After the jury got here in with its verdict that Donald Trump was responsible of a scheme and coverup to illegally affect the 2016 election, the Biden marketing campaign issued a press release saying that the judgment demonstrated that “nobody is above the legislation,” not even a former President. The overwhelming fact is that almost all of felony legal guidelines will not be a deterrent to the intense violations of legislation dedicated by sitting presidents of the US.
This consists of the incumbent Joe Biden, particularly with regard to international and army choices.
No less than 5 long-standing federal legal guidelines explicitly situation the cargo of weapons to international nations. It’s legally impermissible for the U.S. authorities to supply weapons to nations that violate human rights or use these weapons offensively. Day after day, Joe Biden has develop into a co-belligerent with Netanyahu’s genocidal warfare crimes and mass slaughter of harmless youngsters, men and women. He has violated all 5 of those federal legal guidelines. (See my February 16, 2024 column: Biden & Blinken – Rule of Illegal Power Over Rule of Law).
Because the army, diplomatic and political enabler of the Israeli authorities’s siege, with the unconditional cargo of weapons of mass destruction, together with civilian bombardment and hunger of defenseless Palestinians in Gaza, Biden is violating the UN Constitution and different treaties that previous Administrations have signed and which have been ratified by the U.S. Senate. Biden and different presidents act like they’re above these and different legal guidelines.
One president after one other has spent monies not appropriated by Congress, has defied subpoenas issued by Congress, launched wars undeclared by Congress, despatched lethal weapons to nations that hinder the supply of U.S. humanitarian support, and that don’t shield civilian populations underneath international army rule. All violations of federal legislation.
Donald Trump in 2019 openly said the lawlessness in a single sentence: “ I’ve an Article II, the place I’ve the correct to do no matter I need as President.” Trump bought away with defying over 125 Congressional subpoenas, and with violating the felony statute generally known as the Hatch Act through the use of the White Home and different federal property to advertise his re-election marketing campaign. Then in fact there was the January 6 rebel, and the doubtless delay of his trial till after the election, if in any respect.
Joe Biden shuffles round unappropriated monies, continues to permit the violation of a 1992 federal legislation requiring the Pentagon to supply Congress with an audited army funds, and is consistently sending illegal armed incursions into different weaker nations with impunity.
To make issues simpler for presidents, there’s the Justice Division’s Workplace of Authorized Counsel memo, from many years in the past, that asserts there could be no felony prosecution initiated towards a sitting president.
As lawyer Bruce Fein, who labored within the Workplace of Authorized Counsel, has stated repeatedly, this baseless opinion has no authorized drive and needs to be rescinded. (See, Letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, May 31, 2024).
The courts have shielded presidents from accountability for perpetuated crimes dedicated both by the White Home or by the president’s administration. For instance, residents don’t have any “standing to sue,” to problem in court docket a wide range of Government Department abuses says the Supreme Courtroom, not even members of Congress. As for presidential violations of the Structure and federal legal guidelines by launching unlawful wars or armed assaults overseas, the courts dismiss such circumstances, saying they increase “political questions” exterior the jurisdiction of the courts.
Being allowed to get away with crimes is what constitutional legislation specialist Bruce Fein calls “a lifestyle on the White Home.” Obstruction of justice or deliberate non-enforcement of significantly violated legal guidelines marks each presidency. Trump simply boasted about what he inherited and intensified it.
Once more, presidents function in a system of appreciable sovereign immunity, and legislation that both can’t or has not breached this shielded impunity. They are surely above the felony legal guidelines. Solely the very tough political penalty of impeachment by the Home of Representatives and conviction by two-thirds of the Senate can solely evict them from workplace, after which they’re free to get pleasure from life, and obtain big lecture charges and enormous e book advances.
This column was initially printed on Nader.org.
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