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richard painter
Watchdog Joins Demand for Trump-Appointed Judge's Recusal From Classified Docs Case
"At a minimum, Judge Cannon's prior history creates an unacceptable risk of an unavoidable appearance of bias in one of the most important proceedings in United States history," said Free Speech for People.
Jun 14, 2023
A government watchdog warned on Wednesday that U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon's oversight of the federal case regarding former President Donald Trump's handling of classified documents and alleged jeopardizing of national security "undermines public confidence in the courts" due to her previous ruling on the matter last year, and demanded that Cannon be removed from the case unless she recuses herself.
In a letter to Chief Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, on which Cannon also serves, the organization said the judge "demonstrated judicial error and extreme bias" when she ordered the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to halt its investigation into the classified documents that were discovered at the former Republican president's estate in Florida.
"In her order, Judge Cannon insisted that normal principles of prosecution and law could not be applied to Trump because of his status as former president," wrote the group. "The unprecedented and unprincipled ruling demonstrated that Judge Cannon could
not be, nor even appear to be, an impartial decision-maker."
Free Speech for the People (FSFP) said Altonaga should remove Cannon, who was appointed by Trump and confirmed after he lost the 2020 election, unless she recuses herself within 10 days, under federal laws requiring judges to disqualify themselves "'when their impartiality might reasonably be questioned' or when they have 'a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party'" in a case.
The group sent its letter less than a week after Trump, who is running for reelection in 2024, was indicted on charges including willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and concealing documents in a federal investigation. Appearing in court on Tuesday, Trump pleaded not guilty.
In an op-ed at Slate on Monday, ethics attorneys Norman Eisen, Richard Painter, and Fred Wertheimer wrote that Cannon's assignment to United States v. Donald Trump "cannot stand."
\u201cIn light of the reversal on appeal of her prior rulings in this case, Judge Cannon now should recuse.\nhttps://t.co/9CLvWaSJK4\u201d— Richard W. Painter (@Richard W. Painter) 1686584594
In addition to Cannon's "deeply erroneous step" of ordering the end of the DOJ's investigation and appointing a special master to oversee the case, they wrote, her "statements and actions in the prior proceedings made clear her view that Trump is entitled to differential treatment than any other criminal defendant."
"She wrote that 'as a function of plaintiff's former position as president of the United States, the stigma associated with the subject seizure is in a league of its own,'" noted Eisen, Painter, and Wertheimer. "She reiterated this position in denying the government's motion for a partial stay of her order pending appeal, stating that her consideration 'is inherently impacted by the position formerly held by [Trump].'"
FSFP pointed out on Wednesday that a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit unanimously overturned Cannon's ruling last year, calling it a "radical reordering of our case law limiting federal courts" which, if allowed to stand, would "violate bedrock separation-of-powers limitations."
"At a minimum, Judge Cannon's prior history creates an unacceptable risk of an unavoidable appearance of bias in one of the most important proceedings in United States history," said FSFP. "The public will view Judge Cannon as a biased decision-maker who opposes the prosecution, and who is prepared to enact unorthodox legal measures to favor Trump in court."
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The IRS and the Self-Minimization of Congressman Jason Chaffetz
Jun 26, 2016
Politicians who limit the effectiveness of government agencies for short-term political advantages cheat taxpayers and short-change the government. I first met Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), a brash young Republican, at a EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center) gathering, which challenges big business and government invasions of privacy. Privacy was not the only issue he championed, having taken stands against corporate welfare programs, bloated corporate contracts with the government and even corporate crimes.
Chaffetz chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee - a body with powerful tools to investigate government waste, corruption, and defiance of the laws. And he has vaulting ambitions, almost running for Speaker of the House last year with only seven years of seniority.
My colleagues and I met with him and his staff soon after he took over the Committee. We seemed to have found common ground on some important matters, including pressing for full online disclosure of government contracts and leaseholds with private business (above a minimum dollar amount). Presently, taxpayers can only view a summary of these contracts, which total hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Government procurement reforms seemed an ideal subject for a left/right alliance in Congress.
At our meeting, I hoped that Congressman Chaffetz would not imitate his predecessor, Congressman Darrell Issa, the mega-millionaire show-boater who reveled in mostly useless partisan hacking of Obama's executive branch.
Alas, no such luck. Instead of doing something about the Pentagon's violation, since 1992, of a federal law requiring annual audits law with which every other federal agency complies left that massive, nearly $600 billion budget to continue to be mired in waste, redundancy, and corporate corruption.
Instead of amassing all the government's corporate welfare programs and analyzing them to determine what should be cut or kept, he has avoided doing anything about the crony capitalism that his fellow Republicans routinely denounce but do nothing about.
So what is self-minimizing Congressman Chaffetz's principal passion? Trying to impeach, censure or cause the resignation of the head of the IRS, the renowned turnaround specialist John Koskinen. The Utah Roman candle has accused Koskinen of interfering with a congressional investigation, not preserving pertinent records and lying to a congressional committee.
Koskinen repeatedly provided the committee with documentation for his denial of the charges that he was engaged in a cover-up of alleged IRS harassment of Tea Party and other conservative 501(c)(4) organizations applying for tax-exempt status. Ranking minority member Elijah Cummings (D-MD) laid out his own rebuttals, citing the Department of Justice investigation finding that "no evidence that any IRS official acted in a way that would support criminal prosecution" or that any official, including Mr. Koskinen, an Obama appointee, attempted to obstruct justice.
More telling was the exhaustive, multi-year, $2 million investigation by the Republican Inspector General of the IRS, Russell George, who cleared the IRS Commissioner of the Chaffetz Committee's charges. Mr. George, a Bush appointee, found no politically motivated targeting of these conservative 501(c)(4) applications, no obstruction of justice and no concealing of information from Congress. Some bureaucratic sloppiness, sure, but that was all.
A more cutting judgement came from Law Professor Richard Painter, former Chief Ethics Lawyer for President George W. Bush, who said "this is essentially a dispute between the IRS and Members of Congress about the 501(c)(4) organizations that further the objectives of political campaigns, including campaigns for Members of Congress."
Legal observers say Chaffetz's resolution is not legally binding and is going nowhere. So what's going on here is the Chaffetz caper is part of an overwhelming attack on the IRS by the Congressional Republicans-an attack that has turned them into major aiders and abettors of those who are sitting on $300 billion in annual uncollected taxes.
Figuring that the IRS is about the least popular agency in the government, the Republicans have repeatedly cut its seriously inadequate budget from $12.8 billion in 2013 to $10.6 billion this year, with several consequences. You pay more when corporate tax escapees and others do not pay what they owe. Or the deficit gets larger. Or you receive fewer or diminished public services. You are also wasting endless hours trying to get through to the staff-depleted IRS on the telephone with your questions.
The Democrats in Congress somehow cannot get themselves to make the Republicans pay a political price for the reckless strip-mining of the already inadequate IRS budget, further burdened by new laws like Obamacare.
The agency simply doesn't have enough specialists to investigate global corporate tax evasion; the super-wealthy's use of the tax havens like Panama and the Cayman Islands, not to mention many phony deferrals, or unlawful exploitations of tax loopholes.
The Congressional Republicans are complicit in shielding $300 million in tax evasion. Were it not for their immunity on Capitol Hill, they could be indicted for a conspiracy to protect big-time tax evaders. Every million dollars in the IRS enforcement budget brings in at least $6 million in revenue.
You as voters can call members of Congress out this November, unless your Republican Lawmaker comes clean and rejects the Party's wrecking machine.
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