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Nightmare Scenario: How a Trump Trial Could Now Run Up to (or Through) the 2024 Election


By: Jonathan Turley | March 11, 2024

Below is my column in the Hill on the real possibility of a federal trial of former president Donald Trump just before or even through the 2024 election. The claim that this schedule is the result of treating Trump like other criminal defendants is increasingly dubious given statements of courts and the Special Counsel.

Here is the column:

“This trial will not yield to the election cycle.” Those words of U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan last year made clear that she will not consider that Donald Trump will likely be the 2024 Republican presidential nominee in setting the schedule for his federal trial in Washington, D.C.

Most recently, in the federal prosecution in Florida, Special Counsel Jack Smith declared that he will not consider himself bound by the Justice Department’s longstanding policy of not bringing charges or holding trials of candidates close to an election.

With the Supreme Court reviewing the immunity question (and a decision not expected until June), a nightmare scenario is unfolding in which Trump could be tried not just before the general election, but actually through November’s election.

Chutkan has insisted that her refusal to consider Trump’s candidacy is simply denying special treatment to the former president. But there is nothing typical about how she and others have handled the case. The fact that Chutkan was pushing for a March trial date shows just how extraordinary her handling has been.

In the D.C. courts, with thousands of stacked up cases, that would be a rocket docket for a complex case of this kind. There are roughly 770,000 pending cases in roughly 100 district courts around the country. The backlog of pending criminal cases in the federal court system increased by more than a quarter in the last five years. Even when defendants plead guilty, criminal cases average 10 months. If a trial is needed, it runs on average to two years, absent serious complications over classified or privileged material. Smith indicted Trump less than a year ago.

At every juncture, Smith has tried to expedite and spur the case along. This has included an attempt to cut off standard appellate options for Trump. It seems as if the entire point is to try Trump before the election. Smith has offered no reason, other than that he wants voters to consider the outcome of the trial. It is a rare acknowledgement of a desire for a trial to become a factor in an election.

Judge Chutkan has shown the same determination. The judge was criticized for comments she made before any charges were brought that strongly suggested she thought Trump should be criminally charged. Chutkan told one defendant that he showed “blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.” In another case, Chutkan told the defendant that it was unfair that he might go to prison but “the architects of that horrific event will likely never be charged.”

When asked to recuse herself, Chutkan denied the clear implication of her own words. She insisted that she has not expressly stated that “’President Trump should be prosecuted’ and imprisoned… And the defense does not cite any instance of the court ever uttering those words or anything similar.”

Of course, neither the court nor the prosecutors seem willing to apply a similarly deferential view of the meaning of Trump’s words within the context of the case. There, the implications are sufficient for that “one person” described earlier by the court.

Chutkan is now reportedly telling parties in other cases that she will be out of the country in August, and that defendants will have to delay any proceedings in light of her plans…unless she can try Trump. She told lawyers that she will stick with her schedule unless “I’m in trial in another matter that has not yet returned to my calendar.”

Given the apparent motivation of the trial court to try Trump before the election, the only other source of restraint would be the Justice Department itself. Smith, however, has insisted that he will show no such restraint, even if he tries Trump through the election.

In his filings in Florida, Smith insisted that the oft-cited Justice Department policy to avoid such proceedings within 60 days of an election would not be applied in Trump’s case. He insisted that, since everyone knows about the allegations, there would be no harm or foul in holding him for trial for the weeks before the election as his opponent, President Biden, is free to traverse the country campaigning.

Smith’s position was applauded by commentators who had previously invoked the rule to oppose charges that might have helped Trump before prior elections. Take Andrew Weissmann, who served as the controversial top aide to Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Now an MSNBC legal analyst, Weissmann assured viewers that there was no problem trying Trump just before the election because this is just “an internal rule. It is not a law.”

He then added “Second, the rule does not apply! For anyone who has been at the Justice Department, this is such a red herring.” He insisted this is only meant to avoid some “covert cases” being tried “because you don’t want to influence the election when that person — the candidate — doesn’t have an opportunity to get to trial.”

However, when the issue was the possibility of Special Counsel John Durham charging figures in the Russia investigation before the 2020 election, Weissmann and Professor Ryan Goodman wrote a column not only invoking the rule but encouraging prosecutors to refuse to assist Durham.

I have previously written about the ambiguity of this rule and the selectivity of its applications. However, Weissmann and Goodman were adamant that such prosecutions would be dangerous. Even though no actual election candidate would have been charged, they invoked this Justice Department “norm” and declared, “The Justice Department should not take action that could distort an election and influence the electorate. If someone is charged immediately before an election, for instance, that person has no time to offer a defense to counter the charges. The closer the election, the greater the risk that the department is impermissibly acting based on political considerations, which is always prohibited.”

It is certainly true that these charges have been known for a while, but Trump may not have an ability to present a complete defense before the election. It is also clear that he will have to choose between campaigning for office and defending his liberty.

Moreover, this is the leading candidate for the presidency, and the opponent to the current incumbent. A 2023 poll found that a 47 percent plurality of Americans already believe the charges are politically motivated. That appearance will only worsen as the election approaches, a recognition that should force a modicum of restraint upon both the court and the prosecution. Finally, Smith is referencing the election as the reason to expedite the trial precisely because it may have an influence on voters.

The Trump trials are troubling precisely because they are being handled differently because of who the defendant is. No one can seriously suggest that Judge Chutkan would be moving other cases or canceling trips in order to shoehorn them into the calendar this year, if it were not for the election and the name of the defendant. Such cases are, after all, notorious for taking years to work out complicated pre-trial matters.

Most citizens already see that reality. State prosecutors in New York and Georgia waited for years to charge Trump, then pushed for expedited schedules in order to try him before the election.

That brings us back to Judge Chutkan’s pledge to “not yield to the election cycle.” Yet the expedited effort of the court seems clearly motivated by the election cycle. She and Smith are depending on the election cycle as they struggle to pull Trump into court at the height of a presidential campaign. It is a schedule conceived for the “one person” described by Chutkan in the earlier cases. As the calendar continues to shrink, claims of blind justice increasingly look like the blind pursuit of a specific person.

Jonathan Turley is the J.B. & Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at the George Washington University Law School.

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The Recalibration of Colonel Brock: D.C. Circuit Ruling for J6 Rioter Could Impact Hundreds of Cases


By: Jonathan Turley | March 3, 2024

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2024/03/03/recalibrating-colonel-brocks-sentence-d-c-circuit-ruling-for-j6-rioter-could-impact-hundreds-of-cases/#more-216365

In its affidavit supporting criminal charges, the Justice Department showed   Air Force lieutenant colonel Larry Rendall Brock on the Senate floor on January 6, 2021 in a helmet and combat gear.  That outfit only magnified the anger of many of us over the riot and the interruption of our constitutional process of certification. However, while there was little question of the validity of the charges against him, U.S. District Judge John Bates in March 2023 imposed a two year sentence based on a common enhancing factor cited by the government in many of these cases for the “substantial interference with the administration of justice.” A panel on the D.C. Circuit has now ruled against the use of that enhancer in a decision that could compel the resentencing of dozens of defendants from the January 6th riot.

The Justice Department has long been accused of excessive charging and abusive detention conditions for January 6th defendants. The heavy-handed treatment was apparently by design. In a controversial television interview, Justice official Michael Sherwin proudly declared that “our office wanted to ensure that there was shock and awe … it worked because we saw through media posts that people were afraid to come back to D.C. because they’re, like, ‘If we go there, we’re gonna get charged.’ … We wanted to take out those individuals that essentially were thumbing their noses at the public for what they did.”

District court judges just went along with the use of the enhancement, even though it was based on a highly attenuated claim. As the D.C. Circuit found, “Congress’s certification of electoral college votes does not fit the ‘administration of justice’ mold.” It then noted:

“Considered in context, Congress’s counting and certification of electoral votes is but the last step in a lengthy electoral certification process involving state legislatures and officials as well as Congress. Taken as a whole, the multi-step process of certifying electoral college votes—as important to our democratic system of government as it is—bears little resemblance to the traditional understanding of the administration of justice as the judicial or quasi-judicial investigation or determination of individual rights.”

The argument of the Biden Administration always seemed curious to me given the claims of former President Donald Trump that Vice President Michael Pence had the authority to reject state certifications. I disagreed with that view. However, arguing that this is a type of judicial proceeding would seem to enhance the Trump argument. Yet, that is what the Justice Department did in many of these cases to enhance sentencing.

Ultimately, Judge Bates’ sentencing was not as high as what the Justice Department wanted. Judge Bates detailed the considerable evidence against Brock in his preparation for violence. He wrote before the riot “Do not kill LEO [law enforcement officers] unless necessary… Gas would assist in this if we can get it.” It was also short of the maximum under the guidelines of 30 months. The sentence may have been reduced by as much as nine months without the enhancer.

There could also be substantial reductions for a couple of hundred of other defendants who were sentenced with the enhancer.  It is not clear if the government will appeal the ruling.

We are also waiting for the oral argument in Fischer v. United States, which will consider the use of  the felony charge of obstructing an official proceeding against defendants tied to the January 6th riot. Trump is also being prosecuted in part for that crime.

Brock is currently serving his two-year prison term at MCFP Springfield in Missouri.

Here is the opinion: United States v. Brock

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Jonathan Turley Op-ed: The Curious Case of Steven Baker: Advocate, Journalist, or Advocacy Journalist?


By: Jonathan Jurley | March 4, 2024

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2024/03/04/the-curious-case-of-steven-baker-advocate-journalist-or-advocacy-journalist/#more-216344

Below is my column in the Hill on a controversial criminal case involving a conservative journalist who was arrested after the January 6th riot. The prosecution of Steven Baker exposes the growing tensions in the media over the role of reporters as advocates.

Here is the column:

Former New York Times writer (and now Howard University journalism professor) Nikole Hannah-Jones declared recently that “all journalism is activism.” Advocacy journalism is all the rage in journalism schools and on major media platforms. Given that shift in journalism, one would think that these editors and journalists would love Steven Baker.

Baker was arrested for covering what he viewed as a citizen protest defying the government and demanding justice. He did not hide his support for their cause as he reported on what became a riot. Baker, however, is a conservative journalist and the protest that he was covering became the Jan. 6th riot. Now, the Biden administration has arrested Baker on four misdemeanor charges linked to his entry into the Capitol on that day.

Baker would later not only supply stories to his main media outlet, Blaze News, but also sell videos to The New York Times and HBO.

Journalists often accompany protesters and even mobs as stories unfold. Indeed, there were many reporters in the crowd that entered the Capitol. But Baker, the conservative journalist, was charged while others were not. The response from most media figures and groups has been crickets.

The Justice Department leaves little doubt why they pursued Baker. The criminal complaint and an FBI agent’s affidavit repeatedly reference Baker’s support for those who stormed the Capitol. Entering through a broken door like hundreds of others, he walked past Capitol police, who stood by and even directed some protesters. Baker was in the building for only approximately 37 minutes before police led him out.

The government claims that the Texas-based writer “antagonized” police officers when they blocked his effort to get through a door. They quote him as asking  “Are you going to use that (gun) on us?” They also quote him as later stating, in an interview with a local television station, that he was “quite excited to see this going on. Do I approve of what happened today? I approve 100 percent.”

He also pointed out his image in footage while emphasizing that his red hat was not a MAGA hat but a Yorktown, Virginia hat. He would joke about what a shame it was that he did not get his hands on Nancy Pelosi’s computer, given what he might have found.

In any other context, Baker might be the poster boy for the new journalism. “J-schools” now encourage students to leave “neutrality behind” and push “solidarity [as] ‘a commitment to social justice that translates into action.’”

A recent series of interviews with over 75 media leaders by Leonard Downie Jr., former Washington Post executive editor, and Andrew Heyward, former CBS News president, reaffirmed this shift. As Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle, stated: “Objectivity has got to go.” But that advocacy seems to depend heavily upon what ideology you are advocating.

For example, NPR employees objected to efforts to maintain a neutral tone in reporting and declared that “civility is a weapon wielded by the powerful.” The NPR leadership went even further to unleash the advocates within journalists, by allowing them to cross over from covering to participating in protests. The public-subsidized NPR declared that reporters could join political protests when the editors believe the causes advance the “freedom and dignity of human beings.”

Something tells me that NPR editors would not have found Baker’s brand of advocacy to be “dignified.”

NPR recently hired a new CEO, Katherine Maher, who has declared that “white silence is complicity” and has publicly denounced Trump and his supporters. The message seems clear about what kind of protests would be considered advancements of freedom.

Would the government have charged an NPR reporter who accompanied Black Lives Matter rioters in the police station they occupied in Seattle? If not, then what exactly is the dividing line between crime and advocacy journalism? Is it an ideological line?

In the George Floyd riots, at least 126 journalists were arrested or detained in 2020. Virtually all of the charges against them were dropped. Des Moines Register reporter Andrea Sahouri  was tried on simple misdemeanors for failure to disperse and interference with official acts. She was acquitted. The difference is that a long list of journalistic organizations came to her aid. That is not the case for Baker.

Before Baker’s arrest, Washington media was already facing criticisms over double standards. Recently, CBS was embroiled in a controversy after it fired acclaimed investigative journalist Cathrine Herridge, who had clashed with the liberal network over her work on stories unpopular with the Biden White House and many Democratic establishment figures. Not only did they lay Herridge off, but CBS brass even seized her files and forced her union to take legal action before giving them back. The files contained confidential source information. While this was unfolding, Herridge was in court, fighting to protect her confidential sources. After CBS fired her, she was held in contempt this week for refusing to violate journalistic confidentiality. The same week, despite firing Herridge and seizing her files, CBS President Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews was honored at the 33rd annual First Amendment Awards.

Likewise, this week, Julian Assange is facing deportation and prosecution for publishing the Wikileaks files, exposing abuses in the U.S. government. Although legacy media routinely publish classified material from whistleblowers, Assange has embarrassed many in Washington and will have to pay for it.

That brings us back to Baker. He is not charged with property damage or violence. The question is whether, on that day, he was an advocate, a journalist or an advocate journalist.

So, what exactly is journalism? Major media figures have actively erased the distinction between advocates and journalists. It is now subject to the same test that Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once used to identify pornography in the case Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (1964): “I shall not today attempt further to define [it]…But I know it when I see it.”

Jonathan Turley is the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at the George Washington University Law School.

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Prof. Jonathan Turley Op-ed: Biden’s unhinged ideas of Supreme Court and our Constitution


President distorts history to attack Supreme Court as ‘not normal’

Jonathan Turley

 By Jonathan Turley | Fox News | Published July 3, 2023 4:00am EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/bidens-unhinged-ideas-supreme-court-constitution

The decision of the Supreme Court to end the use of race in college admissions was not unexpected. Yet, President Joe Biden expressed outrage and actually claimed that the court gutted the constitutional guarantee that “all men and women are created equal.”  

In declaring that this court was not “normal,” Biden further insisted that these admissions decisions and the Dobbs abortion decision reversed the gains that “we fought a war over in 1860” to secure. In an interview on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House,” President Biden accused the court of ignoring what “the Constitution says: We hold these truths to be self-evident, all men and women are created equal, endowed by their creator.” That is actually a reference to the Declaration of Independence, but it was the substance of the point that was so baffling. 

LIBERALS LAMENT STRING OF SUPREME COURT VERDICTS: ‘THIS TRULY SUCKS’

In barring the use of race in admissions, the court believed that it was protecting that very “self-evident” guarantee. It erased what the court viewed as a glaring anomaly in its cases in the treatment of racial discrimination in education as opposed to employment.  

Biden tugs at collar
President Biden accused the Supreme Court of ignoring what “the Constitution says.” (Getty Images)

It was the capstone opinion for Chief Justice John Roberts, who, in 2017, declared: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” In 2006, Roberts also said: “It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.” 

The court thought it was doing the work started (but not fulfilled) with the Declaration in treating that all men and women are created equal in both education and employment. 

The president is not alone in such hyperbole. Figures like ABC’s Whoopi Goldberg actually asked whether the decision will be “leading to no women in colleges soon? Who knows.” 

We actually do know. An opinion rejecting the use of racial classification to determine who goes to college could not be read by anyone as endorsing the exclusion of other groups. 

Video

The truly baffling statement was Biden’s claims over the Civil War. By leaving questions like abortion to the states, Biden claims that the court was reversing what was gained in that war. The criticism came in response to an opinion insisting that there is no place for racial discrimination in higher education. That would hardly seem an argument that would be embraced by the Confederacy. 

Biden has long taken liberties with our constitutional history. Many of us have repeatedly objected to claims that he has made in areas like the Second Amendment. One of his most repeated lines is that the Second Amendment was passed with the understanding that certain guns would be banned and adding, “You couldn’t buy a cannon when, in fact, the Second Amendment passed.” 

That happens to be utterly false. Yet, even after the Washington Post declared Biden’s understanding of the Second Amendment to be false, he has continued to make the same false assertion over and over again. 

Now Biden has moved on to the Civil War and his revisionism is about as subtle as Sherman’s scorched “March to the Sea.” 

photo of Whoopi Goldberg
ABC’s Whoopi Goldberg ridiculously asked whether the court’s decision will lead “to no women in colleges soon?” (ABC/”The View”/Screenshot)

The Civil War did not end federalism or states rights. It denied the right of the states to secede and ultimately fulfilled the pledge to equality first made in the Declaration of Independence. 

One can have good-faith disagreements on whether to use racial criteria in admissions. However, Biden is belittling our prior struggles for equality with these sweeping and erroneous claims. 

In his interview, the president also insisted that one has to “look at how it’s ruled on a number of issues that are — have been precedent for 50-60 years sometimes. And that’s what I meant by not normal.” 

In reality, the court’s decisions on affirmative action in education have been muddled and conflicted for decades. In 1977, in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the court barred affirmative action in higher education. However, it allowed some consideration of race as part of a holistic admissions process. 

Video

In the decades that followed, the court remained sharply divided. By 2003, in Grutter v. Bollinger, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor supplied the fifth vote to uphold the use of race by the University of Michigan.  

Yet, O’Connor wrote that the court “expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.” That was roughly 20 years ago. 

It is also ironic to hear the president bewailing the reversal of precedent since the greatest advance in racial equality was the reversal of Plessy v. Ferguson and the doctrine of “separate but equal.” That was the governing precedent from 1894 to 1954, but few denounced the Supreme Court for reversing that precedent to eliminate separate or different treatment on the basis for race. 

The president also asserted that “the vast majority of the American people don’t agree with a lot of the decisions this court is making.” The majority clearly opposed the Dobbs ruling, but that is not the case on the affirmative action ruling. 

One can have good-faith disagreements on whether the use of racial criteria in admission. However, Biden is belittling our prior struggles for equality with these sweeping and erroneous claims. 

Polls have consistently shown (including this week) that the majority of the public does not support the use of race in college admissions. Indeed, even in the most liberal states like California, voters have repeatedly rejected affirmative action in admissions. 

We should have a robust and passionate debate over these issues. Yet, a president should be seeking to facilitate that dialogue rather than distorting and weaponizing our shared history. It is a continuation of his prior declarations that members of Congress opposing his election reforms to block state laws are voting with “Jefferson Davis” and the Confederacy.  

Despite the laws in states like Georgia being upheld as constitutional, Biden declared them a return to the “Jim Crow” South based on distorted accounts of those laws. The claim was again historically and legally ridiculous even if one opposed these state laws. 

We should not allow the president’s constitutional and historical distortions to become, to use his description of the court, “normal.” We have fought hard to address the scourge of slavery and racism in our country. That struggle is continuing, but we cannot address those problems in the future by distorting our past. 

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE JONATHAN TURLEY

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and a practicing criminal defense attorney. He is a Fox News contributor.

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Constitutional Law Expert Jonathan Turley Responds to DOJ’s Release of Staged Photo of ‘Classified’ Documents Strewn Over the Floor at Mar-a-Lago


By Cristina Laila | Published August 31, 2022

Read more at https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/08/constitutional-law-expert-jonathan-turley-responds-dojs-release-staged-photo-classified-documents-strewn-floor-mar-lago/

Constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley on Wednesday responded to the DOJ’s release of a staged photo of so-called ‘classified’ documents strewn over the floor at Mar-a-Lago.

Biden’s corrupt Justice Department late Tuesday night responded to Trump’s request for a special master to be appointed to review the documents seized by the FBI in its raid of Trump’s Florida residence.

Trump-appointed US District Judge Aileen Cannon from the southern district of Florida on Saturday announced the “preliminary intent to appoint a special master” to review all of the records seized by the FBI during its unprecedented raid on President Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago.

Judge Cannon said the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago “involved political calculations” to diminish the leading voice of the Republican Party just months before the midterm election.

TRENDING: Biden Justice Department’s Response to Trump’s Demand for Special Master Includes Staged Photo of Alleged ‘Classified’ Documents Perfectly Lined Up on Mar-a-Lago Carpet

The DOJ’s response included one photo – “Attachment F” –  the alleged ‘classified’ documents Trump was supposedly hoarding at Mar-a-Lago.

The FBI made sure to include the framed Time Magazine cover showing Trump in the White House being spied on by his Democrat political opponents – including Joe Biden.

This was done on purpose – a message if you will – and further confirmation that the release of the photo was purely political.

Jonathan Turley argued that the staged photo was “clearly intended for public consumption.”

“The picture could be seen by many that secret documents were strewn over the floor when this appears the method used by the FBI to isolate classified documents.  It also seems entirely superfluous in releasing this one picture. ” Jonathan Turley wrote.

“It is curious that the DOJ would release this particular picture which suggests classified material laying around on the floor. The point is to state a fact that hardly needs an optical confirmation: the possession of documents with classified cover sheets. Indeed, the top of roughly half of the documents are redacted in photo. The government could simply affirmatively state the fact of the covered pages and would not likely be challenged on that point without the inclusion of this one photo.” he added.

“For critics, the photo may appear another effort (with prior leaks) to help frame the public optics and discussion. Clearly the court did not need the visual aid of a picture of documents with covers. It seems clearly intended for public consumption.” Turley said.

Cristina Laila

Cristina began writing for The Gateway Pundit in 2016 and she is currently the Associate Editor.

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George Washington Constitutional Professor Explains the 14th Amendment So Even a Liberal Can Understand…But Won’t


Authored by Steven Ahle

URL of the original posting site: https://steadfastandloyal.com/news-for-you/george-washington-constitutional-professor-explains-the-14th-amendment-so-even-a-liberal-can-understand-but-wont/

Jonathan Turley is a constitutional professor at the prestigious George Washington University and he says that doing away with birthright citizenship is not racist and in fact would be in keeping with the constitution, particularly the 14th Amendment.

In order to understand what he means, you need only read the first sentence of the first section of the 14th Amendment.

 “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

The key is the words, “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” That’s because illegal aliens are subjects of the country they come from not the states in which they live.

Turley wrote:

“At the time it was written, the sponsors expressly stated its purpose as protecting freed slaves and not the offspring of foreign citizens. Republican Senator Jacob Howard, who was a coauthor of the 14th Amendment, said that it was ‘simply declaratory’ of the Civil Rights Act to protect freed slaves. He assured senators, ‘This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, or who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers.’”

From The Western Journal

Another drafter of the amendment, Illinois Republican Sen. Lyman Trumbull, was even more explicit, according to Turley. Trumbull “stressed that the six words only included those ‘not owing allegiance to anyone else,’” Turley wrote.

That makes it pretty clear that the actual men who devised the 14th Amendment never intended it to open American citizenship to those whose parents were not themselves citizens or at least lawful residents of the country.

Meanwhile, where the Supreme Court has ruled on 14th Amendment questions, Turley wrote, the results have not been conclusive.

Some high court decisions from the 19th century leaned toward restricting the amendment’s application. But the 1898 case of U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark established that the court “affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens.”

That’s the ruling supporters of birthright citizenship roll out, the big guns of the argument. But as Turley pointed out, there’s a huge caveat: The parents in that case were legal residents of the United States.

For anyone to pretend then that the decision is a rock-solid precedent governing questions of illegal residents of the United States is to deny reality.

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Federal Judge Hands Republicans ‘Historic,’ Unexpected Win Over Obama


waving flagPosted by Jack Davis September 10, 2015

URL of the original posting site: http://www.westernjournalism.com/federal-judge-hands-republicans-historic-unexpected-win-over-obama/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=TeaPartyNewsletter&utm_campaign=PM2&utm_content=2015-09-10

Image Credit: Flickr/Erik Drost

Constitution 1; Obama 0.

That was the score Wednesday as a federal judge gave House Republicans the go-ahead to proceed with their lawsuit to block President Obama’s budget-busting healthcare law. “This suit remains a plain dispute over a constitutional command, of which the Judiciary has long been the ultimate interpreter,” wrote U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary M. Collyer, who said that House Republicans have legal standing to sue.

The Constitution, Collyer wrote, “could not be more clear: ‘No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of Appropriations made by Law.’ Neither the president nor his officers can authorize appropriations; the assent of the House of Representatives is required before any public monies are spent.”

Complete Message

Republicans had argued the Obama administration violated the Constitution by spending money on Obamacare without Congressional approval. House Democrats had called the Republicans’ suit “a political stunt.” The suit focuses on the $175 billion Obama wants to spend as part of a cost-sharing program with health insurance companies.

“The United States House of Representatives now will be heard on an issue that drives to the very heart of our constitutional system: the control of the legislative branch over the power of the purse,” said Jonathan Turley, the attorney for House Republicans.

“The president’s unilateral change to Obamacare was unprecedented and outside the powers granted to his office under our Constitution,” said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, in a statement. “I am grateful to the court for ruling that this historic overreach can be challenged by the coequal branch of government with the sole power to create or change the law. The House will continue our effort to ensure the separation of powers in our democratic system remains clear, as the Framers intended.”B2A_FvyCMAE14px

Arguments on the merits of the suit are scheduled to be heard in the fall, although the White House said Wednesday it will appeal Collyer’s decision.

The Lower you go Indenification of Obama 95b119e45c50cbea1e7a4fbfa33415f3 In God We Trust freedom combo 2

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CHILLING Video: Famous Liberal Law Professor Warns of Obama Dictatorship; Urges Congress to Act


National Day of Protest with dateAmerica the movie with hyperlink

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.tpnn.com/2014/07/16/chilling-video-famous-liberal-law-professor-warns-of-obama-dictatorship-urges-congress-to-act/

July 16, 2014 By

Jonathan Turley Obama
Obama tearing up the constitutionRespected liberal George Washington University Law School Professor, Jonathan Turley, speaking regarding the House GOP’s lawsuit against Obama for unconstitutionally using executive orders, issued a chilling statement on Wednesday, saying that “this could be a historic moment.” 
Professor Turley said that the current Congress is losing its powers “to a kind of uber presidency.”
(WATCH VIDEO BELOW)

“Our system is changing, and this body [Congress] is the one branch that must act, if we are to reverse those changes,” Turley urged.

Turley said that there is a new model of government emerging, one in which our Founding Fathers thoroughly rejected, and pointed out that when Obama announced his unconstitutional dictatorial powers, Democrats in Congress cheered him on. 


“A dominant presidency has occurred with very little opposition. Indeed, when President Obama pledged to circumvent Congress, he received rapturous applause from the very body that he was proposing to make practically irrelevent.” Referring to Congress bending over to give Obama its constitutional legislative powers, Turley said the Congress is moving from “self-loathing to self-destruction in a system that is in crisis.” 

“The president’s pledge to effectively govern alone is alarming,” Turley told Congress. “And what is most alarming is his ability to

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fulfill that pledge.” 

“When a president can govern alone, he can become a government unto himself, which is precisely the danger the Framers sought to avoid,” Turley warned. 

Imperial President ObamaTurley, who in earlier interviews has admitted that he agrees with Obama on many of his policies, said that the problem of the executive branch usurping power it hasn’t been given, didn’t start with Obama, or even George W. Bush, who he was also critical of during the Bush years. However, he asserted that it has now reached  “tipping point,” while urging Congress to “aggressively seek to regain the ground” that it has lost. 

Quoting Dorothy Boyd from the movie “Jerry McGuire,” Turley said, “You had me at hello,” when Congress asked him if the House GOP lawsuit against Obama was a good idea. “I do,” said Turley. “I do think it is a good idea,” he affirmed. 

Turley proclaimed that the Constitution’s “Separation of Powers,” established by the Framer’s, wasn’t there to protect each of the three branches, but was there to “protect individual liberty,” so that any one branch wouldn’t get so powerful as to attack individual liberty. 

Turley went on to compare Obama’s reasons for changing laws on his own, without congressional approval [see: Obamacare], as almost identical to those reasons given by King James I. 

Turley admitted that he voted for Obama in 2008. He didn’t say whether or not he voted for him in 2012. 

kingobamafingerconstitution-300x204“There’s no license in the Madisonian system to ‘go it alone,’” Turley said. James Madison is considered the main author of the U.S. Constitution. 

Turley said that Obama was attempting to be a “majority of one,” by “ordering changes on his own terms,” a dangerous proposition.

Turley then chastised Democrats (while not saying the word “Democrat”) who remain “silent” in the face of Obama’s unconstitutional dictates, saying that their silence could very easily backfire under a future presidency. 

“This is not going to be our last president,” Turley warned, while saying that the next president of a different political ideology could change environmental or labor laws at his or her whim, if Obama is not stopped. 

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