Courtesy of the Bastrop Advertiser
Feb. 20, 2020
By Joni Ashbrook
Lately, the recorder in my head keeps playing an old Joni Mitchell song where she’s lamenting the loss of something, “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” I fear we’re losing the rule of law.
Our justice system is far from perfect. Just ask any person of color, or look at how African Americans are incarcerated more than five times the rate of whites.
But last week we witnessed a different assault on our system of justice from President Donald Trump and his Attorney General William Barr.
In a banana republic, leaders pressure judicial institutions to punish their enemies and defend their pals. That’s exactly what’s been on display recently with Barr’s Department of Justice.
This isn’t my opinion, but that of U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton who was appointed by President George W. Bush. Walton was overseeing the case regarding fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
Walton lashed out at attorneys from Barr’s DOJ for apparently harassing McCabe. Prosecutors kept him hanging for a very long time as to whether or not criminal charges would be filed against him.
Trump was livid that McCabe investigated his misconduct with Russians. So, naturally the president made him a frequent target, even accusing him of treason.
Walton said, “I don’t think people like the fact that you got somebody at the top basically trying to dictate whether somebody should be prosecuted. I just think it’s a banana republic when we go down that road.”
A jury recently found Trump’s longtime friend Roger Stone guilty on all seven counts of obstructing Congress and witness tampering. Stone received a sentencing recommendation of seven to nine years in prison, and within hours Trump tweeted, that was “horrible and very unfair.”
Barr’s DOJ immediately told the judge to lessen Stone’s sentence. That angered the four prosecutors on the case so much that all of them resigned from the case, and one resigned from the DOJ altogether.
The courageous prosecutors took those drastic steps to alert the public that “something stinks in the Justice Dept!” I hope people pay attention to their warning, and appreciate their sacrifice.
Trump actually tweeted his gratitude for Barr “taking charge” of Stone’s case. Barr asked him to stop tweeting, probably to stop Trump from broadcasting their corruption.
Another one of Trump’s pals is getting a taste of that banana justice. Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. Recently he’s received a lighter sentence recommendation, and it has Barr’s fingerprints all over it.
Trump claims he has the “legal right” to intervene in criminal cases. That may be true, but since the Nixon era it’s been the norm not to allow political interference in the Justice Dept. At least that was true until now.
Even though over 1,100 former DOJ officials are calling for Barr to resign, Republicans don’t seem bothered by this banana republic behavior. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, claims, “The President has First Amendment rights too.”
Judge Walton seemed to be singing a version of Joni Mitchell’s song when he warned us that “as a government and a society we’re going to pay a price at some point for this.”
