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President Trump took part in a ceremony on Monday for new Justice Brett Kavanaugh of the United States Supreme Court. (Jim Bourg / Reuters) (JIM BOURG / Reuters)
Philip Bump
A national correspondent is largely focused on the numbers behind the policy
President Trump welcomed Brett M. Kavanaugh to the White House Monday night for a swearing-in ceremony as a new Associate Judge of the Supreme Court.
The event was more the result of a political fight than legal. Kavanaugh's legal philosophy has faded over the last month as the country was debating the allegations of aggression that had been brought against it. Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) confirmed in her speech that she would support Kavanaugh's candidacy primarily based on jurisprudence, but that at that time, the Kavanaugh's fight had revolved around the right against the right, not rights and precedents.
It is unclear to what extent Trump himself was aware of Kavanaugh's decisions prior to the appointment.
"No president has ever consulted more widely, or spoken with more people from all walks of life, to get information on a Supreme Court nomination," Kavanaugh said when Trump announced his appointment, a request dealt with with skepticism at the time. It is understood that Kavanaugh's name was chosen from a list of jurists established with the substantial assistance of the conservative society Federalist and the Heritage Foundation.
It is therefore not surprising that at the ceremony in Kavanaugh's honor, Trump avoided any mention of Kavanaugh's judicial philosophy. Instead, Trump offered a bit of his.
"What happened to the Kavanaugh family violates all notions of fairness, decency and respect for the law," Trump said of the charges against Kavanaugh. "In our country, a man or a woman must always be presumed innocent until proven otherwise. And with that, I must say that you have been cleared, Mr. President. You were. "
We have often heard the first part of this argument in recent weeks, as Kavanaugh's supporters insisted that the default assumption regarding the charges should be that Kavanaugh did not act as intended. The last part, however, is new. Kavanaugh was not more innocent than his guilt. The allegations against him exist in limbo, disturbed, persistent.
But this is an integral part of Trump's case law approach. We have summarized his reflection on legal issues into three basic precepts.
Innocent as politically useful
When Trump declared for the first time that Kavanaugh was to be considered innocent until his guilt was established, the immediate reaction was that he demanded a standard that did not correspond to the situation. If Kavanaugh was under arrest and awaiting a trial, it would actually be up to the state to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But it was not necessary to prove that Kavanaugh had committed the alleged assaults for not being able to sit on the Supreme Court.
It was also hard not to notice immediately that Trump's loyalty to the primacy of innocence was in itself a little uneven.
When a group of black and Hispanic teenagers were arrested in New York in 1989 on charges of raping a woman in Central Park, Trump broadcast one-page ads calling on New York State to reintroduce death sentence. Although he did not mention the case of rape in particular, he spoke of "groups of wild criminals" who terrorized the park.
More telling, though, is that even after the five men were found guilty of the crime and later exonerated as a result of the confessions of the serial rapist, Trump stood to assert their guilt.
"They acknowledged that they were guilty," Trump told CNN in the 2016 election. "The police in charge of the initial investigation said they were guilty. The fact that the case has been settled with so much evidence against them is scandalous, and the woman, then seriously injured, will never be the same again. "
These confessions, obtained from adolescents generally without the presence of parents or lawyers, were quickly retracted. But Trump established their guilt shortly after the charges arose and, in a crime and security-focused campaign, reiterated his accusations against men to reinforce his good faith.
Kavanaugh is not the only political beneficiary of Trump's insistence on the innocence of his allies. Trump defended the innocence of his former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, in the spring of 2016, after Lewandowski was accused of catching a journalist during an election campaign. After the video of the scene – in one of Trump's properties – showed that the journalist's version was true, Trump understated it.
He continued to defend Republican Alabama Roy Moore against allegations that Moore improperly touched a minor girl in the 1970s, until the latter lost her bid for a seat in the Senate. last year. Now, Moore is Trump's prime example of an imperfect candidate.
When charges emerged against Senator Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) Last year, however, overlapping with Moore's allegations, Trump was unrestrained in his sentence.
As in the Kavanaugh case, in most cases, "innocent until proven otherwise" is not the necessary standard for a public assessment. But Trump's willingness to demand this standard solely on behalf of his allies is remarkable.
The law is what Trump says it's
Earlier this year, we found that Trump's deployment of legal arguments for political purposes went beyond the scope of the debates on guilt and innocence. Since he started running, he has suggested in tweets or speeches that the following people or organizations have actually broken the law:
- Hillary Clinton, having a mail server.
- Huma Abedin, Clinton's aide, for reading Clinton's e-mails.
- Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), For alleged omission in a financial information disclosure form.
- The Republican National Committee, for fundraising.
- Cruz, for fundraising.
- President Barack Obama, for an executive order.
- The State Department, for publishing Clinton's e-mails.
- Former Democratic Party President Donna Brazile for sharing debate issues with the Clinton campaign.
- Clinton, to receive them.
- Brazile, for illegally stealing the Democratic candidacy of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
- 3 million unidentified people, for allegedly voting illegally.
- Former Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, not to sue Clinton.
- Former FBI director James B. Comey for confidential information disclosed.
- The Clinton campaign, for unspecified legal violations.
- Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), For publicizing a testimony of the Congress.
It was until January. Since then, Trump has also brought charges of unlawful conduct against Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), The Department of Justice, the FBI, the state of California, former Secretary of State John F. Kerry, the investigation conducted by a special advocate Robert S. Mueller III, the Obama Administration, Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), Twitter, former FBI agent Peter Strzok and Google. Plus, Comey and Clinton a few times.
Trump does not usually mention the fact that a number of former campaign and administrative staff members have actually pleaded guilty, including his former campaign chairman, deputy campaign chair, advisor campaign, his former national security advisor and his personal attorney, who Trump in an illegal campaign contribution.
Law enforcement mechanisms are a subset of political power
At the same time that Trump is urging the Justice Ministry and the FBI to investigate the possible links between his campaign and Russia's efforts to influence the elections, he blames the agencies for not targeting his political opponents. (See the list above.)
He repeatedly threatened to "get involved" in the Justice Department's decision-making to redirect the department's energy away from him and his campaign. It is a threat that involves the erasure of the wall that former presidents respected between law enforcement and the White House, a wall erected to prevent the Justice Department from becoming a mechanism of political influence of the United States. President.
Trump has described Attorney General Jeff Sessions as ineffective, despite Sessions' particular focus on his program. Largely, Trump criticizes the sessions for being challenged from the investigation of Russia – a recusal announced by the sessions on the advice of department staff. In the private sector, Trump was used to lawyers such as Roy Cohn and Michael Cohen (the lawyer mentioned above), men who put Trump's interests above all else. Reports suggested that Trump was expecting the sessions to be identical, seeking, as Michael Schmidt of The New York Times said in January, "his most senior law enforcement official for the United States." protect in the same way that he thought that Robert F. Kennedy, as Attorney General, had done for his brother John F. Kennedy and Eric H. Holder Jr. for Barack Obama. "
This highlights the larger motive. Trump sees his current job in the same way as his former. He is not as much the protector of the Constitution as the CEO who demands the loyalty of his subordinates.
His comments at Monday's Kavanaugh event are even more powerful. At an event celebrating his political victory by proposing an appointment to the Supreme Court recommended by others, Trump overturned a fundamental piece of jurisprudence to achieve a rhetorical effect. And yet, it is very appropriate.
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