KOMMONSENTSJANE – A HORSE OF A DIFFERENT COLOR – abc’s george stephanopoulos says 2024 race can’t be treated normally after biden urges press to alter coverage?

4/29/2024

What’s that suppose to mean?

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KOMMONSENTSJANE – THEY’VE CRIMINALIZED THE ELECTION PROCESS – LEVIN..

Posted on April 28, 2024 by kommonsentsjane

4/29/2024

Are the Dem’s talking about the wrong thing?

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They’ve ‘criminalized’ the election process: Levin | Watch (msn.com)

kommonsentsjane

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FOX News

ABC’s Stephanopoulos sounds alarm on democracy, ‘test’ for the press

One day after President Biden implored the media to not treat the 2024 election like business as usual, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos sternly told his audience on Sunday’s “This Week” that this year was abnormal and a “test” for the media and the country.

In contrast with the show’s usual style, Stephanopoulos began the program with remarks on former President Trump’s legal troubles and how the 2024 election was testing the tenets of democracy. This followed Biden calling on members of the press to focus less on horse race politics and “rise up to the seriousness of the moment,” in a sober conclusion to his speech at the White House correspondents’ dinner on Saturday.

“Until now, no American president had ever faced a criminal trial,” Stephanopoulos said. “No American president had ever faced a criminal indictment for retaining and concealing classified documents. No American president had ever faced a federal indictment or a state indictment for trying to overturn an election, or been named an unindicted co-conspirator in two other states for the same crime. No American president has faced hundreds of millions of dollars in fines for business fraud, defamation, and sexual abuse,” Stephanopoulos began. 

Stephanopoulos argued this election was not normal, and that it was easy for everyone to treat it as an ordinary race for the presidency when the “scale of the abnormality is so staggering.”

NEW POLL SHOWS BIDEN’S 2024 LEAD VANISHING WITH TRUMP ON TRIAL

George Stephanopoulos sounds alarm on 2024 election and appears to echo President Biden's Saturday message to the press. Fox News

George Stephanopoulos sounds alarm on 2024 election and appears to echo President Biden’s Saturday message to the press. Fox News© Fox News

“It’s all too easy to fall into reflexive habits, to treat this as a normal campaign, where both sides embrace the rule of law, where both sides are dedicated to a debate based on facts and the peaceful transfer of power. But that is not what’s happening this election year. Those bedrock tenets of democracy are being tested in a way we haven’t seen since the Civil War. It’s a test for the candidates, for those of us in the media, and for all of us as citizens,” Stephanopoulos said.

There was no indication that Stephanopoulos’ remarks weren’t coincidental, however. An ABC News spokesperson didn’t respond to request for comment on whether the anchor’s editorial was related to Biden’s admonition.

Biden highlighted Trump’s rhetoric while addressing the press, and said the biggest question facing Americans in this election was whether democracy was “still the sacred cause of America.”

“The defeated former president has made no secret of his attack on our democracy. He has said he wants to be a ‘dictator on day one,’ and so much more,” Biden said. “He tells supporters he is their ‘revenge’ and ‘retribution.’  When in God’s name have you heard another president say something like that? And he promised a ‘bloodbath’ when he loses again. We have to take this seriously.” 

He also told the press to focus on the high stakes of this presidential race, Fox News Digital reported.

GOP BLASTS ‘OUT OF TOUCH’ WARNING OF NO MORE WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS DINNERS IF TRUMP WINS ELECTION

US President Joe Biden speaks during the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) dinner in Washington, DC, US on Saturday, April 27, 2024. Photographer: Bonnie Cash/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images Getty Images

US President Joe Biden speaks during the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner in Washington, DC, US on Saturday, April 27, 2024. Photographer: Bonnie Cash/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images Getty Images© Photographer: Bonnie Cash/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images

“Move past the horse race numbers and the ‘gotcha’ moments and the distractions and the sideshows that have come to dominate and sensationalize our politics, and focus on what’s actually at stake,” Biden said. “I think in your hearts, you know what’s at stake. The stakes couldn’t be higher.”

Biden added that every member of the media had “serious roles to play” in making sure democracy endures.

The president, who has taken heat from the New York Times and other news outlets for avoiding serious interviews, sat for a rare live chat on Friday with radio host Howard Stern. Biden told Stern he was “happy” to debate Trump this year after previously hedging on the subject.

Original article source: ABC’s George Stephanopoulos says 2024 race can’t be treated normally after Biden urges press to alter coverage

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kommonsentsjane

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KOMMONSENTSJANE – THEY’VE CRIMINALIZED THE ELECTION PROCESS – LEVIN..

4/29/2024

Are the Dem’s talking about the wrong thing?

ttps://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/they-ve-criminalized-the-election-process-levin/vi-AA1nMPec?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=21c50a1cf4b14004f4224ab67659f496&ei=24

They’ve ‘criminalized’ the election process: Levin | Watch (msn.com)

kommonsentsjane

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KOMMONSENTSJANE – MIKE JOHNSON CALLS OUT ILHAN OMAR FOR SAYING EXACTLY THE WRONG THING..

4/29/2024

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Mike Johnson calls out Ilhan Omar for ‘saying exactly the wrong thing’ | Watch (msn.com)

She does not stand for the Constitution.

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KOMMONSENTSJANE – Justice Thomas raised crucial question about legitimacy of special counsel’s prosecution of Trump.

4/28/2024

FOX NEWS

The Supreme Court likes small steps, not great leaps: Jonathan Turley

View on Watch

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas raised a question Thursday that goes to the heart of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s charges against former President Donald Trump.

The high court was considering Trump’s argument that he is immune from prosecution for actions he took while president, but another issue is whether Smith and the Office of Special Counsel have the authority to bring charges at all.

“Did you, in this litigation, challenge the appointment of special counsel?” Thomas asked Trump attorney John Sauer on Thursday during a nearly three-hour session at the Supreme Court.

Sauer replied that Trump’s attorneys had not raised that concern “directly” in the current Supreme Court case — in which justices are considering Trump’s arguments that presidential immunity precludes the prosecution of charges that the former president illegally sought to overturn the 2020 election.

Sauer told Thomas that, “we totally agree with the analysis provided by Attorney General Meese [III] and Attorney General Mukasey.” 

“It points to a very important issue here because one of [the special counsel’s] arguments is, of course, that we should have this presumption of regularity. That runs into the reality that we have here an extraordinary prosecutorial power being exercised by someone who was never nominated by the president or confirmed by the Senate at any time. So we agree with that position. We hadn’t raised it yet in this case when this case went up on appeal,” Sauer said.

Donald Trump, Justice Clarence Thomas, Special Counsel Jack Smith Fox News

Donald Trump, Justice Clarence Thomas, Special Counsel Jack Smith Fox News© Getty Images

In a 42-page amicus brief presented to the high court in March, Meese and Mukasey questioned whether “Jack Smith has lawful authority to undertake the ‘criminal prosecution'” of Trump. Mukasey and Meese — both former U.S. attorneys general — said Smith and the Office of Special Counsel itself have no authority to prosecute, in part because he was never confirmed by the Senate to any position

Federal prosecutions, “can be taken only by persons properly appointed as federal officers to properly created federal offices,” Meese and Mukasey argued. “But neither Smith nor the position of special counsel under which he purportedly acts meets those criteria. He wields tremendous power, effectively answerable to no one, by design. And that is a serious problem for the rule of law — whatever one may think of former President Trump or the conduct on January 6, 2021, that Smith challenges in the underlying case.”

The crux of the problem, according to Meese, is that Smith was never confirmed by the Senate as a U.S. attorney, and no other statute allows the U.S. attorney general to name merely anyone as special counsel. Smith was acting U.S. attorney for a federal district in Tennessee in 2017, but he was never nominated to the position. He resigned from the private sector after then-President Trump nominated a different prosecutor as U.S. attorney for the middle district of Tennessee.

The Supreme Court heard Trump's arguments about presidential immunity earlier this week. Getty Images

The Supreme Court heard Trump’s arguments about presidential immunity earlier this week. Getty Images© Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Meese and Mukasey argued that because the special counsel exercises broad authority to convene grand juries and make prosecutorial decisions, independent of the White House or the attorney general, he is far more powerful than any government officer who has not been confirmed by the Senate. 

Sauer and Trump’s other attorneys objected to the legitimacy of Smith’s appointment in the charges against Trump in the classified documents case, also brought by Smith, before a Florida federal court. 

In a March court filing in Florida, Trump’s attorneys claimed that the special counsel’s office argues in federal court that Smith is wholly independent of the White House and Garland — contradicting Trump’s arguments that the federal charges against him are politically motivated. But at the same time, the special counsel’s attorneys insist that Smith is subordinate to the attorney general, and therefore not subject to Senate confirmation under the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

SPECIAL COUNSEL IN TRUMP CASE UNCONSTITUTIONAL, FORMER REAGAN AG SAYS

“There is significant tension between the Office’s assurances to that court that Smith is independent, and not prosecuting the Republican nominee for President at the direction of the Biden Administration, and the Office’s assurance here that Smith is not independent and is instead so thoroughly supervised and accountable to President Biden and Attorney General Garland that this Court should not be concerned about such tremendous power being exercised to alter the trajectory of the ongoing presidential election,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in the filing.

The special counsel’s office, responding to Trump’s claims in the Florida case, argued that the attorney general “has the statutory authority to appoint a Special Prosecutor” and that the Supreme Court even upheld that authority “in closely analogous circumstances nearly 50 years ago” — in a 1974 case that challenged the prosecutor investigating the late President Richard Nixon. 

Meese and Mukasey wrote in their brief that the Nixon case was irrelevant because it “concerned the relationship between the President and DOJ as an institution, not between the President and any specific actor purportedly appointed by DOJ.” 

The pair also said special counsel investigations are necessary and often lawful, but stated that “the Attorney General cannot appoint someone never confirmed by the Senate, as a substitute United States Attorney under the title ‘Special Counsel.’ Smith’s appointment was thus unlawful, as are all actions flowing from it, including his prosecution of former President Trump.”

Smith was a private citizen when Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed him as special counsel to investigate Trump in 2022. 

U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith has charged Trump in Florida for allegedly mishandling classified documents and in Washington, D.C., for election interference. Getty Images

U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith has charged Trump in Florida for allegedly mishandling classified documents and in Washington, D.C., for election interference. Getty Images© Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Other recent special counsels — including John Durham’s Trump-Russia probe; David Weiss of the Hunter Biden investigation; and Robert Hur, who investigated Biden’s mishandling of classified documents — were all confirmed by the Senate to various positions before being named as special counsels. 

The Florida court has yet to rule on Trump’s motion to dismiss the classified documents case due to claims that Smith was improperly appointed. 

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on Trump’s immunity arguments before its term ends in June.

Original article source: Justice Thomas raised crucial question about legitimacy of special counsel’s prosecution of Trump

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