time, Trump celebrated the ruling as a “BIG WIN” because it extended the delay in the Washington criminal case against him on charges he plotted to overturn his 2020 election loss.

Such immunity would likely cover Biden as a former president. It might not extend to Biden administration officials allegedly acting without his knowledge — though Trump himself acknowledged he’s not seen evidence of that occurring.

Biden has dismissed Trump’s investigation as “nothing more than a mere distraction.”

“Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false,” he said in a statement.

Many Americans might be asking, "Has a president ever sought an investigation like this before?" Weissert and Tucker have the answer:

In a word, no.

There have been allegations of presidents being impaired and having their administrations controlled by intermediaries more than the public knew — including Edith Wilson, who effectively managed access to her husband, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson, after his serious stroke in 1919. Wilson’s critics grumbled about a shadow presidency controlled by his wife, but the matter was never formally investigated by Congress, nor was it a major source of criticism for Wilson’s Republican successor, Warren G. Harding.

More recently, some questioned whether President John F. Kennedy struggled more than was publicly known at the time with Addison’s Disease and debilitating back pain while in office. And there were questions about whether dementia might have affected Ronald Reagan during his second term, before he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 1994, five years after he left office.

Trump himself was indicted four times, and convicted once, while Biden was in office — but those investigations were not ordered by Biden.

(These are not the only legal questions raised by Trump's extraordinary action against Biden. We will address others in an upcoming post here at Legal Schnauzer.) 

Donald Trump's plot to prosecute Joe Biden without probable cause is based on a lie and ignorance, as MSNBC analyst Joyce White Vance makes clear

MSNBC's Joyce White Vance

 

Donald Trump and his allies are plotting to prosecute President Joe Biden if Trump wins the November election, according to a report from Axios. After months of Congressional inquiries, no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden has surfaced, so it is unclear what would form the basis of a Trump-fueled prosecution. But this much appears to be clear: Trump apparently wants to prosecute Biden because he believes Biden had him prosecuted -- even though Trump has offered no evidence to support that claim. One prominent legal analyst has stated that Biden did not have Trump prosecuted and could not have done so. Those matters come down to grand jurors; more on that in a moment.

Also, the Axios report suggests Trump has no problem violating roughly 40 years of U.S. policy that holds the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is to operate independently of the White House -- that presidents are not prosecutors, and they are to be excluded from decisions to charge or not charge suspected wrongdoers.

Trump might be determined to seek revenge against Biden, and other perceived political enemies -- as Trump repeatedly has said he intends to do in a possible second term. But for now, Trump only has managed to make himself look bad, adding to the substantial evidence we already had that he is wildly unfit to serve as president. In this instance, Trump's unfitness manifests itself in this indisputable fact -- he simply has no idea how government works, even after spending four years in the White House during a chaotic and dysfunctional administration that numerous experts have described as a failed presidency. 

The plot to wrongfully prosecute Biden, and perhaps members of his family, goes beyond Trump to include members of the Republican Party, as reporter Stephen Neukam writes under the headline "Scoop: Trump, GOP plot 2025 criminal probe of Bidens":

Republicans' impeachment probe of President Biden is unraveling because of a lack of evidence — but their work could become the basis for federal investigations and even prosecutions of the Biden family if Donald Trump wins re-election, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: Trump has vowed retribution against his enemies if he wins in November. House Republicans have struggled to show Biden has done anything illegal, but people close to Trump are still plotting to use the Justice Department against Biden and his family.

• A source close to the Trump campaign said that "everything you have seen from the Biden DOJ," in terms of the charges against Trump, "you can expect to see from the Trump DOJ."
• One Trump ally argued that there is precedent for a second Trump administration to investigate and prosecute the Bidens: the current federal charges against Trump.

Reality check: Those charges stem from allegations that Trump led a conspiracy to try to overturn the 2020 election, and that he illegally kept classified documents and then schemed to conceal that he'd taken them.

• Biden was found to have some classified documents from his vice presidency, but cooperated with authorities in returning them.
• The special counsel who investigated Biden's case, a former Trump appointee to the Justice Department, decided not to prosecute.

Driving the news: House Republicans have alleged that Biden should be impeached because he illicitly benefited from lucrative foreign deals arranged by his son Hunter.

• Despite their difficulty proving that, Trump has said he thinks Biden should be prosecuted anyway — because Trump is being prosecuted now.
• "By weaponizing the DOJ against his Political Opponent, ME, Joe has opened a giant Pandora's Box," Trump posted on Truth Social in January.

The items highlighted in blue above get to the heart of the matter -- Trump wants to prosecute Biden because he believes, contrary to evidence, that Biden is having him prosecuted. In other words, Trump is playing a tit-for-tat game. Prosecutions, however, are serious matters, and it helps to understand at least a few basics of criminal procedure. For example, a criminal investigation is not to begin until there is evidence of a crime.That seems simple enough, but Trump apparently cannot grasp it. The standard to meet is called probable cause. The link in the previous sentence notes that probable cause is found in the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, in the Bill of Rights. But apparently Trump is ignorant when it comes to key provisions of our founding documents. Still, chunks of the American electorate, particularly the MAGA chunks, claim to support a presidential candidate who is clueless about a concept as simple as probable cause, which is front and center in the Bill of Rights. That tells me a lot of GOPers who claim to support Trump aren't taking the 2024 election seriously -- and themselves have no idea what Trump does, or does not, stand for. (Hint: Trump has made it clear he does not know, or intend to abide by, the U.S. Constitution. And some on the right seriously think he is fit to be president.)

Here is an example of how ignorance can get a president in trouble: Bringing a criminal case against Biden without probable cause could lead to all kinds of legal problems for Trump and his GOP henchmen. One problem could be a lawsuit against Trump & Co., brought by Joe Biden or his family members, for something called malicious prosecution. Here is a brief description of that tort from the Cornell University Legal information Institute:

Malicious prosecution is the filing of a lawsuit for an improper purpose, and without grounds or probable cause. The improper lawsuit may either be civil or criminal in nature. To remedy an act of malicious prosecution, an alleged victim files a malicious prosecution action. A malicious prosecution action is a civil tort claim for damages caused by malicious prosecution.. . . 

There is no cause of action for malicious prosecution under federal law but malicious prosecution in federal cases may still be tried under state tort claims. Malicious prosecution refers to previous improper civil or criminal proceedings in most jurisdictions.

Here is an article about the elements of malicious prosecution and a related tort called abuse of process. If Trump and his cohorts are found liable for one of these torts, or perhaps both, they could experience a severe lightening of their wallets. Anyone who has served as president, and been involved in numerous courtroom scuffles as Trump has, should know about these relatively simple legal concepts. But Trump seems incapable of grasping them. I'm hesitant to call Trump stupid, but he often appears to be lacking in knowledge and goes off half-cocked without thinking things true -- on matters that can be costly to him personally, of if he is president, to the country. In short, Trump thinks and acts recklessly, and that is a big reason he is unfit to be president.

Here is an example: Almost every issue raised in the Axios article grows from the idea that Joe Biden is having Trump prosecuted. In Trump's diseased, narcissistic brain, that has to be true because Trump cannot be responsible for anything that goes wrong. But this is a lie, one Trump apparently is convinced his MAGA followers are gullible enough to believe. But here is the truth, as stated by MSNBC legal analyst and former Alabama U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance:

Joyce White Vance, former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama and current legal analyst for MSNBC, stated in a recent tweet: "Joe Biden didn't indict Trump. Prosecutors must go before a grand jury, made up of citizens, including Republicans & Democrats. These citizens hear evidence & vote on whether a defendant should be charged. Different grand juries have now done that with Trump 91 times."

So it all comes down to grand jurors. But Trump apparently realizes there are too many grand jurors to keep track of, and their deliberations generally are conducted in private, so Trump has to blame one guy, Biden.This is the kind of thinking that, in a president, could cause the U.S. to bomb Iran for a supposed wrong that Saudi Arabia committed. That is the kind of mishap that could spark a world war. But Trump displays that kind of rattled thinking on an almost daily basis.

How did it come to be U.S. policy that the DOJ will act independently of the White House, that the president will have no role in charging or non-charging decisions? Let's take a brief look at the history behind this policy. President Jimmy Carter, acting in the aftermath of Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal, played a key role. This is from a Legal Schnauzer post dated 9/19/23:

Since the late 1970s, during the post-Watergate era when our country still was reeling from Richard Nixon's scandal-riddled administration, U.S. policy has been that the Department of Justice (DOJ) will operate independently of the White House -- that the president will have no say in the DOJ's charging or non-charging decisions. The Jimmy Carter administration produced the first memorandum spelling out this policy -- and it has been followed by almost every president (of both political parties). From Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama, every president has signed off on the idea that the White House should not influence DOJ decision-making. The only exception might be Donald Trump; it is unclear if the Trump White House followed the law on DOJ independence during his first term -- and he clearly has no intention of following the law during a second term.

Merrick Garland, current U.S. attorney general, provides more background from the most recent memorandum on the subject. This comes from a 2017 report at protectdemocracy.org:

The promise that every American will be treated equally under the law and that none is above the law is a bedrock principle of American democracy. The freedom from political influence — real or perceived — on law enforcement underpins all of our other freedoms. By contrast, political influence or interference in law enforcement has been a clear hallmark distinguishing authoritarian regimes from true democracies around the globe.¹

For decades, to prevent even the appearance of political meddling in federal law enforcement, Republican and Democratic administrations alike have had written policies governing White House contacts with agencies and offices within the executive branch that have investigatory and enforcement responsibilities. To ensure the impartial application of the laws, these policies have extended to White House contacts with any executive branch agency or office regarding investigations, enforcement actions, regulatory decisions, grants and contracts involving specific parties.

To date, the Trump Administration has not articulated publicly a White House policy on agency contacts. Further, multiple reported contacts between senior political staff at the White House and enforcement officers at the Department of Justice (DOJ) appear to have violated 40 years of accepted, bipartisan policy. In light of the questions that its actions have raised, and in order to demonstrate its commitment to upholding the rule of law, the Trump White House must release and abide by an agency contacts policy that is consistent with accepted, bipartisan norms.

In recent weeks, a number of reports have raised questions regarding whether the White House has in place and is abiding by an agency-contacts policy like ones that have governed White House agency contacts for the past 40 years in both Democratic and Republican administrations. This past weekend, The New York Times reported that White House Counsel Donald McGahn “was working to secure access to what Mr. McGahn believed to be an order issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court authorizing some form of surveillance related to Mr. Trump and his associates.” (The White House later attempted to walk back claims of such an effort). Last month, multiple publications reported that the White House asked the FBI to refute reports that Trump campaign advisors had contacts with Russia during the presidential campaign. A week prior to that, the New York Daily News reported that White House senior Adviser Stephen Miller, who is not a lawyer, called the home of Robert Capers, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, to dictate how he should defend the Administration’s travel ban.

There is a long-standing and bipartisan belief that the laws of the United States should be administered and enforced in an impartial manner and, accordingly, that there should not be an appearance that politics plays any part in the Department of Justice’s investigative and enforcement operations. This is because the effectiveness of the Department of Justice rests on the public’s confidence — and the reality — that DOJ is above ideology and partisanship in its enforcement of the law.

The need for the Department of Justice to be insulated from the reality and the appearance of politics is reinforced in federal law. The Hatch Act places restrictions on the political participation of government employees in certain agencies where it is particularly important that there is no appearance of politicization, like the military and intelligence agencies. These restrictions apply to career and political appointees in the Department of Justice and FBI.

Stemming from this basic principle that the investigative and prosecutorial powers of the DOJ should be free of partisan influence, it has been consistent policy for 40 years to limit communications between the White House and the DOJ, including the FBI.

Here is a bit more history from a Legal Schnauzer post dated 7/20/17, drawing on a February 2017 article at lawfareblog.com: 

After Watergate, Jimmy Carter campaigned on the promise to establish "as far as constitutionally possible, an independent Department of Justice,” and in 1978 his attorney general, Griffin Bell, sought to make good on that pledge by instituting procedures to insulate the Justice Department from political pressures. But what became the customary rules governing interaction between the White House and Justice were relaxed most recently under the George W. Bush administration, in a set of episodes the administration came to regret. As recounted by Politico in January, Bush's first attorney general, John Ashcroft, expanded the number of White House officials permitted to contact the Justice Department on non-national security matters from four to 417; his second attorney general, Alberto Gonzalez, further increased the number to 895 (according to findings by Senate Judiciary Committee member Sheldon Whitehouse, a former U.S. attorney). These changes ended in scandal: among other things, under Gonzalez, seven U.S. attorney generals were abruptly fired in 2006 for political reasons that, according to a subsequent report by the Justice Department Inspector General, "raised doubts about the integrity of Department prosecution decisions." Michael Mukasey reinstituted more traditional guidelines in 2007, and Eric Holder replaced them with his own substantively similar variant in 2009.

The heart of the [Holder] memo is a set of prescriptions limiting the Justice Department’s communications with the White House and Congress regarding pending or potential criminal or civil investigations or cases. The Department will advise the President on such investigations or cases “when—but only when—it is important for the performance of the President's duties and appropriate from a law enforcement perspective.”

The Axios article indicates Trump is not the only Republican scheming to "get" Biden because of "offenses" that do not appear to involve probable cause. Writes Stephen Neukam:

• House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said in a fundraising email last month that "when President Trump returns to the White House, it's critical the new leadership at the DOJ have everything they need to prosecute the Biden Crime Family and deliver swift justice."
• Comer also said on Fox News recently that if Attorney General Merrick Garland's Justice Department won't accept criminal referrals from House Republicans, "then maybe a Donald Trump Department of Justice will."

Zoom in: House Republicans' investigation is unlikely to end in impeachment articles this year, but the GOP has used it to sling mud at the president and his family in the run-up to the Nov. 5 election.

• Mike Davis, former chief counsel for nominations to then-Senate Judiciary chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) — whom Trump has suggested as a possible interim attorney general — claims the Bidens participated in "illegal foreign corruption."
• "The Biden Justice Department will not do anything about it, so the Trump 47 Justice Department should," Davis said. Did Davis provide any specifics? No.
  

State of play: A spokesperson for the House Oversight Committee told Axios that "impeachment is 100% still on the table."

• The spokesperson said the investigation is ongoing and that a final report with recommendations will be released at the end of the probe.
• That report is expected to include criminal referrals.

Neukam's reporting suggests a GOP conspiracy could be in play, and that conjures up even more memories of Richard Nixon. Neukam turns to a voice of sanity in U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

The other side: Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on House Oversight, told Axios that Republicans are eyeing this course of action only because their impeachment inquiry has not turned up any crimes committed by the president.

• "Now, in saying that they are going to enable Donald Trump's criminal vengeance campaign, they are taking this from a farce to tragedy," Raskin said.

As Trump attacks Harris with noxious language, he proves that he has no clue how government works, perhaps the No. 1 reason he is unfit to be president

Joyce White Vance of MSNBC

 

When Donald Trump recently called Kamala Harris "mentally impaired," it was unusually nasty and nonsensical -- even by his standards. More importantly, it might have been the strongest sign in a growing body of evidence that Trump has neither the temperament nor the intelligence to serve as president. In recent comments to Axios about Trump's baseless attacks on Harris, one of our nation's foremost historians seemed to be thinking along those lines.

It is not unusual for Trump to use dark, fear-mongering language -- seemingly as a means to keep his MAGA fan base in a state of agitation. But his words directed at Harris were one of several recent instances where his language seemed particularly vile and outside the boundaries of normal political discourse. Do we run the risk of allowing Trump to normalize rude, insulting language in a way that could coursen a public environment that already is marked by divisiveness and tension? An expert on presidents and their use of words hints that she thinks the answer is yes.

Here at Legal Schnauzer, this is the first in a series of posts that will show Donald Trump is wildly unfit to be America's president. His main interest -- according to words straight from his own mouth(see here, here, here, and here.) -- is to discard our democracy and replace it with an authoritarian regime that would operate way outside the boundaries of our constitution, surely pleasing the strongmen" he so admires, such as Vladimir Putin of Russia, Viktor Orban of Hungary, Kim Jong Un of North Korea, and Xi Jinping of China.

We soon will be presenting a string of posts, which will  include powerful evidence that Trump should never be allowed anywhere near the White House. For one reason, we now have plenty of data that shows Trump was a dreadful president the first time around, and many experts suspect a second Trump term would be even worse. 

But first, let's examine Axios' reporting on Trump's verbal assaults against Kamala Harris. Under the headline "Dark Trump: Former president calls Harris “mentally disabled,” Mike Allen writes:

Former President Trump, in a self-described "dark speech," told a rally in Wisconsin recently that his opponent, Vice President Harris, is "mentally impaired" and "mentally disabled."

• "Joe Biden became mentally impaired," Trump said during a riff about immigration. "Kamala [mispronounces name] was born that way. [Laughter.] She was born that way. And if you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could have allowed this to happen to our country." (Video)

Why it matters: Even for Trump, it was weird, nasty and nonsensical — when he needed to be swaying "national security moms" and other undecideds, 38 days out from Election Day.

• Trump told the rally in Prairie du Chien (prairie of the dog): "This is a dark speech."

• The big picture: Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin — whose latest bestseller is The Leadership Journey: How Four Kids Became President — told me, "While former President Trump's latest outrageous claim about Vice President Harris does seem beyond the pale even for him, and even in our country's long history of political invective, what is even more disturbing is that it will now be taken as a matter of course, demonstrating we've become inured to his degrading language."

• "Think back to 2015," she added, "in the very early days of his first campaign when he said John McCain was not a war hero because he was captured. The N.Y. Post predicted that his campaign would implode. The front-page headline declared: 'Trump is toast ... DON VOYAGE!"

The other side: The Harris campaign, highlighting Trump's comment that he was giving a "dark speech," said he "gave a gloomy review of his angry, rambling diatribe."

Trump went off on other tangents that made him sound even more like a madman in the making. Allen writes:

Other comments by Trump during the hour-plus remarks at the rally, which was moved inside at the last minute because of security concerns:

• He clarified that in addition to his plans to prosecute any 2024 election cheaters if he wins, "and if we can, we'll go back to the last one [2020], too, if we're allowed. But we're gonna prosecute people." (Video) (Trump can't seem to get over the notion that presidents are prosecutors, who direct the charging or non-charging decisions of the Department of Justice. They aren't, and they don't, no matter how many times Trump tells the worn-out lie that Joe Biden was behind the charges in his hush money case.

• There's no evidence of widespread fraud during the 2020 election. And Trump continues to claim that the only way he'll lose in November is if Democrats cheat.
• On Harris and the border: "She's letting in people who are going to walk into your house, break into your door and they'll do anything they want, they'll do anything they want. These people are animals. ... These are stone-cold killers. ... It's also the fact that they're taking all of our Black population's jobs and our Hispanic population's jobs." (Video ... Fact check)
• On his debate performance: "All the stupid people — the anchors, back there — no, they say: "He fell into a trap' — her trap. She can't set a mental trap." (Video)

• Joyce White Vance, MSNBC legal analyst and former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, has an answer for Trump's tall tale, under the headline "Donald Trump's plot to prosecute Joe Biden without probable cause is based on a lie and ignorance, as MSNBC analyst Joyce White Vance makes clear. From a Legal Schnauzer post dated 4/9/24:
• Donald Trump and his allies are plotting to prosecute President Joe Biden if Trump wins the November election, according to a report from Axios. After months of Congressional inquiries, no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden has surfaced, so it is unclear what would form the basis of a Trump-fueled prosecution. But this much appears to be clear: Trump apparently wants to prosecute Biden because he believes Biden had him prosecuted -- even though Trump has offered no evidence to support that claim. One prominent legal analyst has stated that Biden did not have Trump prosecuted and could not have done so. Those matters come down to grand jurors; more on that in a moment.

• Also, the Axios report suggests Trump has no problem violating roughly 40 years of U.S. policy that holds the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is to operate independently of the White House -- that presidents are not prosecutors, and they are to be excluded from decisions to charge or not charge suspected wrongdoers.

  Trump might be determined to seek revenge against Biden, and other perceived political enemies -- as Trump repeatedly has said he intends to do in a possible second term. But for now, Trump only has managed to make himself look bad, adding to the substantial evidence we already had that he is wildly unfit to serve as president. In this instance, Trump's unfitness manifests itself in this indisputable fact -- he simply has no idea how government works, even after spending four years in the White House during a chaotic and dysfunctional administration that numerous experts have described as a failed presidency. 

  The plot to wrongfully prosecute Biden, and perhaps members of his family, goes beyond Trump to include members of the Republican Party, as reporter Stephen Neukam writes under the headline "Scoop: Trump, GOP plot 2025 criminal probe of Bidens":

  Republicans' impeachment probe of President Biden is unraveling because of a lack of evidence — but their work could become the basis for federal investigations and even prosecutions of the Biden family if Donald Trump wins re-election, Axios has learned.

  Why it matters: Trump has vowed retribution against his enemies if he wins in November. House Republicans have struggled to show Biden has done anything illegal, but people close to Trump are still plotting to use the Justice Department against Biden and his family.

• A source close to the Trump campaign said that "everything you have seen from the Biden DOJ," in terms of the charges against Trump, "you can expect to see from the Trump DOJ."

• Driving the news: House Republicans have alleged that Biden should be impeached because he illicitly benefited from lucrative foreign deals arranged by his son Hunter.

• Despite their difficulty proving that, Trump has said he thinks Biden should be prosecuted anyway — because Trump is being prosecuted now.
• "By weaponizing the DOJ against his Political Opponent, ME, Joe has opened a giant Pandora's Box," Trump posted on Truth Social in January.

The items highlighted in blue above get to the heart of the matter -- Trump wants to prosecute Biden because he believes, contrary to evidence, that Biden is having him prosecuted. In other words, Trump is playing a tit-for-tat game. Prosecutions, however, are serious matters, and it helps to understand at least a few basics of criminal procedure. For example, a criminal investigation is not to begin until there is evidence of a crime.That seems simple enough, but Trump apparently cannot grasp it. The standard to meet is called probable cause. The link in the previous sentence notes that probable cause is found in the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, in the Bill of Rights. But apparently Trump is ignorant when it comes to key provisions of our founding documents. Still, chunks of the American electorate, particularly the MAGA chunks, claim to support a presidential candidate who is clueless about a concept as simple as probable cause, which is front and center in the Bill of Rights. That tells me a lot of GOPers who claim to support Trump aren't taking the 2024 election seriously -- and themselves have no idea what Trump does, or does not, stand for. (Hint: Trump has made it clear he does not know, or intend to abide by, the U.S. Constitution. And some on the right seriously think he is fit to be president.) . . . 

Almost every issue raised in the Axios article grows from the idea that Joe Biden is having Trump prosecuted. In Trump's diseased, narcissistic brain, that has to be true because Trump cannot be responsible for anything that goes wrong. But this is a lie, one Trump apparently is convinced his MAGA followers are gullible enough to believe. But here is the truth, as stated by MSNBC legal analyst and former Alabama U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance:

Joyce White Vance, former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama and current legal analyst for MSNBC, stated in a recent tweet: "Joe Biden didn't indict Trump. Prosecutors must go before a grand jury, made up of citizens, including Republicans & Democrats. These citizens hear evidence & vote on whether a defendant should be charged. Different grand juries have now done that with Trump 91 times."

So it all comes down to grand jurors. But Trump apparently realizes there are too many grand jurors to keep track of, and their deliberations generally are conducted in private, so Trump has to blame one guy, Biden.This is the kind of thinking that, in a president, could cause the U.S. to bomb Iran for a supposed wrong that Saudi Arabia committed. That is the kind of mishap that could spark a world war. But Trump displays that kind of rattled thinking on an almost daily basis.

Clueless about the law and hungry for revenge, Donald Trump drives the DOJ toward a cliff we haven't seen since the days of Richard Nixon and Watergate

Donald Trump and Pam Bondi (Getty)

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) might be heading into its deepest period of crisis since the days of Richard Nixon, according to a report at Associated Press (AP). Under the "direction" of Donald Trump, who lacks the intellectual heft and the sturdy spine needed to oversee the justice apparatus of the world's foremost democracy, the DOJ appears to be spiraling into chaos -- and Trump has not even been in office for one month.

The department has been awash in controversy since Trump apparently pressured top officials last week to dismiss a criminal case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The Adams case is emitting the stench of an unlawful quid pro quo, a term that became well known around the country when Karl Rove reportedly launched a baseless criminal case against Alabama's Democratic Governor Don Siegelman during the George W. Bush administration -- mainly, it seems, because Republicans could not figure out how to beat Siegelman at the ballot box. Perhaps figuring Siegelman would be less of a headache if he and codefendant Richard Scrushy were behind bars, the Bushies arranged for that to happen, with the assistance of former federal judge Mark Fuller (a Bush appointee,  who had ties to Bush-era criminals Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon, plus slimy GOP Governor Bob Riley, who was Siegelman's chief political rival.  and wound up being forced off the bench after pleading guilty to beating his wife in an Atlanta hotel room.) How low did Rove go? He even acted like a jackass toward Siegelman's daughter, Dana, when the two ran into each other at the Democratic National Convention.

As for Donald Trump, his cluelessness about matters of law is driving the DOJ around some dangerous curves. The Eric Adams matter has been the source of heavy and unflattering news coverage in recent days. But Trump's struggles with justice issues go way beyond the Adams case. Here are two persistent problems that seem to be digging a hole for the president:

1. Criminal prosecutions must be based on a finding of probable cause, that an offense has been committed, and the accused committed it. Any attempt to prosecute a defendant based on Donald Trump's yearnings for revenge, and not probable cause, is unlawful. Let's consider our post dated 4/9/24 under the headline "Donald Trump's plot to prosecute Joe Biden without probable cause is based on a lie and ignorance, as MSNBC analyst Joyce White Vance makes clear":

Donald Trump and his allies are plotting to prosecute President Joe Biden if Trump wins the November election, according to a report from Axios. After months of Congressional inquiries, no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden has surfaced, so it is unclear what would form the basis of a Trump-fueled prosecution. But this much appears to be clear: Trump apparently wants to prosecute Biden because he believes Biden had him prosecuted -- even though Trump has offered no evidence to support that claim. One prominent legal analyst has stated that Biden did not have Trump prosecuted and could not have done so. Those matters come down to grand jurors.

Also, the Axios report suggests Trump has no problem violating roughly 40 years of U.S. policy that holds the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is to operate independently of the White House -- that presidents are not prosecutors, and they are to be excluded from decisions to charge or not charge suspected wrongdoers. . . . 

Almost every issue raised in the Axios article grows from the idea that Joe Biden is having Trump prosecuted. In Trump's brain, that has to be true because Trump cannot be responsible for anything that goes wrong. But this is a lie, one Trump apparently is convinced his MAGA followers are gullible enough to believe. But here is the truth, as stated by MSNBC legal analyst and former Alabama U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance, who wrote in a recent tweet:

"Joe Biden didn't indict Trump. Prosecutors must go before a grand jury, made up of citizens, including Republicans & Democrats. These citizens hear evidence & vote on whether a defendant should be charged. Different grand juries have now done that with Trump 91 times."

2. Trump can't resist exerting demands on the DOJ, mainly because he is desperate to extract revenge on his perceived political opponents. But that runs contrary to longstanding U.S. policy, as spelled out in the DOJ's Justice Manual. This is from Section 1-8.600 - Communication with the White House:

In order to promote and protect the norms of Departmental independence and integrity in making decisions regarding criminal and civil law enforcement, while at the same time preserving the President’s ability to perform his constitutional obligation to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” the Justice Department will not advise the White House concerning pending or contemplated criminal or civil law enforcement investigations or cases unless doing so is important for the performance of the President’s duties and appropriate from a law enforcement perspective.

Is that how the White House and the DOJ are operating in the Trump administration? The answer appears to be no, as the AP's Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer report:

Pam Bondi had insisted at her Senate confirmation hearing that as attorney general, her Justice Department would not “play politics.”

Yet in the month since the Trump administration took over the building, a succession of actions has raised concerns the department is doing exactly that.

Top officials have demanded the names of thousands of FBI agents who investigated the Capitol riot, sued a state attorney general who had won a massive fraud verdict against Donald Trump before the 2024 election, and ordered the dismissal of a criminal case against New York Mayor Eric Adams by saying the charges had handicapped the Democrat’s ability to partner in the Republican administration’s fight against illegal immigration.

Even for a department that has endured its share of scandals, the moves have produced upheaval not seen in decades, tested its independence and rattled the foundations of an institution that has long prided itself on being driven solely by facts, evidence and the law. As firings and resignations mount, the unrest raises the question of whether a president who raged against his own Justice Department during his first term can succeed in bending it to his will in his second.

“We have seen now a punishing ruthlessness that acting department leadership and the attorney general are bringing to essentially subjugate the workforce to the wishes and demands of the administration, even when it’s obvious” that some of the decisions have all the signs “of corrupting the criminal justice system,” said retired federal prosecutor David Laufman, a senior department official across Democratic and Republican administrations.

He spoke not long after Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor, Danielle Sassoon, resigned in protest following a directive from Emil Bove, the Justice Department’s acting No. 2 official, to dismiss the case against Adams.

In a letter foreshadowing her decision, Sassoon accused the department of acceding to a “quid pro quo” — dropping the case to ensure Adams’ help with Trump’s immigration agenda. Though a Democrat, Adams had for months positioned himself as eager to aid the administration’s effort in America’s largest city, even meeting privately with Trump at Trump’s Florida estate just days before the Republican took office. 

Multiple high-ranking officials who oversaw the Justice Department’s public integrity section, which prosecutes corruption cases, joined Sassoon in resigning.  

For those of us who lived through the '70s, all of that sounds positively Nixonian. But count me as one who is convinced Trump is capable of birthing a scandal that would make Watergate pale in scope and depravity. In fact, I would not be surprised if we already are in the early stages of such a scandal. Tucker and Richer write:

On Friday, a prosecutor involved in the Adams case, Hagan Scotten, became at least the seventh person to quit in the standoff, telling Bove in a letter that it would take a “fool” or a “coward” to meet his demand to drop the charges. (Bove and department lawyers in Washington ultimately filed paperwork Friday night to end the case).

“Even though there may not be more resignations, a clear message has been sent about the objectives and the expectations of the department,” said Alberto Gonzales, who served as attorney general under Republican President George W. Bush until his 2007 resignation in the wake of the dismissal of several U.S. attorneys.

“The purpose of the department is to ensure that our laws are carried out, that those who engage in criminal wrongdoing are prosecuted and punished,” Gonzales said. And to some it may appear “that if you have some kind of relationship with the White House, there may not be consequences for doing something that ordinary Americans engaged in similar conduct would be punished.” 

Bove, a former New York federal prosecutor himself who represented Trump in his criminal cases, pointedly made no assessment about the legal merits of the case against Adams. Bove cited political reasons, including the timing of the charges months before Adams’ presumed re-election campaign and the restrictions the case had placed on the mayor’s ability to fight illegal immigration and violent crime.

In a letter to Sassoon, Bove said case prosecutors would be subject to internal investigations.

Bondi defended the decision to drop the case, asserting in a Fox News interview Friday that Adams was targeted after he criticized the Biden administration’s immigration policies.

Do news reports support the assertions of Bondi and Bove regarding the Biden administration? If so, they are well hidden. This is from an account NPR: 

The Justice Department memo calling for charges against Adams to be dropped doesn't question the facts or merits of the case.

Instead it lays out two political reasons for the corruption case to be dropped. First, it echoes an unsubstantiated claim that former President Joe Biden and his administration may have used the prosecution to punish Adams, a fellow Democrat, for publicly criticizing Biden's immigration policies.

"It cannot be ignored that Mayor Adams criticized the prior administration's immigration policies before the charges were filed, and the former U.S. Attorney's public actions created appearances of impropriety," the memo said.

No evidence of the Biden team interfering in DOJ prosecutorial decisions was offered to support that assertion. In the memo, DOJ officials also said the case, if allowed to move forward, would hinder Adams from devoting his full attention to one of Trump's top policy initiatives: curbing "illegal immigration and violent crime" in New York City.

Adams has signaled growing openness to partnering with Trump administration officials on immigration enforcement in the city and has reportedly ordered NYC officials to avoid criticizing Trump or his policies.

Some critics, including city and state officials running against Adams in the mayor's race, condemned the DOJ move to drop charges and voiced alarm at growing ties between Adams and the Trump team.

Posting on social media, New York City comptroller Brad Lander blasted what he called "Adams' effort to get a pardon for his pay-to-play charges."

"Eric Adams sold out New Yorkers to buy his own freedom," wrote New York state Sen. Jessica Ramos on X. "Donald Trump may think this buys him access to terrorize our communities, but New Yorkers always stand up for one another."

It's unclear how this move by the DOJ will affect investigations and criminal cases against a wide array of Adams' political allies, donors and former members of his administrations. 

Biden sets record for one-day sentence commutations, and he is considering blanket pardons to counter Trump's plans to turn second term into a revenge tour

Dr. Anthony Fauci could be in line for a pardon due to Trump's thirst for revenge (Getty)

President Biden yesterday commuted the sentences of 1,500 Americans, a record for one day, according to a report at The New York Times (NYT). The Times and other sources, report that Biden might not be finished with such actions. Recent articles that originated at the Daily Beast explain:

The Biden administration is drawing up a list of possible pardons to counter Donald Trump's rhetoric that he plans to center a second term around a desire for retribution against perceived political enemies, according to a report at the Daily Beast and Yahoo! News. Under the headline "Biden Has Drawn Up Pardon List Over Fears of Trump’s Revenge," the Beast's Amethyst Martinez writes:

Blanket precautionary pardons are being considered for some of Donald Trump’s biggest political foes, according to a new report.

Biden officials have been looking at who Trump and his FBI-director pick Kash Patel may go after once they take over the White House, the latest sign of concern from the Democratic Party ahead of Trump's impending inauguration.

Some of those who are being considered for the precautionary pardon include newly-elected Sen. Adam Schiff, a Democrat who served on Congress’s Jan 6. Committee; former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney; and Anthony Fauci, former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, according to Politico.

“I would urge the president not to do that,” Schiff said to Politico, who reported that the potential targets know nothing. “I think it would seem defensive and unnecessary.”

Both Cheney and Fauci did not respond to requests for comment from Politico, the report noted. Martinez writes:

In the past, Trump has said on multiple occasions that his adversaries should go to jail. “Schiff is a sleazebag and traitor, and should be prosecuted for the damage he has done to our Country,” a January 2023 Trump statement read.

Earlier this year, Trump reposted a photo of Fauci, along with other political adversaries, such as Biden, Kamala Harris, and Nancy Pelosi, all wearing orange jumpsuits. The caption read: “HOW TO ACTUALLY ‘FIX THE SYSTEM.’”

In regard to Cheney, Trump wrote in March: “She should go to Jail along with the rest of the Unselect Committee!”

Politico wrote that multiple senior aides are in on the discussion, including chief of staff Jeff Zients. President Joe Biden has not been in the blanket-pardon conversations as of yet, zeroing in on his son Hunter Biden’s pardon, people familiar with the situation told Politico.

Hunter’s pardon seemed to have stemmed from worries of what Trump’s second term could mean for the son of the president.

“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election,” Biden wrote in a  statement.

Martinez points out that Trump made it a common practice to issue pardons for political allies. In essence, Biden would be following the Trump playbook. Martinez writes:

During his own presidency, Trump granted a number of pardons to people deemed close allies, including Charles Kushner, father of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.

Others jockeyed for inclusion on the select list, but were ultimately rebuffed.

Those included former Trump legal adviser John Eastman—the author of a controversial “coup memo” outlining the discredited legal theory that then-Vice President Mike Pence could use his powers to reject the 2020 election results.

In the days after Jan. 6, 2021, Eastman emailed former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and proclaimed, “I’ve decided that I should be on the pardon list, if that is still in the works.”

NYT has published multiple reports recently about Biden and pardons, focusing both on commutations issued yesterday and possible blanket pardons driven by Trump's apparent thirst for revenge. From The Times:

Most of those being granted clemency had been placed in home confinement during the pandemic. Some Republicans have tried to push legislation that would have forced those people to return to prison.

The commutations — the largest number by a president in a single day, the White House said — affect those who had been released from prison and placed in home confinement during the coronavirus pandemic. The pardons went to people convicted of nonviolent crimes, including drug offenses.

“America was built on the promise of possibility and second chances,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. He said the clemency represented his commitment to “help reunite families, strengthen communities and reintegrate individuals back into society. . . . "

The pardon recipients include multiple people who were convicted of drug crimes as young adults only to serve in the military and go on to support families of slain U.S. troops, help charities or train local firefighters. The Justice Department’s pardon attorney reviewed each of those cases before recommending them to White House lawyers, who then presented them to Mr. Biden.

As for possible Trump-related pardons, The Times reported in one article: 

Mr. Biden said he would take more steps in the weeks ahead and continue to review clemency petitions. His staff has been debating whether he should issue blanket pardons for a number of Mr. Trump’s perceived enemies to protect them from the “retribution” he has threatened, people familiar with the discussion have said.

White House officials do not believe the potential recipients have actually committed crimes, but they have grown increasingly worried that Mr. Trump’s selections for top Justice Department positions indicate that he will follow through on his repeated vows to seek revenge. The idea would be to pre-emptively extend executive clemency to a list of current and former government officials, effectively short-circuiting the next president’s promised campaign of reprisals.

 In a similar article, The Times reported:

Mr. Biden has come under increasing pressure to use his clemency powers before he hands over power to President-elect Donald J. Trump. As a senator, Mr. Biden had championed a 1994 crime bill that many experts say fueled mass incarceration. He has since expressed regret for his support of the legislation, and he committed during the 2020 campaign to addressing the long drug sentences that resulted.

Some congressional Democrats and others have also called on Mr. Biden to reduce the sentences of all 40 people on federal death row to life without parole. Mr. Trump supports the death penalty and restarted federal executions after a nearly 20-year pause during his first term. . . . 

Mr. Biden said he would take more steps in the weeks ahead and continue to review clemency petitions. His staff has been debating whether he should issue blanket pardons for a number of Mr. Trump’s perceived enemies to protect them from the “retribution” he has threatened, people familiar with the discussion have said.

White House officials do not believe the potential recipients have actually committed crimes, but they have grown increasingly worried that Mr. Trump’s selections for top Justice Department positions indicate that he will follow through on his repeated vows to seek revenge. The idea would be to pre-emptively extend executive clemency to a list of current and former government officials, effectively short-circuiting the next president’s promised campaign of reprisals.

Is it a sad state of affairs when an outgoing U.S. president must consider blanket pardons to protect apparently innocent people from being targeted by an incoming president and his choice for FBI director -- both of whom come across as raving madmen, with little knowledge of, or respect for, the law? I can't remember a similarly grim situation in our nation's history.

Is it possible that Trump and Kash Patel don't know that probable cause must be established before launching a criminal action against a defendant? Trump is a non-lawyer, and my guess is that he definitely does not know how the law works. Patel has a law degree, but you would never know it from the vile garbage that comes out of his mouth.

The American "justice" system has been in poor shape for years -- and now, with a president who believes cases should be based on his personal grievances, the situation likely is about to get much worse.I still can't believe a significant number of Americans went to the polls and voted for this guy.