@ZhiZhu@newsie.social🌻 Profile picture
Feb 20, 2022 10 tweets 7 min read Read on X
Are we afraid to test the principle that no one is above the law?

Good question from @MattDallek
washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/0…
"If Trump were indicted, he would become the first former president to stand criminal trial...

This list is hardly exhaustive and omits the dozen-plus civil lawsuits and civil investigations Trump faces."

washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/0…
"The rule of law, the notion that we are all equal under our criminal justice system, is among the noblest of principles but also the ugliest of myths.

The question of putting Trump on trial ... is a test for a principle of democracy"
~@MattDallek

washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/0…
"With Trump in the White House, his friends & allies already had their own system of justice...

all convicted felons who received pardons from Trump or had their sentences commuted by him. Three of those convictions occurred during Trump’s presidency"
washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/0…
"Inaction [failing to prosecute Trump] mocks the nation’s professed ideal that no one sits above the law — and Americans might wonder whether our democracy can survive what amounts to the explicit approval of lawlessness."

#NoOneIsAboveTheLaw
washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/0…
"Indicting could trigger violence, spark a cycle of retribution once Republicans take back power...

But the far graver peril in this situation is inaction, a paralyzing refusal to hold Trump criminally liable for his behavior."

#NoOneIsAboveTheLaw
washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/0…
"Refusing to hold officials accountable for crimes emboldens them...

The costs of not prosecuting Trump have already been significant — and they’re already grounds for fear."

#DemocracyInDanger
washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/0…
"Trump has long sanctioned violence among his supporters...

the failure to prosecute Trump for any crimes he himself commits empowers him to do it louder."

#DomesticTerrorism
#StochasticTerrorism
washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/0…
"Trump’s supporters are watching.

After years of his burn-it-all-down oratory and above-the-law governance, they are emboldened...

Not prosecuting Trump has already signaled to his supporters that accountability is for suckers."
washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/0…
"“I have an Article II, where I have to the right to do whatever I want as president,” Trump told the conservative organization Turning Point USA...

Until the criminal justice system stops him, he will continue to believe that."

#NoOneIsAboveTheLaw
washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/0…

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More from @ZhiZhuWeb

Oct 6, 2022
"A majority of Republican nominees on the ballot this November for the House, Senate and key statewide offices — 299 in all — have denied or questioned the outcome of the last presidential election"

#DemocracyIsOnTheBallot
washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10…
"most of the election deniers nominated are likely to win: Of the nearly 300 on the ballot, 173 are running for safely Republican seats. Another 52 will appear on the ballot in tightly contested races."

#DemocracyIsOnTheBallot
washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10…
Here are the election deniers running in Texas 2022:
Greg Abbott for Governor
Dan Patrick for Lt Gov
and the twice-indicted Ken Paxton for Attorney General.

To support democracy, vote for:
Gov @BetoORourke
Lt Gov @CollierForTexas
AG @RochelleMGarza

#DemocracyIsOnTheBallot
Read 11 tweets
Oct 4, 2022
"Donald Trump on Friday issued what can only be described as a threat against Mitch McConnell, declaring that the Senate minority leader’s support for bipartisan bills amounts to a “DEATH WISH.”"

News orgs fail to ask GOP pols about this threat by Trump.

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…
"Alas, there is little sign that mainstream outlets have dropped their addiction to false equivalence and willful, moral blindness."
~@JRubinBlogger

#Journalism
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/… Image
"What should reporters be doing?

Let’s start with 5 basic rules.

First, they cannot leave these exchanges for the end of an interview, when the guest can filibuster until the commercial break. Do it upfront, and don’t allow them to move on"

#journalism
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/… Image
Read 8 tweets
Oct 4, 2022
"During his 4 years in office, Trump never strictly followed the rules & customs for handling sensitive government documents...

Documents that would ordinarily be kept under lock & key mingled with piles of newspaper articles in Trump’s living quarters"

washingtonpost.com/national-secur…
"Aides also found other ways to circumvent Trump’s “sticky fingers,” as one put it."

Donald "sticky fingers" Trump

washingtonpost.com/national-secur… Image
"In the absence of higher authority backing them up, personnel in the staff secretary’s office could not be expected to remove documents from the president’s possession...

“They would have gotten their heads cut off by the president if they tried to take things from him.” Image
Read 4 tweets
Aug 21, 2022
"Russian paratrooper Pavel Filatyev spent more than a month fighting in Ukraine after his poorly equipped unit was ordered to march from its base in Crimea for what commanders called a routine exercise."

#RussianArmy
#RussiaInvadedUkraine
washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/…
"Filatyev was evacuated after being wounded.

Over the next 5 weeks, deeply troubled by the devastation caused by ... Putin’s bloody invasion, he wrote down his recollections in hopes that telling his country the truth about the war could help stop it."

washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/… Image
"His damning 141-page journal... describes an army in disarray: commanders clueless & terrified, equipment old & rusty, troops pillaging occupied areas in search of food because of a lack of provisions, morale plummeting as the campaign stalled."

#Россия
washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/… Image
Read 17 tweets
Aug 20, 2022
"The searing takeaway was not [KKK klansman David] Duke himself, but nearly 700,000 Louisianans who, knowing what he stood for, voted for him anyway."

#Racism #USA
#elections
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…
"On Election Day 2016, nearly 63 million Americans voted for Trump, giving him more than 300 electoral votes and the White House.
The takeaway?
They, too, knew where he stood and voted for him anyway."

#Racism #USA
#elections
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…
"Four years later, the impeached, scandal-scarred president went before the American people once again.

By then, Trump was known all too well.

In his losing bid for reelection, Trump attracted 74.2 million votes."
[HE STILL LOST.]

#Racism #USA
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…
Read 5 tweets
Jul 29, 2022
SCOTUS "agreement to hear Moore v. Harper... isn’t just bad news for efforts to control gerrymandering.

The Court’s right-wing supermajority is poised to let state lawmakers overturn voters’ choice in presidential elections."

#SCOTUSIsCorrupt
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
"Trump then tried and failed, lawlessly, to muscle the GOP state legislators into discarding Biden’s victory and appointing Trump electors instead.

The Moore case... could give Republicans legal cover in 2024 to do as Trump demanded in 2020."

#ISLtheory
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
"That is a genuinely radical proposition...

The idea that legislatures stand unbound by any limit from their own founding documents is a fringe debating point invented for Republican political advantage."

#ISLtheory
#TrumpCoupAttempt
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Read 15 tweets

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