Trump, MO Governor: Charges Against The McCloskeys Over Defense Of Home Would Be A “Disgrace”

Will Donald Trump intervene in what appears to be a nascent prosecution of a Missouri couple who attempted to defend their home against a mob? In an exclusive interview with Townhall’s Katie Pavlich, Trump called any potential prosecution an “outrage.” Trump said the video made it look like the couple were at risk of a beating “if they were lucky,” and their house in danger of being torched.

Trump stopped short of pledging any particular action, but Missouri’s governor later said both of them would begin considering their options:

“When you look at St. Louis, the two people that came out they were going to beat up badly if they were lucky. If they were lucky. They were going be beat up badly and the house was going to be totally ransacked and probably burned down like they tried to burn down churches. And these people were standing there, never used it and they were legal, the weapons, and now I understand somebody local, they want to prosecute these people. It’s a disgrace,” Trump said.

What can Trump do about it, however? Gov. Mike Parson told reporters yesterday that they plan to find out:

Parson, who said the couple had “every right to protect their property,” said he spoke with Trump just before the governor’s coronavirus news briefing. He said Trump made clear that he “doesn’t like what he sees and the way these people are being treated,” referencing the McCloskeys.
He said Attorney General William P. Barr “was represented on the call,” and that he thinks the president and the attorney general “are going to take a look” at the McCloskeys’ case.
“The president said that he would do everything he could within his powers to help with this situation and he would be taking action to do that,” Parson said.

Parson has a wider range of action than Trump would. He could order the state Attorney General to take over the investigation of the McCloskeys, for instance, although he couldn’t direct the outcome — not without crossing some ethical lines himself. Parsons could also issue a full pardon before St. Louis County DA Kim Gardner goes any further with the case, which would put a complete end to any investigation. The McCloskeys might not care for any hint of guilt that a pardon carries, but at least they’d be in no more danger of prosecution — and they’d get their firearms back.

Parson wants to make it easier to remove officials like Gardner from office. He urged the state legislature to set up such a mechanism, but that’s a reach, too. Gardner is elected by county voters to her position, not appointed to it. It would take an impeachment process for a removal to have any legitimacy, given how it would reverse the results of a legitimate election. That should only happen when malfeasance is clear and provable, not when there is a disagreement regarding prosecutorial discretion.

The options for Trump are much more limited. He can’t issue a pardon on state-level charges; presidents can only issue clemency related to federal investigations and prosecutions. He has no authority at all over Gardner, and even Parsons has only very limited authority, so Trump can’t order her to stop an investigation either. Barr’s participation hints that the Department of Justice might open a civil-rights investigation of Gardner on the basis that she is interfering with their Second Amendment right of self-defense, but … that’s a bit of a reach, especially while no charges have been filed. Typically the DoJ doesn’t get involved in individual cases anyway when it comes to civil-rights actions on local prosecutors, but only act when a pattern of abuse is alleged.

On the other hand, Gardner is demagoguing the case and the criticism just as much as Parson, or perhaps even more:

Gardner, who is black, suggested that Trump and Parson were launching racially motivated attacks against her.
“It is also incredible that at a time when our nation is dealing with a rapidly spreading deadly virus and our State reported a record number of new infections, they are launching these dog-whistle attacks against me,” she said. “They should be focused on their jobs, & I’ll focus on mine.”

That’s utter nonsense. There’s plenty to criticize about this push for prosecution regardless of Gardner’s ethnicity. I was not aware she’s African-American, and I doubt that many of the people who have opined on this know or care. They are focused on the fact that a mob of people trespassed on the McCloskey’s property and did damage to it in the kind of protests in the same time frame where riots have broken out and buildings got burned. Would a reasonable person believe their lives and their property were in grave danger, given that context, which is the predicate for the legal use of lethal force in self-defense? Show me a jury in the summer of 2020 where twelve people would unanimously say no, and I’ll eat my hat. And since neither of the McCloskeys ever fired those weapons, I’d bet the vote would likely be unanimous in the other direction.

Gardner’s play of a race card speaks more about her motives in pursuing this case than it does about either Trump or Parsons. It’s a shameful “dog whistle” of its own, which basically sets up a claim that Gardner is above the law and above any criticism as a public official. That’s not democracy; it’s tyranny.

[The only way the president can intervene is by speaking out against the injustice. It’s not a federal charge, so I don’t think he can commute a sentence or give a pardon...but then I ain’t a blood-suckin’ lawyer.]

Eric Holder filed suit against Sheriff Arpaio.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio
[Arpaio has been accused of numerous types of police misconduct, including abuse of power, misuse of funds, failure to investigate sex crimes, criminal negligence, abuse of suspects in custody, improper clearance of cases, unlawful enforcement of immigration laws, and election law violations. A Federal court monitor was appointed to oversee his office’s operations because of complaints of racial profiling. The U.S. Department of Justice concluded that Arpaio oversaw the worst pattern of racial profiling in U.S. history, and subsequently filed suit against him for unlawful discriminatory police conduct.[10][11][12][13] Arpaio and the MCSO were named as defendants in dozens of civil lawsuits brought by citizens arrested by Arpaio and his deputies alleging wrongful arrest, wrongful death, entrapment and other claims, costing taxpayers in Maricopa County over $140 million in litigation against Arpaio during his tenure as sheriff.[14]

Over the course of his career, Arpaio was the subject of several federal civil rights lawsuits. In one case he was a defendant in a decade-long suit in which a federal court issued an injunction barring him from conducting further “immigration round-ups”.[15] A federal court subsequently found that after the order was issued, Arpaio’s office continued to detain “persons for further investigation without reasonable suspicion that a crime has been or is being committed.”[15] In July 2017, he was convicted of criminal contempt of court, a crime for which he was pardoned by President Donald Trump on August 25, 2017.[16] In a separate racial-profiling case which concluded in 2013, Arpaio and his subordinates were found to have unfairly targeted Hispanics in conducting traffic stops.[17] ]

Things can be done. The question is whether Trump wants to do this, and whether it makes sense politically. My sense is that Trump is long on rhetoric and short on action. I wish it were the reverse.

[That’s a really good point. The Justice Department could potentially go after the Soros-funded D.A. for violation of the civil rights of the McCloskeys. We’re looking at willful attempt by a local official to deprive two American citizens of their constitutional rights, specifically their 2nd amendment right to bear arms. There are also possible violations of their 4th amendment rights to be secure in their persons, and the 5th amendment guarantee that life, liberty and property won’t be denied without due process.]

Holder was very effective at advancing the Democratic agenda. I wish the GOP had AG’s with that kind of impact vis -a-vis the party’s goals. IMO, Trump’s strategy of tweeting rather than doing is what’s cratering his numbers rather than any particular political skill from the Biden camp. Voter sentiment is s**t or get off the pot.

Reading between the lines, it appears he lied about his view on DACA from day one. That won’t help to keep the base enthused, either. I’m starting to think in the terms of the Goldwater-scale defeat that got LBJ’s disastrous Great Society agenda off the ground. And this time, there is no ongoing Vietnam War to bail the GOP out four years later.

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