Thread by @rparloff

You’ve likely read many of the powerful passages from Judge Chutkan’s ruling yesterday holding that Trump enjoys no immunity from criminal prosecution for his acts as president. I’ll just draw attn to one more. ...
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To underscore the need to fulfill “our constitutional promise of equal justice under the law,” Chutkan highlights George Washington’s Farewell Address. “His decision to voluntarily leave office after two terms marked an extraordinary divergence ...”
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“from nearly every world leader who had preceded him, ushering in the sacred American tradition of peacefully transitioning Presidential power—a tradition that stood unbroken until January 6, 2021.” ...
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... Chutkan then quotes Washington’s famous “sober warning: ‘All obstructions to the execution of the laws’ ... are destructive of this fundamental principle.” (That’s what this indictment charges in a nutshell.) “Such obstructions would prove ‘fatal’ to the Republic, as ...
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‘cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of govt, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.’ ” ...
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... If anyone’s missed the point, Chutkan then spells it out: “In this case, Defendant is charged with attempting to usurp the reins of government as Washington forewarned.” She seals the point with a line from Justice Felix Frankfurter:...
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... “If one man can be allowed to determine for himself what is law, every man can. That means first chaos, then tyranny.”
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