Posted on 12/17/2020 8:26:58 AM PST by Kaslin
To appreciate the value of our judiciary and its role in preserving democracy, one need only compare the 2016 election to the 2020 election.
Since election day, President Trump’s legal team, as well as surrogates and down-ballot candidates, have filed more than 50 lawsuits in state and federal courts challenging the conduct of the election in six swing states. The cases range from allegations of violations of the U.S. Constitution to the failure of local election officials to grant poll-watchers “meaningful access” to observe ballot-counting.
These cases have two things in common: (1) They have, to date, been uniformly unsuccessful, and (2) pundits, commentators, and some politicians have hysterically claimed the lawsuits undermine our democracy. Let’s take a closer look at that second claim.
Actions that undermine democracy are serious and should be taken solemnly. Preserving the grand experiment in freedom and self-rule that is America is the grave responsibility of every generation. So let’s see if that is what is going on here.
Traditionally, our court system resolves challenges to allegedly illegal or improper conduct, whether by private parties or public officials. Those who claim to have suffered an injury at the hands of another, whether the injury is physical, economic, or an infringement of protected rights, bring the case to independent courts to resolve. Our democracy has replaced the shoot-out at the O.K. Corral with litigation as the preferred means of resolving our disputes.
To appreciate the value of our judicial dispute resolution mechanism and its role in preserving democracy, one need only compare the 2016 election to the 2020 election.
Even before the ballots were cast in 2016, actors within federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies and contractors sought to secretly gather information on people associated with then-candidate Trump’s campaign. Claiming that certain campaign advisers were controlled by Russia, the FBI filed unverified and demonstrably false information in the secret intelligence court to secure surveillance warrants to review and monitor communications of certain Trump campaign associates.
Unlike Trump’s court filings in the challenge to the 2020 vote, these court filings were not public documents and were unknown even to the subject of the warrants. Later investigation established serious misconduct by senior federal law enforcement officials in securing these warrants.
After the 2016 votes were counted, Democrats, Never-Trumpers, mainstream media outlets, and their allies launched an all-out effort to obstruct the new administration and to remove the president from office. Hillary Clinton did not file public challenges in the courts; instead, she launched the resistance movement.
The Obama administration doubled down on its improper use of federal law enforcement powers to hamstring the incoming Trump administration. From setting up retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the incoming national security adviser, for a process crime, to renewing the improperly obtained FISA warrants, to embedding Obama loyalists in the federal bureaucracy, the Trump resistance hunkered down for the long haul.
None of these efforts, however, involved filing legal challenges in open court to be adjudicated by an established dispute resolution mechanism supervised by an independent judiciary. Instead, the Resistance relied upon the maneuverings of federal law enforcement officials to secure the appointment of a special counsel to investigate whether the Trump campaign “colluded” with Russia in securing victory in 2016.
This investigation consumed millions of dollars and more than two years to produce what the instigators knew all along: There was no collusion. Furthermore, no one associated with the Trump campaign was ever charged, much less convicted, of any offense related to Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 campaign.
Trump complained long and loud about what he termed a “witch hunt,” but he also provided unprecedented cooperation in the special counsel’s investigation. His waiver of attorney-client privilege subjected his White House counsel, Don McGahn, to hours of interrogation by the special counsel’s attorneys.
At the same time, bureaucrat holdovers from the Obama administration’s national security team illegally leaked the substance of private phone calls between the president and foreign leaders in an effort to embarrass his administration and, eventually, to set up a partisan impeachment process that some had been urging since before he was inaugurated.
Fast-forward to 2020. As far as we know, Trump has not weaponized federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies to surveil, monitor, or hamstring the incoming Biden administration. He has not sent FBI agents to conduct a pretextual interview of high-level Biden administration potential appointees. His subordinates have not altered documents and filed them in secret courts to secure warrants to eavesdrop on people associated with the Biden campaign or the incoming administration.
Rather, seemingly following Clinton’s advice to Biden to “not concede under any circumstances,” Trump and others have filed complaints in state and federal courts, including the Supreme Court, challenging the manner in which some state officials conducted the election. All the pleadings and papers have been available for public scrutiny. All the legal arguments have been made in open court.
All the decisions have been rendered by judges duly elected or appointed to their positions as members of an independent judiciary. Appeals have been filed in some cases, and those have also been available for public scrutiny and inspection.
One can disparage the wisdom of the Trump legal strategy. Indeed, the litigation has to this point been unsuccessful — but at least it has been filed in open court. The pleadings, arguments, and asserted basis for the challenges have been open to public scrutiny. Unlike the outgoing Obama administration, the outgoing Trump administration has not used secret courts, intelligence community assets, and a politicized federal law enforcement structure to undermine the effectiveness of a new president.
To answer the question posed at the outset, yes, challenges to the outcome of elections can undermine democracy. The American people, however, are smart enough to determine what sort of challenges to election outcomes are the greatest threat to our democracy: legal challenges filed in open court or surreptitious challenges using politicized intelligence and law enforcement assets.
The Dems have SCREAMED for over 4 years but now they’re Silent
Yes, of course. it showed the absolutely political corruption of our highest levels of “law enforcement” and intelligence agencies.
How anyone could trust these organizations again is beyond me.
They need to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch somewhere outside of DC.
As Putin was their whipping boy will the rats see payback? Vlad doesn’t mess around.
“The American people, however, are smart enough to determine what sort of challenges to election outcomes are the greatest threat to our democracy: legal challenges filed in open court or surreptitious challenges using politicized intelligence and law enforcement assets.”
I increasingly take issue with this wishful thinking that the American people are “smart enough” about anything.
This is the most interesting political. In the history of the United States of America
This is war all out war without bullets flying , yet
The Democrats have been cheating and committing absolute fraud for decades and decades and everybody knows it and it’s been a running joke and Republicans have just sat around in their check pants and done nothing about it up until this point
After trumps incredible campaign of 2016 where he surprise them with the turnout in defeated Hillary Clinton out right on election night they have decided once and for all that shit he make it to 2020 there is no way this guy is going to win and they will do whatever they have to do to stop it
Let’s not forget Peter Strock said they had an insurance policy right after the investigations were begun in October 2016
Now we’ve already seen that the courts are terrified of the antifa mobs and if the judges aren’t flat out Hakkasan but off there are just dismissing these cases because they know that they cannot hear the evidence or they will have to decide on the Law
The media and the Democrats think that they can just keep telling us lies over and over again and they will just go away when clearly that is not the case
This week in this all out war with this leftist communist insurgency I’ve been calling executive order week and of course I’m referring to EO 12383 from 2018 about foreign election interference
What do you receive yesterday? All kinds of noise saying that the paid off hacks who have been paid off by the Chinese communist party don’t want to include China Inn to throw assessment well surprise surprise somebody queue to Gomer Pyle meme
I do think that the overall strategy which is the good one is to just let this continue to play out and have all of the force of this piece from the grass roots and the people and incredible hero such as Lynwood in Sidney Powell Jay Sekulow and other forces they are pushing for us the facts in this case
January 6 the first real deadline in this saga is three weeks away
At least five states of already sent a separate set of electors to show up on that date
With the dominion report out of antrum Michigan yesterday we now have hard evidence of what Sidney Powell is been saying that the dominion machines are totally corrupt and mind you the three years and 38 states
I tried rumblings in other states such as Colorado Virginia and Minnesota
So this is war open war with the Democrat media complex and the billionaire left us one world government people behind them and we have all the cards only have left to support is there incredible fraud which day thrust upon the people of the United States of America
Three weeks in this saga is going to be a very very very long time and a lot of stuff is going to go down in this period of time I would bet all the money that I have which is an ally I’m just a working stiff that by January 6 we’re going to have major action in states major decisions by courts and this thing is going to be mostly adjudicated
The US Federal courts are partisan and crooked.
From Traitor Roberts on down.
I increasingly take issue with this wishful thinking that the American people are “smart enough” about anything."
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Agreed. It's almost like the late 1700's all over again, only now...~1/3 loves this country and is willing to fight for it, ~1/3 hates this country and is willing to fight against it and ~1/3 are either ignorant or indifferent (or both).
We may either be at, or fast approaching, a point of no reconciliation.
Americans are fast assuming this conformist and indifferent attitude so characteristic of the Soviet people back in the day.
The Russian collusion hoax and the rigged election are both examples of an attempt to overturn the will of the people and undermine free and fair elections.
The difference is that back in the day most people in Eastern Block countries knew that it was better to live in the West... they were trapped but they were not stupid. These days we have idiots here who believe that it would be better for them to live under a socialist/communist regime. They even talk up Communist China and say that their system would be better for “global warming”. The dumbing down of America is being achieved every day by our media, Hollywood, and our educational system.
Democrat juveniles are capable of anything. Nowadays, whatever they do is legitimized by the media, courts,
entertainent and whatever American institution they’ve subverted and undermined. To top it all off, they have their own military and enforcement arms that act up whenever tleftist aims aren’t attained or impeded at the ballot box.
Even more, they are backed by a population that loves them and their subversion.
Question:
Is the population seduced by empty promises or are they complicit in leftist revolution?
Just asking.
IMHO
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