Stop slacking, allies.
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Investigations into president and corruption charges will get heavy scrutiny if Democrats win majority in midtermsDonald Trump’s presidency is facing investigations and corruption charges from a key House Democrat and ex-prosecutors, involving political and personal abuses of power, which legal experts predict will get heavy scrutiny if Democrats win the House majority in the midterms.Legal critics call the scandals dogging the president “target rich” for investigations that Democrats will have a “field day” investigating if they win the House majority. Critics cite, for instance, Trump’s damaging the rule of law by weaponizing the Department of Justice (DoJ) to exact revenge on political foes and protect himself from federal investigations, plus Trump moves to profit in radical ways from his presidency with lucrative and new cryptocurrency ventures. Continue reading...
Former special counsel Jack Smith has been a constant target of fury and legal threats by President Donald Trump, dating back to even before the election, when the famed prosecutor was helming a pair of federal criminal cases against him.But Smith doesn't dwell much on the possibility that Trump's Justice Department will fabricate some charges against him, he told MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace in an exclusive interview on Thursday. There's something he worries a lot more about."Do you think that this is a department that you could send someone to go work in, and they could be asked to indict you?" asked Wallace.Smith agreed "that could happen" — however, he continued, "in the Justice Department, even as we sit here right now, there are lots of people doing good work prosecuting violent crime, protecting their communities, doing the everyday work of being a prosecutor. And yes, it could happen. That could happen, and that would be unfortunate. And then you might have to step down." Nonetheless, he added, "I don't want to see people run from public service because of that possibility.""Do you expect to be indicted?" Wallace followed up, noting that Trump "said he would indict you."Smith replied, "I'll tell you, Nicolle, I honestly do not spend a lot of time thinking about the things he says about me and his threats about me."Instead of that, he continued, "I'm really focused on the people who I worked with, looking out for them. I'm really focused on how the Justice Department is going to be better going forward, things like that."What Smith worries about more, he made clear, is the future of the people he worked with who helped him do his job.Ultimately, Smith said, "I had an all-star team ... the agents on my case, if I were to walk you through all the awards they've won throughout generations of administrations, we would be here all night. These were superstars. I'm much more concerned that those people get to serve in the department, get to serve in the bureau again someday." - YouTube www.youtube.com
According to the renowned fascism historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, the Supreme Court has become President Donald Trump’s “partner in corruption,” not only working to enrich those who are in on the scam, but reshaping the U.S. as an authoritarian state in which one must “fear and obey” Trump.“This is the summer of corruption,” wrote Ben-Ghiat on Thursday. “Defined as the abuse of power for private gain, corruption can happen in any kind of organization and government, but under authoritarianism it attains a new status: it is how the executive branch operates, expands its power, and recruits elite and grassroots partners. The Supreme Court is one of these partners, as we’ll see below.”The Trump administration and its enablers on the Court, argues Ben-Ghiat, “are providing Americans and the world with a lesson in how corruption can become systemic.” This, she says, is the goal of all authoritarians: they “seek to retool government and the culture to create the conditions to lie, steal and repress people with impunity. That means going after journalists, judges, investigators, opposition politicians and others who expose official wrongdoing. It also means puffing up the leader’s personality cult and inventing narratives, backed by complicit religious institutions, about his selflessness and purity.”She raises the example of Justice Clarence Thomas, who has a well-documented history of “accepting luxury gifts and travel from billionaire GOP donor Harlan Crow,” who in turn “has a garden full of statues of dictators, and collects Adolf Hitler and Nazi memorabilia.” And, according to Ben-Ghiat, “As per the sacred laws of corruption, these ‘gifts’ were likely supposed to be repaid whenever Thomas put on his robes. No matter that the Court, which has no ethical oversight mechanism, finally instituted a code of conduct in November 2023, which states that justices must ‘uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary’ and avoid actual and apparent impropriety.”Thomas has paid no attention to this code, refusing to recuse himself in cases involving Trump’s election lies, even though Thomas’s wife Ginny was directly engaged in those lies. As Ben-Ghiat muses, “What good would Thomas be as a link in the chain of corruption if he took himself out of the game just when he was most needed?”“And here we arrive at the Supreme Court as a partner in Trump administration corruption, first by giving the President immunity for official acts, and now by upholding his right to dismiss an official on political grounds,” writes Ben-Ghiat. “A landmark ruling in July 2024 gave the president ‘the power of a king,’ as the Brennan Center termed it, conferring upon him absolute immunity (for the exercise of core constitutional powers) and presumptive immunity (for all other official acts). This created the legal space for a lawless individual such as Trump to feel even more emboldened to use corruption and violence to destroy our democracy and make money doing it.”Now, while the Supreme Court has for 100 years upheld that the president does not have the authority to fire heads of independent agencies without cause, Trump’s allies on the court have overturned that precedent, creating conditions for further “systematic corruption.”“We need to see this decision through autocratic eyes,” explains Ben-Ghiat. “Not obeying the Leader, refusing to participate in his corruption, and politicizing the practice of government are acts of negligence and malfeasance in office in the authoritarian world. Such people must be removed from public service, lest they influence others with their moral stances.”The power to fire agency officials at will is exactly what the president needs to shape government to his private agenda. According to Ben-Ghiat, proof of this intention was revealed by the words of Solicitor General John Sauer, who represented the Trump administration in the case, arguing before the court that the president needs to be able to remove officials in the agencies because “the President must have the power to control and…the one who has the power to remove is the one who…is the person that they have to fear and obey.”
The Supreme Court's decision to allow the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status for many Haitian migrants has triggered serious outrage from the left — and BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales can’t help but notice the glaring issues in leftist logic.“Now, seems like it would be kind of common sense. It’s in the name. It’s the T in TPS. Temporary. Temporary. There is an actual definition of the word 'temporary.' It means 'not forever,'” Gonzales says, pointing out that they were supposed to have this status for months, but instead they have had it for nearly two decades.“Democrats, Haitians, anyone who has the liberal brain rot — they're losing their entitled little minds about it,” she adds.Founder and CEO of the Immigrant Family Services Institute Dr. Geralde Gabeau yelled to crowd cheers, “This is the time for all of us to raise our voices and to say this country is also our country, is also the country of our immigrant because we are the one who built it.”“I’m going to go ahead and I’m going to ask you for your receipts, ma’am,” Gonzales comments.“'Haitians built this country' is the argument that they made,” she adds.However, celebrities have historically made their home sound like a place no one should want to leave, as Susan Sarandon, Conan O’Brien, and even Bill Maher all have donned shirts that read “Haiti is great already.”“They were pretending like it was just this wonderful, beautiful country; it’s not a third-world s**t-hole,” Gonzales comments. “And now all of a sudden, they’re back to like, ‘No, no, you can’t send them back. No, don’t do that. It’s too big of a s**t-hole.’”And CNN’s Jake Tapper is among those pleading.“I heard Stephen Miller, who’s driving a lot of this, say that Haiti is safe for Haitians, and I just looked at the State Department’s website, and they have a level four 'do not travel' advisory for Haiti just from a few months ago,” Tapper said on CNN.“Crimes include robbery, carjacking, sexual assault, and kidnappings for ransom. That doesn’t sound safe to me,” Tapper added.“'Do not travel' is not for Haitians. That’s 'do not travel' for the United States. That advisory is to American citizens traveling to Haiti, not Haitians going back home,” Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin told Tapper.“I understand that, but based on everything I’ve read, including the U.N. and Human Rights Watch, it doesn’t sound safe for Haitians. More than 8,100 killings documented last year. Those weren’t Americans. Haiti is among the top five countries with the highest rates of rape and sexual abuse, with more than 1,200 cases of sexual violence last year,” Tapper replied.“So Haitians are making Haiti unsafe, and somehow we are expected to import them. These are criminals,” Gonzales comments.“Why would it be our duty to import anyone from any unsafe country in the world?” she asks. “The obvious conclusion is you are only going to make our country less safe.”Want more from Sara Gonzales?To enjoy more of Sara's no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
