Bob Dylan famously wrote that you don’t need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows, but sometimes it doesn’t hurt to have a weathervane, and here’s a case that may give us an early indication of just how much Donald Trump’s judicial picks have warped our legal system:
The AP reported, “Former President Donald Trump is trying to block documents including call logs, drafts of remarks and speeches and handwritten notes from his chief of staff relating to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection from being released to the committee investigating the riot, the National Archives revealed in a court filing early Saturday.”
This should be a legal no-brainer. Trump does not have executive privilege, and the White House tapes case would seem to be conclusive precedent, even if one puts aside the fact that Trump, no longer being president, has no right to claim executive privilege. At least he wouldn’t if he were a Democrat.
In retrospect, Nixon’s crimes seem almost quaint compared to what Trump was up to.
I hope I’m wrong, but my pessimistic dread of the coming faux-democratic autocracy leads me to conclude that the courts may in fact carve a “those cases no longer count unless you’re a Democrat” exception for Trump.
Even if they don’t rule for Trump, that’s no proof that the rule of law is secure. They might decide that they can ditch Trump while advancing their own goals of undermining democracy at every turn. After all, if they rule against Trump, all the pundits will use it as proof that the courts are being even handed. Then they can go about the business of upholding Jim Crow and insuring that Republicans maintain control of the levers of government while garnering a minority of votes actually cast, not to mention an even smaller share of the vote were everyone allowed to vote.
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