SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
For Immediate Release
February, 17 2021, 11:00pm EDT
Contact:
Edward Erikson, 202-420-9947 press@freespeechforpeople.org
Coalition Urges Biden's Attorney General-Designate to Establish Justice Department Task Force to Investigate Trump and Associates' Crimes
In a letter addressed to the AG-designate Merrick Garland, the coalition asks for a DOJ task force to investigate “any potential federal criminal or civil violations” committed by the president, members of his administration, his campaign, business, or others.
WASHINGTON
A coalition of public interest organizations released a letter today to Judge Merrick Garland, President Biden's designated choice for Attorney General. The letter urges the AG-designate to create an independent task force in the Department of Justice to investigate "any potential federal criminal or civil violations that may have been committed by former President Trump, members of his administration, or his campaign, business, or other associates."
The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold its confirmation hearings on the Garland nomination next Monday and Tuesday
The coalition names several potential offenses, including President Trump's incitement of an insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and his recorded phone call on January 2, 2021, pressuring Georgia's Secretary of State to "find 11,780 votes" to overturn the outcome of the presidential vote in Georgia in the November 2020 election.
" Donald Trump and his compliant Attorneys General turned the Department of Justice into his personal law firm, enabling his lawless reign and protecting him from accountability," says Ben Clements, Board Chair and Senior Legal Advisor for Free Speech For People. "Restoring the rule of law begins with restoring the Department of Justice and neither of those can be accomplished without holding Donald Trump and his accomplices accountable. To reestablish the bedrock principle that we are a nation of laws and that no one - not even the president - is above the law, it is essential that Merrick Garland assign a task force to investigate and, where the evidence requires, prosecute, those who violated their oaths of office and violated our nation's laws."
"As Attorney General, Judge Merrick Garland must apply the law to all Americans fairly -- and that includes Donald Trump and all those who have enabled his lawlessness," says Rahna Epting, MoveON Civic Action Executive Director. "Our country cannot have two tracks of justice: one for the rich and powerful, and one for everyone else. If there are no consequences for breaking the law, Trump and those like him will continue to do it with impunity. No one is above the law -- and that includes former Presidents."
The signers of the letter, led by Free Speech For People, include Action Group Network, Avaaz, Blue Wave Postcard Movement, Brave New Films, Demand Progress, Equal Justice Society, For All, Government Accountability Project, MoveOn Civic Action, Progressive Leadership Initiative, Progressives for Democracy in America, Revolving Door Project, and True North Research.
Other offenses named in the letter involve the 2016 election and the Mueller investigation that were not prosecuted during the Trump presidency because of Department of Justice policy; misuse of the office of the presidency for personal profit, including bribery and extortion; tax fraud, bank fraud, and insurance fraud committed by the Trump Organization; the practice of family separation and detention of children along the U.S.-Mexico border; and attempts to sabotage the 2020 presidential election
"For at least the past five years, Donald Trump, and his aides and associates, have engaged in a flurry of unethical, unconstitutional, and often criminal activity, culminating on January 6, 2021, with the seditious insurrection on the United States Capitol incited and encouraged by former President Trump and his allies," the letter says. "If we are to begin the process of restoring the integrity of the Department of Justice and the rule of law to our nation, it is essential that the Department thoroughly investigate these actions and, where warranted and appropriate, hold accountable those who have violated the nation's laws."
"Setting aside the merits of the Department policy prohibiting prosecution of sitting presidents, neither a president nor his officials are above the law, and the policy has no application beyond a president's term," the letter continues. "To the contrary, our constitutional system, under which no one, especially the president, is above the law, permits and obligates the Department of Justice to enforce the law, where appropriate, against former presidents."
Read the full letterhere.
Free Speech For People is a national non-partisan non-profit organization founded on the day of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FEC that works to defend our democracy and our Constitution.
LATEST NEWS
Muslim Rights Group Calls for Probe Into GOP Lawmaker's Threat to Omar, Tlaib
Randy Fine "must be investigated by state and federal law enforcement authorities and condemned by both Democratic and Republican Party leadership," said the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Nov 28, 2024
The country's largest Muslim civil rights group on Thursday called for added protections for U.S. Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar after Florida state Sen. Randy Fine issued an apparent threat against the two Muslim lawmakers.
Fine, who has the endorsement of President-elect Donald Trump in his candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives, called himself the "Hebrew Hammer" in a post on X on Tuesday and suggested Reps. Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Omar (D-Minn.) should leave office for their own safety.
"Bombs away," he added.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which has spoken out previously about anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim statements by Fine (R-19), called the lawmaker an "unhinged anti-Muslim bigot."
His apparent threat of violence "must be investigated by state and federal law enforcement authorities and condemned by both Democratic and Republican Party leadership," said Edward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy executive director of CAIR. "President-elect Donald Trump, in particular, should denounce Mr. Fine's remarks and the Florida Republican Party should expel him."
"We also call on U.S. Capitol Police to step up protection for Representatives Omar and Tlaib to ensure their safety as they come under increasing threats from anti-Muslim and pro-genocide bigots like Randy Fine," said Mitchell.
Fine was held in contempt of court in Florida earlier this year for making obscene gestures and mouthing curse words at a hearing. He is running in a special election set for April 1, 2025, due to Trump's appointment of Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) to be national security adviser.
In 2021, the Florida chapter of CAIR filed an ethics complaint against Fine after he posted on social media calling Palestinian people "animals" and calling for their annihilation with the hashtag "#BlowThemUp."
Omar and Tlaib—the only Palestinian-American in Congress—have been vehement critics of the United States' support for Israel's assault on Gaza, and defenders of Palestinian rights.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Native Americans Hold National Day of Mourning on Thanksgiving
"'Thanksgiving' is a white-washed holiday designed to conceal its true origins of violence, genocide, land theft, and forced assimilation," said the Indigenous Environmental Network.
Nov 28, 2024
In contrast with Thanksgiving celebrations across the United States on Thursday, Native Americans held a National Day of Mourning, promoted accurate history, and championed Indigenous voices and struggles.
Despite rainy conditions, the United American Indians of New England held its 55th annual National Day of Mourning at Cole's Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Kisha James, who is an enrolled member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) and also Oglala Lakota, shared how her grandfather founded the event in 1970 and pledged to continue to "tear down the Thanksgiving mythology."
"The past influences the present" and "the settler project" continues with racism, misogyny, and anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination, James told the crowd. "The Pilgrims are not ancient history."
James took aim at fossil fuel pipelines, oil rigs, skyscrapers, corporations, the U.S. military, mass incarceration, and the criminalization of immigrants, and declared that "no one is illegal on stolen on land."
Jean-Luc Pierite, a member of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana and president of the board of directors of the North American Indian Center of Boston who helped organize this year's gathering, toldUSA Today that "while we are mourning some tragic history but also contemporary issues, we are also expressing gratitude for each [other] and building this community space."
"Coming together as a community for a feast and to express gratitude—that's not something that was imported to this continent because of colonization," Pierite said. "Indigenous peoples have had these practices going back beyond, beyond colonial contact."
This year's event in Plymouth included speeches about the suffering of Palestinians—as Israel wages a U.S. government-backed war on the Gaza Strip that has killed at least 44,330 people, injured 104,933, and led to a genocide case at the International Court of Justice—and of people impacted by extractive industries.
"The message from Indigenous peoples internationally has been consistent: that we need to center the development of traditional ecological knowledge, Indigenous knowledge, and move away from fossil fuel extractive economies," said Pierite. "At this time the world needs Indigenous peoples."
In New York City, police
arrested 21 pro-Palestinian protesters who blocked the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade route.
According toABC 7:
For the second year in a row, the group ran in front of the Ronald McDonald float to briefly stop the parade.
This year, they jumped the barricades at West 55th Street just after 9:30 am.
Many sat on the ground, locking arms and chanting "Free, free Palestine!"
Others held a banner behind them, reading "Don't celebrate genocide! Arms embargo now."
Video footage shared on social media shows members of the New York Police Department grabbing protesters and their banner, and throwing at least one person face-first into the road.
Multiple Indigenous groups circulated messages about Thanksgiving on social media Thursday.
NDN Collective said that "as Indigenous peoples, we reject colonial holidays rooted in the genocidal erasure of our existence. We demand #LANDBACK to reclaim sovereignty, repair ties with Mother Earth, and protect Indigenous ways of life—honoring them for generations to come."
The Indigenous Environmental Network similarly
highlighted that "'Thanksgiving' is a white-washed holiday designed to conceal its true origins of violence, genocide, land theft, and forced assimilation."
"We must re-evaluate what we've been taught about the history of this land and recognize that genocide, extraction, and exploitation of our lands and communities continue today," the group argued.
Brenda Beyal, an enrolled member of the Diné Nation and program coordinator of the Brigham Young University ARTS Partnership's Native American Curriculum Initiative, wrote about the history of Thanksgiving on Wednesday for The Salt Lake Tribune.
"Our history books mark 'the first Thanksgiving' in 1621 when at least 90 Wampanoag men, led by Massasoit, walked in on a Puritan harvest feast," Beyal detailed. "Approximately 150 years later, all 13 colonies celebrated a day of solemn Thanksgiving to celebrate the win of the Battle of Saratoga in December of 1777. [U.S. President] George Washington called for a day of thanksgiving and prayer in 1789 to give gratitude for the end of the Revolutionary War."
"Then, in 1863, [President] Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving a national holiday to be held in November of every year," she continued. "During the same year that Lincoln canonized Thanksgiving, the Shoshone experienced the worst slaughter of Native Americans in U.S. history while winter camped on the Boa Ogoi (Bear River) near what is now Preston, Idaho. More than 400 men, women and children were massacred."
"This Thursday, my family and I will gather for a meal of thanksgiving. I have extended an invitation to whomever needs a place to rest, feast, and give gratitude. There is room at my table," she explained. "Ultimately, it is my hope that we as a nation can continue to consecrate days of remembrance, where we can both celebrate and mourn, acknowledge and repair, and find ways to be thankful, even with a wounded heart."
Writing for the San Francisco Chronicle on Thursday, Diné/Dakota writer Jacqueline Keeler addressed the future under U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who won another term in the White House this month.
"In my book Standoff: Standing Rock, the Bundy Movement, and the American Story of Sacred Lands, which was published after Trump's first term, I delved into the settler colonial mindset that the Pilgrims landed with on these shores, and contrasted it with the perspective of the Indigenous people of the United States," Keeler noted.
"Origin stories define people by articulating the terms of their relationships with our Mother, the Earth, as well as other living beings, and each other. In my book, I proposed that these stories could act as algorithms," she continued. "The 'origin story' algorithm for settler colonists was straightforward; they came to other people's lands, occupied them, and sent the wealth back to their ruling 1%. Based on that origin story, you can predict what Trump and his base will do next."
"My question at Thanksgiving time," she concluded, is "how do we create a new origin story that includes everyone and puts us on a path to come together as a people—in harmony with each other and the Earth, our Mother."
Lakota historian Nick Estes, a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe and co-founder of the Indigenous group the Red Nation, appeared on Democracy Now! on Thursday to discuss the origins of Thanksgiving and his book Our History Is the Future, which focuses on seven historical moments of resistance that form a road map for collective liberation.
Estes examined the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's battle against the climate-wrecking Dakota Access Pipeline. "I actually look at a physical map that was handed out to water protectors who came to the camp. And on that map there was, you know, where to find food, where to find the clinics," he said. "To me, that provided, you know, a kind of interesting parallel to the world that surrounded the camps."
"You had the North Dakota National Guard, the world of cops, the world of the militarized sort of police state. And in the camps themselves you had sort of the primordial sort of beginnings of what a world premised on Indigenous justice might look like. And in that world, you know, everyone got free food. There was a place for everyone," Estes noted. "The housing... obviously, was transient housing and teepees and things like that, but then also there was health clinics to provide healthcare, alternative forms of healthcare, to everyone. And so, if we look at that, it's housing, education—all for free, right?—a strong sense of community."
"Given the opportunity to create a new world in that camp, centered on Indigenous justice and treaty rights, society organized itself according to need and not to profit. And so, where there was, you know, the world of settlers, settler colonialism, that surrounded us, there was the world of Indigenous justice that existed for a brief moment in time," he said. "And in that world, instead of doing to settler society what they did to us—genociding, removing, excluding—there's a capaciousness to Indigenous resistance movements that welcomes in non-Indigenous peoples into our struggle, because that's our primary strength, is one of relationality, one of making kin."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Israeli Attacks Wound Two in Lebanon on Day 2 of Cease-Fire
The cease-fire deal prohibits all military operations by Hezbollah but only "offensive" action by Israel.
Nov 28, 2024
Experts on the Middle East warned this week that a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah could be temporary, and reports out of southern Lebanon on Thursday indicated they were correct as security sources said two people were injured in Israeli strikes on the village of Markaba.
The truce went into effect early Wednesday after being brokered by the United States and France, with Israeli forces given 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon.
But one day after the deal went into effect, an Associated Press correspondent in northern Israel reported that they heard artillery strikes across the border in Lebanon as well as Israeli drones.
On Thursday morning, Israeli tanks hit the southern Lebanese towns of Markaba, Wazzani and Kfarchouba, Khiyam, and Taybe, according to Lebanese state media and security sources, injuring at least two people.
All the areas lie within two kilometers (1.24 miles) of the Lebanon-Israel border.
Hassan Fadlallah, a member of Lebanese Parliament who is part of the Hezbollah March 8 alliance, said Israel had attacked civilians who were "returning to the border villages."
"There are violations today by Israel, even in this form," he told reporters.
Thousands of Lebanese people began returning to their homes in the southern part of the country after the cease-fire deal went into effect, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) should not allow civilians back into southern villages. His order contradicted a statement by Nabih Berri, the speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, who led cease-fire negotiations and said Wednesday that residents could return home.
Israel imposed a last-minute curfew on Wednesday night, prohibiting Lebanese citizens from crossing into the south overnight.
The IDF then accused Hezbollah of violating the cease-fire, announcing on Thursday: "Over the past hour, several suspects were identified arriving with vehicles to a number of areas in southern Lebanon, breaching the conditions of the cease-fire. The IDF opened fire toward them."
Drop Site Newsnoted that the deal bars Hezbollah from carrying out "any operations" against Israel but only prohibits Israel from conducting "offensive" attacks in Lebanon.
"It's kind of a bit insidious where they say 'offensive,' meaning somehow there's this little kind of wiggle room for what they will interpret as defensive, which in Israeli logic and discourse and action means anything," Karim Makdisi, a professor of international politics at the American University in Beirut, told Drop Site News. "Anything can happen. They can say, 'Well, this is defense.' Even the genocide in Gaza, as far as they're saying, is defensive."
Jeremy Scahill of Drop Site News said the Biden administration has attempted to "rig the deal" and allow Israel to strike in Lebanon as it sees fit, providing Israel with a "letter of guarantee" that recognizes "Israeli freedom of action on Lebanese soil" if any attempts are made to strengthen Hezbollah.
The U.S. State Department refused to comment on the letter when asked about it by Scahill.
Since October 2023, Israeli strikes on Lebanon have killed at least 3,823 people and injured at least 15,859.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular