Not again: French on what will happen to the shooter
What a fucking shitty day to be alive in America. And for once I am not pissed at French after reading him, but at what he wrote (that is sadly true). We are well and truly fucked...
Ok, three posts in three days, two on the murder of Renee Nicole Good. This can't be good can it?
Alas, against my better judgement, I clicked on an OpEd piece by David French at the NY Times:
And for once, I am not angry at him, at his parochial evengelical reflexism.
No, I am angry, but because he's right about the situation.
He starts off with a series of actions by the family of Ms. Good, assuming that they want something done.
They talk to a lawyer. They have information on what she was doing, so they talk to a lawyer to offer to "help" the prosecuter's investigation:
“I’m sorry,” the lawyer replies. “The administration has already declared that the agent did no wrong, and the Justice Department’s civil rights division hasn’t opened an investigation into whether the agent violated Renee’s constitutional rights.
Fuck. But that isn't all...
“Federal officials are, however, investigating Renee and may investigate her family, so you might need a defense lawyer.”
Double plus fuck. Now Becca is going to have to lawyer up...
Ok, so no one expects the Trump DoJ to do anything, but he won't be president for ever, the statute of limitations for murder never expires, right?
“I’m sorry,” the lawyer replies. “Given President Trump’s past pardons, I’d say it’s quite possible that he’ll pardon the agent. And once he pardons the agent, he’s beyond the reach of federal law for the shooting.”
Motherfucking fuckity fuck.
Ok, what about state law? Surely we can pursue justice in Minnesota courts.
“I’m sorry,” the lawyer replies, “but there is only a small chance that will work. There is a doctrine called supremacy clause immunity that prohibits state officials from prosecuting federal officers when they’re reasonably acting in their official capacity. It’s not absolute immunity like the administration claims, but it’s still a high hurdle for any prosecution to overcome.”
God fucking damn it to hell.
Okay, but there are civil penalties, I mean E. Jean Carol was able to win a bunch o' dough from the tangerine hued doughboy, right?
And here it gets even more depressing, as if anyone thought that was possible...
“I’m sorry,” the lawyer replies, “but there is almost no chance that will work. There’s a federal statute that gives you the ability to sue state and local officials when they violate your constitutional rights, but there’s no equivalent law granting the right to sue federal officials for the same reasons.
Yeah, it is even more difficult than anyone thought, and it is going to suck mightily hard for the Good family, because the law and the Constitution never imagined we would have such a shamelessly corrupt ass-pimple in charge, and over the centuries, Congress has made it more difficult for the citizenry to combat abuses.
French then goes sorta into the mea-culpa territory that so many conservatives tie themselves into knots around:
President Trump is stress-testing American law, and the law is failing the test. The health of the American experiment rests far more on the integrity of any given American president than we realized.
We trusted that presidents would impose accountability on the executive branch. We trusted that presidents wouldn’t abuse their pardon power — or, if they did, then Congress could impeach and convict any offenders. And so we manufactured doctrine after doctrine, year after year, that insulated the executive branch from legal accountability.
It’s hard to overstate how much this web of immunities — combined with the failure of Congress to step up and fulfill its powerful constitutional role — has made the United States vulnerable to authoritarian abuse.
French then goes on to a lengthy Nazi-adjacent tangent, before closing with this:
If we can endure this crisis, there will be a time of reflection and reform. It happened after the Civil War. It happened during the civil rights movement. It happened after Watergate. And when the time for reform comes again, it must focus on the abolition of the prerogative state.
Angels do not govern us — men and women do — and no man or woman should be immune from the rule of law. We’ve taken that idea for granted for far too long, to the point where we’ve abandoned the “auxiliary precautions” the founders knew we needed. Now we are paying the price in blood.
Seems to me that he is being way too sanguine about there being reform after Trump is dead and Trumpism is tossed on the ash heap of history. I wouldn't be so certain.
Oh, over the weekend, Todd Blanche and the DoJ announced that they aren't going to investigate the shooting:
The U.S. Department of Justice is not investigating ICE agent Jonathan Ross for the fatal shooting of Renee Good, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Sunday.
But the top DOJ official confirmed that an investigation is underway into Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for “actively encouraging” protesters “to go out on the street and impede ICE.”
“No matter who you are, whether you’re a governor, a mayor or somebody out there on the streets assaulting ICE ... under federal law, you cannot impede a federal officer doing their job, and that’s what we’re looking at,” Blanche said on Fox News Sunday, marking the first time a department official has publicly confirmed the investigation into the Democrats.
This is the worst fucking timeline.
