Update to Lawless Republicans Again Threaten To Defund Law Enforcement.
Criminal defendant Donald Trump, once again, called on his criminal gang in Congress to defund law enforcement, because of course he did. Donald Trump calls for defunding federal police after his arrest in New York:
Former President Donald Trump is egging on Republicans in Congress to “defund” federal law enforcement ahead of a government funding deadline this fall.
“Republicans in Congress should defund the DOJ and FBI until they come to their senses,” he posted on his social media platform, writing in all-caps. “The Democrats have totally weaponized law enforcement in our country and are viciously using this abuse of power to interfere with our already under siege elections!”
Seriously, Dude? The Trump Justice Department under the most corrupt Attorney General in U.S. History, Bill Barr, was the very definition of “weaponized” law enforcement, operating as Trump’s private law firm to defend his criminal actions, and to persecute his perceived political enemies. Nobody uses this propaganda technique of psychological projection as much as Donald Trump, and the feckless media rarely points it out.
Trump’s comment came one day after he was arrested and pleaded not guilty to criminal charges in New York related to falsifying of business records in connection with the 2016 election. Hours after his arraignment, he gave a speech at his Florida residence blasting the various legal probes he faces, including by the federal government.
House Judiciary Committee Chair [and Coup Plotter co-conspirator] “Gym” Jordan, R-Ohio, has also suggested that the Republican-led House use its purse strings to limit federal law enforcement.
“We control the power of the purse. We’re going to have to look at the appropriations process and limit funds going to some of these agencies, particularly the ones who are engaged in the most egregious behavior,” Jordan said Sunday on Fox News.
The bogus Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is another classic case of psychological projection.
Asked by [Trump Fluffer] host Maria Bartiromo if he means the DOJ and FBI, Jordan responded, “Yeah.”
Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, a member of party leadership in the Democratic-controlled Senate, said that’s not going to happen.
“There are no circumstances under which we will defund federal law enforcement. There will be enough bipartisan votes to ignore this demand. It’s nonsense, it’s bad policy, and it’s worse politics,” Schatz told NBC News.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the vice chair and top Republican on the Appropriations Committee, rejected the call from Trump.
“Reforms may be needed, but I strongly oppose defunding the FBI and the Department of Justice,” Collins said in a statement provided by her office, in response to a query.
[Trump Fluffer] Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, said that contrary to Trump, he’s “not for defund the police.”
“I think it’s a bad idea,” he said Wednesday. “As frustrated as he has right to be about some things the FBI has done, terrorism lurks out there and taking your guard down from one moment could be very dangerous for the public.”
But see, Lindsey Graham pleads for people to give Trump money after arraignment.
Congress faces a Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government or force a shutdown of federal agencies. With the two parties far apart on priorities, it’s not clear what a deal might look like. It’s also unclear whether there’ll be enough support in the GOP’s narrow House majority to pass a bill slashing funds to the Justice Department and FBI. President Joe Biden, meanwhile, has supported higher federal and local police funding.
House Oversight Chair James Comer, R-Ky., who is investigating Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, said he’ll get on a phone call with “Gym” Jordan and Speaker Kevin McCarthy later this week to “figure out a path moving forward,” calling their probe into Bragg’s investigation “very serious.”
It’s serious alright, it is a conspiracy to interfere in an ongoing criminal proceeding to obstruct justice. These three Yahoos should be looking at charges being filed against them. They have no jurisdiction over a state elected district attorney under federalism.
“Alvin Bragg doesn’t even know where his funding comes from [yes, he does, asshole.] But he gets federal funding, and that’s where it falls into the jurisdiction of the House Oversight Committee,” Comer said Wednesday in an appearance on Fox News.
Once again, they have no jurisdiction over a state elected district attorney under federalism. “State’s rights!”
The back-and-forth presents a new twist in a long-running political clash between the parties. For years Republicans have attacked Democrats as the anti-police party, seizing on a “defund the police” slogan created by left-wing activists during the 2020 protests against the murder of George Floyd.
But when Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence was searched by the FBI last August in connection to a probe involving classified documents, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a Trump ally, tweeted: “DEFUND THE FBI!”
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Tommy Garcia fired back on Wednesday: “Donald Trump joining extreme MAGA House Republicans in attacking law enforcement and government agencies that keep us safe and secure reminds us just how dangerous the Republican Party is. They cannot be trusted with power, or to uphold the rule of law.”
True dat!
House GOP Inappropriately Interfering In Trump’s Criminal Probe, Say Legal Experts:
A trio of powerful GOP committee chairmen has taken things a step further, using their positions to demand that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg give them documents and communications related to his investigation, which on Tuesday was revealed to center on a 34-count felony indictment of the former president.
These chairmen ― Reps. “Gym” Jordan (R-Ohio) on the Judiciary Committee, James Comer (R-Ky.) on the Oversight Committee and Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) on the House Administration Committee ― have made thinly veiled threats to subpoena Bragg, and they’re scrutinizing his office’s use of federal dollars, at least indirectly suggesting they’re prepared to cut them off.
Members of Congress certainly have the right to gripe. They’re entitled to peacefully protest, and justified in carrying out congressional oversight when it’s relevant. But there is a constitutional line in here somewhere that prohibits these Republican lawmakers from interfering in or impeding an ongoing state criminal investigation.
With their threats of subpoenas and demands for details on how the district attorney’s office uses federal funds, have these GOP committee chairmen crossed that line? HuffPost reached out to some legal and ethics experts for their takes. The consensus: They’re pretty damn close to crossing that line, if they haven’t already.
“Those House GOP figures who have made [it] their intent to interfere with Bragg’s investigation, and their alliance with the former president — reportedly taking calls from him [Thursday] night — it tiptoes up to the edge of obstruction,” said Norm Eisen, chair of the States United Democracy Center and a senior fellow in governance studies at The Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization.
Eisen, who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee from 2019 to 2020, including for Trump’s impeachment and trial, predicted that “no court” would enforce a subpoena to force Bragg to talk about his office’s probe.
Eisen related the situation to his time on the Judiciary Committee, when the panel wanted to bring former Attorney General Bill Barr in to talk about then-special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump. He refused.
“The notion of having a federal prosecutor come in and talk about an open case is anathema. It’s constitutionally prohibited under principles of separation of powers,” said Eisen, who became increasingly animated as he spoke. “Those concerns are even more strongly implicated when it’s a state prosecutor who is not within the jurisdiction. The House Judiciary Committee has oversight responsibility for Bill Barr. They have none for Alvin Bragg!”
Wendy Weiser, who directs the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, said the GOP committee chairs’ actions so far are, at a minimum, inappropriate. She referenced letters that Jordan, Comer and Steil sent to Bragg, in which they demanded documents related to his probe.
“I think there is a strong argument here that these letters have already crossed the line,” said Weiser. “The line you’re looking at, it’s a line between legitimate political discourse and inappropriate political interference. … They can complain as much as they’d like. But actually trying to obtain the records, confidential information, about a pending criminal case would be inappropriate for any criminal actor and certainly a congressional committee.”
“Even if they haven’t taken the step of using those powers,” she added, “the threat to use those powers inappropriately itself is inappropriate interference.”
Bragg’s office has ripped Republicans trying to meddle in its work. In two separate letters to the GOP committee chairs, Leslie Dubeck, the district attorney’s general counsel, chided them for parroting Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric aimed at delegitimizing the justice system.
“As Committee Chairmen, you could use the stature of your office to denounce these attacks and urge respect for the fairness of our justice system and for the work of the impartial grand jury,” Dubeck wrote in a Friday letter. “Instead, you and many of your colleagues have chosen to collaborate with Mr. Trump’s efforts to vilify and denigrate the integrity of elected state prosecutors and trial judges and made unfounded allegations that the Office’s investigation, conducted via an independent grand jury of average citizens serving New York State, is politically motivated.”
[T]he conduct of these House Republican chairmen so far “involves a breathtaking disregard of structural constitutional norms,” said John Greabe, director of the Warren B. Rudman Center for Justice, Leadership & Public Service at the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law.
“The demands for information raise serious separation-of-powers and federalism concerns,” said Greabe. “Moreover, to the extent that the GOP chairs are seeking to engage in law-enforcement conduct against what they characterize as a rogue state prosecutor, they are arguably seeking to exercise executive and not legislative power.”
[H]ouse Republicans’ rabid defense of Trump, despite not even knowing what he had done or what he was being accused of doing, is just the latest sign of how strong the former president’s hold is on the GOP. Trump may be a twice-impeached former president who incited his followers to storm the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the results of an election, but he’s still the guy leading in the polls to be their presidential pick in 2024.
If Jordan and the other GOP committee chairmen do decide to subpoena Bragg, he could file suit to have it quashed. He could also simply refuse to comply, which would put it back on the congressional committees to file suit to have Bragg declared in contempt.
* * *
Jordan, a close ally of Trump, doesn’t seem particularly concerned about what actions he takes to defend the former president as long as he looks like he’s doing it. On Sunday, he randomly vowed to defund the Justice Department and the FBI over their role in investigating Trump and ordering his indictment.
“We control the power of the purse,” the Judiciary chair said on Fox News, “and we’re going to have to look at the appropriation process and limit funds going to some of these agencies.”