Or, You Know, Not

we're now a hair away from it being "treason" to utter a single critical syllable about Dear Leader on any topic whatsoever

If it weren’t for that pesky Constitution:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

Art. III, cl. 1.

Explain this to me. Everyone knows Trump is full of shit when he warns pregnant women not to take Tylenol, and he is freely mocked for his ignorance. But when Trump propounds new laws as if he were a medieval monarch (even the sovereigns of England haven’t had that power for centuries), without any statutory basis at all, the punditry and the readers of chicken entrails tell us that the heavens quake and the ground upon which we stand is roiled as the end times for the Republic grow nearer.

Why? Trump is no more knowledgeable on law than he is on medicine. And while the language of the Constitution is perfectly plain (as is the law on sedition, which is more generally applicable; but even then, every report on the sedition charges brought after J6 pointed out how rare, to the point of unprecedented, it was to bring such charges, and how difficult they were to prove), the only allowed response to Trump’s idiocy is that all is lost and any condemned (by him) opinion means immediate punishment. The worst case of that I’ve seen so far is Larry Bushart’s incarceration for a month on charges he threatened a school shooting, when he did no such thing. The sheriff first said there was a threat; then he said they knew there was no threat, but the community was concerned. Finally, after the nolle prosequi, the sheriff said he was just relying on the investigators’s report. Which seems to be unsupported by any evidence in the records.

Bushart lost his job because he was in jail for a month. He’s a prime candidate for a civil suit for damages against the sheriff.

That’s a bad situation, but stupidity is not an unknown quantity in law enforcement. I understand even Bondi and Blanche didn’t want to pursue charges against Letitia James (or was that against Comey? Either way…).  His appointed hatchet persons aren’t exactly doing his bidding either, mostly because Trump can’t appoint prosecutors à la Nixon on that fateful Saturday night. Trump may find his Borks, but he can’t give them the authority they need. There is a system, and much as Trump is trying to thwart it, he can’t. Unless and until the Supremes weigh in (if they do), that’s the law of the land. And will the Sinister Six say otherwise? The appointment power is in the constitution (presidential immunity, by contrast, is not). It’s one thing to read power (like immunity) into the Constitution. It’s another thing to read it out. Giving Trump authority to fire government employees and cancel government funding is, in the minds of the Six, actuating the unspoken, unwritten, “original intent” of the Founders (that’s all bollocks, btw). But erasing the appointments clause, which lies behind the statute Trump keeps abusing? I think even some of the Six would draw the line there. 

Until they do, or don’t, that’s the law; and Trump is still constrained by it. He may insist his prosecutors prosecute; but the courts have no obligation to oblige him. Nor to ignore portions of Art. III Trump may find inconvenient.