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Demonstrators in Washington mark the one year anniversary of Myanmar’s ethnic cleansing of Rohingya by demanding more economic sanctions and recognition by the U.S. that what happened to the Rohingya was genocide. Anna Kook reports from Capitol Hill for VOA.
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Demonstrators in Washington mark the one year anniversary of Myanmar’s ethnic cleansing of Rohingya by demanding more economic sanctions and recognition by the U.S. that what happened to the Rohingya was genocide. Anna Kook reports from Capitol Hill for VOA.
…

She is many things that would seem to irritate President Donald Trump: a liberal Canadian former journalist.

That makes Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland an unusual choice to lead Canada’s negotiations over a new free trade deal with a surprisingly hostile U.S. administration.

Recruited into politics by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Freeland has already clashed with Russia and Saudi Arabia. Those who know her say she’s unlikely to back down in a confrontation with Trump.

“She is everything the Trump administration loathes,” said Sarah Goldfeder, a former official with the U.S. Embassy in Canada.

Freeland, a globalist negotiating with a U.S. administration that believes in economic nationalism and populism, hopes to salvage a free trade deal with Canada’s largest trading partner as talks resumed Wednesday in Washington. The 50-year-old Harvard graduate and Rhodes scholar speaks five languages and has influential friends around the world.

“I have enormous sympathy for her because she is negotiating with an unpredictable, irrational partner,” said CNN host Fareed Zakaria, a friend of Freeland’s for 25 years.

Freeland cut short a trip to Europe last week after Trump reached a deal with Mexico that excluded Canada. Talks with Canada resumed but Trump said he wasn’t willing to make any concessions.

The Trump administration left Canada out of the talks for five weeks not long after the president vowed to make Canada pay after Trudeau said at the G-7 in Quebec he wouldn’t let Canada get pushed around in trade talks. Freeland then poked the U.S. when she received Foreign Policy magazine’s diplomat of the year award in Washington.

“You may feel today that your size allows you to go mano-a-mano with your traditional adversaries and be guaranteed to win,” Freeland said in the June speech. “But if history tells us one thing, it is that no one nation’s pre-eminence is eternal.”

Despite being the chief negotiator with the Trump administration, Freeland has criticized it when few other leaders of Western democracies have.

“She’s an extremely strong-willed and capable young woman, and I think Trump generally has a problem with that,” said Ian Bremmer, a longtime friend and foreign affairs columnist and president of the Eurasia Group. “She’s not going to bat her eyelashes at Trump to get something done. That’s not Chrystia. She doesn’t play games.”

After Freeland and her department tweeted criticism of Saudi Arabia last month for the arrest of social activists in the kingdom, Canada suffered consequences. The Saudis suspended diplomatic relations and canceled new trade with Canada and sold off Canadian assets.

Peter MacKay, a former Canadian foreign minister, said public shaming like that doesn’t work and said some Americans viewed her June speech in Washington as something less than diplomatic.

“It was around that time, within days, that the U.S. threw Canada out of the room,” MacKay said. “There is sometimes concern that she is taking the lead from her prime minister by playing a little bit to a domestic audience.”

Trudeau personally recruited Freeland to join his Liberal Party while it was the third party in Parliament in 2013. Freeland had a senior position at the Reuters news agency but was ready to move on after setbacks in her journalism career, said Martin Wolf, an influential Financial Times columnist and longtime friend.

Freeland previously had risen rapidly at the Financial Times where she became Moscow bureau chief in her mid-20s during the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Freeland also served as deputy editor of the Globe and Mail in Toronto and the Financial Times. She had designs on becoming editor of the Financial Times but left after a clash with the top editor. She was familiar to many TV viewers in the U.S. because of her regular appearances on talk shows like Zakaria’s.

“She was a godsend for us, frankly, because she is so bright and so talented and articulate,” Zakaria said. “She is as about as impressive a person as I have met.”

Freeland, who is of Ukrainian heritage, also wrote a well-received book on Russia and left journalism for politics in 2013 when she won a district in Toronto. She has been a frequent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who banned her from traveling to the country in 2014 in retaliation for Western sanctions against Moscow.

She remains chummy with journalists, even bringing them frozen treats in 90-degree heat last week while they waited outside the U.S. Trade Representative office in Washington.

Bremmer, who met Freeland in Kiev in 1992, good-naturedly chided her for a strange foible: a habit of writing notes on her hands even when she has notepads.

“I have seen in her environments with foreign ministers and heads of state with stuff on her hands,” he said with a laugh.

Throughout her career, Freeland has cultivated an impressive group of friends. Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor, is a godfather to one of her three children. Friends include Larry Summers, the former U.S. treasury secretary, and billionaires George Soros and Stephen Schwarzman, the Blackstone Group chief executive who once led one of Trump’s disbanded business councils.

“I always found her to be extremely smart and easy to talk with,” Schwarzman said. “She accessible and direct and quick. You don’t get to be a Rhodes scholar by accident.”

Summers is a mentor from Harvard.

“Her clarity of thought, straightforwardness and deep sense of principle make her an ideal leader of the international community as it responds to highly problematic American policy,” Summers said in an email.

Bremmer said Freeland has serious globalist credentials, “but right now, momentum is not with that group globally.”

When Trudeau became prime minister in 2015, he named Freeland to his Cabinet. She served as international trade minister and worked on ensuring that a free trade deal with the European Union didn’t unravel. At one point, she left stalled talks near tears after saying it had been impossible to overcome differences. An agreement was reached not long after that, and Freeland received credit.

Now she’s facing her toughest challenge with the North American Free Trade Agreement, since the U.S. represents 75 percent of Canada’s exports.

“Canada is stuck with the United States. That’s Canada’s trade,” Bremmer said. “Canadians are going to have to swallow a fair amount of pride. They are going have to pretend they like this guy a lot more than they obviously do or they risk getting much more economically punished. That’s just the reality.”
…

She is many things that would seem to irritate President Donald Trump: a liberal Canadian former journalist.

That makes Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland an unusual choice to lead Canada’s negotiations over a new free trade deal with a surprisingly hostile U.S. administration.

Recruited into politics by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Freeland has already clashed with Russia and Saudi Arabia. Those who know her say she’s unlikely to back down in a confrontation with Trump.

“She is everything the Trump administration loathes,” said Sarah Goldfeder, a former official with the U.S. Embassy in Canada.

Freeland, a globalist negotiating with a U.S. administration that believes in economic nationalism and populism, hopes to salvage a free trade deal with Canada’s largest trading partner as talks resumed Wednesday in Washington. The 50-year-old Harvard graduate and Rhodes scholar speaks five languages and has influential friends around the world.

“I have enormous sympathy for her because she is negotiating with an unpredictable, irrational partner,” said CNN host Fareed Zakaria, a friend of Freeland’s for 25 years.

Freeland cut short a trip to Europe last week after Trump reached a deal with Mexico that excluded Canada. Talks with Canada resumed but Trump said he wasn’t willing to make any concessions.

The Trump administration left Canada out of the talks for five weeks not long after the president vowed to make Canada pay after Trudeau said at the G-7 in Quebec he wouldn’t let Canada get pushed around in trade talks. Freeland then poked the U.S. when she received Foreign Policy magazine’s diplomat of the year award in Washington.

“You may feel today that your size allows you to go mano-a-mano with your traditional adversaries and be guaranteed to win,” Freeland said in the June speech. “But if history tells us one thing, it is that no one nation’s pre-eminence is eternal.”

Despite being the chief negotiator with the Trump administration, Freeland has criticized it when few other leaders of Western democracies have.

“She’s an extremely strong-willed and capable young woman, and I think Trump generally has a problem with that,” said Ian Bremmer, a longtime friend and foreign affairs columnist and president of the Eurasia Group. “She’s not going to bat her eyelashes at Trump to get something done. That’s not Chrystia. She doesn’t play games.”

After Freeland and her department tweeted criticism of Saudi Arabia last month for the arrest of social activists in the kingdom, Canada suffered consequences. The Saudis suspended diplomatic relations and canceled new trade with Canada and sold off Canadian assets.

Peter MacKay, a former Canadian foreign minister, said public shaming like that doesn’t work and said some Americans viewed her June speech in Washington as something less than diplomatic.

“It was around that time, within days, that the U.S. threw Canada out of the room,” MacKay said. “There is sometimes concern that she is taking the lead from her prime minister by playing a little bit to a domestic audience.”

Trudeau personally recruited Freeland to join his Liberal Party while it was the third party in Parliament in 2013. Freeland had a senior position at the Reuters news agency but was ready to move on after setbacks in her journalism career, said Martin Wolf, an influential Financial Times columnist and longtime friend.

Freeland previously had risen rapidly at the Financial Times where she became Moscow bureau chief in her mid-20s during the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Freeland also served as deputy editor of the Globe and Mail in Toronto and the Financial Times. She had designs on becoming editor of the Financial Times but left after a clash with the top editor. She was familiar to many TV viewers in the U.S. because of her regular appearances on talk shows like Zakaria’s.

“She was a godsend for us, frankly, because she is so bright and so talented and articulate,” Zakaria said. “She is as about as impressive a person as I have met.”

Freeland, who is of Ukrainian heritage, also wrote a well-received book on Russia and left journalism for politics in 2013 when she won a district in Toronto. She has been a frequent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who banned her from traveling to the country in 2014 in retaliation for Western sanctions against Moscow.

She remains chummy with journalists, even bringing them frozen treats in 90-degree heat last week while they waited outside the U.S. Trade Representative office in Washington.

Bremmer, who met Freeland in Kiev in 1992, good-naturedly chided her for a strange foible: a habit of writing notes on her hands even when she has notepads.

“I have seen in her environments with foreign ministers and heads of state with stuff on her hands,” he said with a laugh.

Throughout her career, Freeland has cultivated an impressive group of friends. Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor, is a godfather to one of her three children. Friends include Larry Summers, the former U.S. treasury secretary, and billionaires George Soros and Stephen Schwarzman, the Blackstone Group chief executive who once led one of Trump’s disbanded business councils.

“I always found her to be extremely smart and easy to talk with,” Schwarzman said. “She accessible and direct and quick. You don’t get to be a Rhodes scholar by accident.”

Summers is a mentor from Harvard.

“Her clarity of thought, straightforwardness and deep sense of principle make her an ideal leader of the international community as it responds to highly problematic American policy,” Summers said in an email.

Bremmer said Freeland has serious globalist credentials, “but right now, momentum is not with that group globally.”

When Trudeau became prime minister in 2015, he named Freeland to his Cabinet. She served as international trade minister and worked on ensuring that a free trade deal with the European Union didn’t unravel. At one point, she left stalled talks near tears after saying it had been impossible to overcome differences. An agreement was reached not long after that, and Freeland received credit.

Now she’s facing her toughest challenge with the North American Free Trade Agreement, since the U.S. represents 75 percent of Canada’s exports.

“Canada is stuck with the United States. That’s Canada’s trade,” Bremmer said. “Canadians are going to have to swallow a fair amount of pride. They are going have to pretend they like this guy a lot more than they obviously do or they risk getting much more economically punished. That’s just the reality.”
…

UU.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh pledged judicial independence from President Donald Trump in testimony Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“I’m an independent judge,” Kavanaugh said when asked by Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch for assurances that, if confirmed to the high court, he would not be swayed by the views or interests of Trump, who nominated him in July.

“I owe my loyalty to the Constitution, and the Constitution establishes me as an independent judge, bound to follow the law as written,” the 53 year-old federal appellate judge added.

Kavanaugh asserted “no one is above the law in our constitutional system” and that “no matter your station in life, no matter your position in government, it’s all equal justice under law.”  But he declined to say whether a sitting president, like all other citizens, must respond to a subpoena to provide testimony.

“I can’t give you an answer on that hypothetical question,” the nominee said.

The issue has particular relevance given special counsel Robert Mueller’s continuing probe of the 2016 Trump campaign’s alleged links to Russia.  Mueller has not subpoenaed Trump, but it remains an option in his ongoing investigation of Russian meddling in the election.

In the 1990s, as an attorney, Kavanaugh took part in an investigation of then-president Bill Clinton that compelled Clinton to testify.  Years later, having served in the George W. Bush administration, Kavanaugh wrote that presidents should be shielded from legal proceedings while in office.

Nominated to fill the seat of retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, Kavanaugh told lawmakers he has not hesitated to make unpopular rulings in the past.  He cited his opinion in a case releasing Osama bin Laden’s former chauffeur, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, from detention at the U.S. military facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“You’ll never have a nominee who’s ruled for a more unpopular defendant,” Kavanaugh said. He said judges should not make decisions based on who people are, but “whether they have the law on their side.  My personal beliefs are not relevant.”

While Republican senators posed many questions on Kavanaugh’s overall judicial philosophy, Democrats zeroed in on hot-button issues from gun control to abortion rights in America.

The committee’s top Democrat, Dianne Feinstein, sought assurances that the nominee views as settled law the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 decision, Roe v. Wade, establishing abortion rights nationwide.

“It’s an important precedent of the Supreme Court that’s been reaffirmed many times,” Kavanaugh said.  “I understand the importance of the issue.  I don’t live in a bubble, I live in the real world.”

He described a 1992 decision reaffirming the original ruling as “precedent upon precedent.”  He said Americans “need to know the law is predictable.  Precedent is the foundation of our system.”

Numerous women’s groups are opposing Kavanaugh’s nomination, fearing he would vote with other conservative justices to restrict or eliminate abortion rights.

Protesters periodically interrupted the hearing.  One repeatedly shouted, “Sham president, sham justice.”

If approved by the Republican-led committee, Kavanaugh’s nomination would go to the full Senate, where Republicans will hold a slim 51-49 majority.  So far, no Republicans have said they plan to vote against Kavanaugh.  Dozens of Democrats have announced their opposition.

 
…

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday called on Myanmar’s government to reverse a court ruling that imprisoned two Reuters journalists for seven years and to release them immediately.

The journalists were found guilty Monday on official-secrets charges in a landmark case seen as a test of progress toward democracy in Myanmar, which was ruled by a military junta until 2011.

Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were investigating the killing by security forces of Rohingya villagers at the time of their arrest last December, and had pleaded not guilty.

“Wa Lone & Kyaw Soe Oo shd be commended ‘not imprisoned’ for their work exposing human rights violations & mass killings. Freedom of religion & freedom of the press are essential to a strong democracy,” Pence wrote on Twitter.

Pence is the most senior U.S. official to add his voice to an international outcry against the verdict by a Myanmar judge, who said the two had breached the colonial-era Official Secrets Act when they collected and obtained confidential documents.

In Yangon earlier Tuesday, the wives of the two journalists insisted that the men were innocent and called for them to be reunited with their families.

“Deeply troubled by the Burmese court ruling sentencing 2 @Reuters journalists to 7 years in jail for doing their job reporting on the atrocities being committed on the Rohingya people,” Pence wrote in another tweet.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Tuesday that the United States would become more vocal about the two journalists’ situation.

Speaking at a news conference in New York marking the U.S. assumption of the rotating chairmanship of the Security Council for September, Haley said the reporters were “in prison for telling the truth.”

Mark Green, administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development, said “these convictions are an enormous setback for democracy and the rule of law in Burma.”

Mounting pressure

The verdict came amid mounting pressure on the government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi over a security crackdown sparked by attacks by Rohingya Muslim insurgents on security forces in Rakhine state in west Myanmar in August 2017.

More than 700,000 stateless Rohingya Muslims have fled into Bangladesh since then, according to U.N. agencies. The Rohingya, who regard themselves as native to Rakhine, are widely considered as interlopers by the country’s Buddhist majority and are denied citizenship.

Neither Suu Kyi nor her government have commented publicly on the case since the reporters were convicted.

The journalists were arrested December 12 while investigating the killing of 10 Rohingya men and boys and other abuses involving soldiers and police in the village of Inn Din.

Myanmar has denied allegations of atrocities against Rohingya by its security forces, saying it conducted a legitimate counterinsurgency operation against Muslim militants.

The military acknowledged the killing of the 10 Rohingya at Inn Din after arresting the Reuters reporters.

A U.N-mandated fact-finding mission said last week that Myanmar’s military carried out mass killings and gang rapes of Muslim Rohingya with “genocidal intent” and called for top generals to be prosecuted. Myanmar rejected the findings.

The International Criminal Court is considering whether it has jurisdiction over events in Rakhine, while the United States, the European Union and Canada have sanctioned Myanmar military and police officers over the crackdown.
…

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday called on Myanmar’s government to reverse a court ruling that imprisoned two Reuters journalists for seven years and to release them immediately.

The journalists were found guilty Monday on official-secrets charges in a landmark case seen as a test of progress toward democracy in Myanmar, which was ruled by a military junta until 2011.

Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were investigating the killing by security forces of Rohingya villagers at the time of their arrest last December, and had pleaded not guilty.

“Wa Lone & Kyaw Soe Oo shd be commended ‘not imprisoned’ for their work exposing human rights violations & mass killings. Freedom of religion & freedom of the press are essential to a strong democracy,” Pence wrote on Twitter.

Pence is the most senior U.S. official to add his voice to an international outcry against the verdict by a Myanmar judge, who said the two had breached the colonial-era Official Secrets Act when they collected and obtained confidential documents.

In Yangon earlier Tuesday, the wives of the two journalists insisted that the men were innocent and called for them to be reunited with their families.

“Deeply troubled by the Burmese court ruling sentencing 2 @Reuters journalists to 7 years in jail for doing their job reporting on the atrocities being committed on the Rohingya people,” Pence wrote in another tweet.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Tuesday that the United States would become more vocal about the two journalists’ situation.

Speaking at a news conference in New York marking the U.S. assumption of the rotating chairmanship of the Security Council for September, Haley said the reporters were “in prison for telling the truth.”

Mark Green, administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development, said “these convictions are an enormous setback for democracy and the rule of law in Burma.”

Mounting pressure

The verdict came amid mounting pressure on the government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi over a security crackdown sparked by attacks by Rohingya Muslim insurgents on security forces in Rakhine state in west Myanmar in August 2017.

More than 700,000 stateless Rohingya Muslims have fled into Bangladesh since then, according to U.N. agencies. The Rohingya, who regard themselves as native to Rakhine, are widely considered as interlopers by the country’s Buddhist majority and are denied citizenship.

Neither Suu Kyi nor her government have commented publicly on the case since the reporters were convicted.

The journalists were arrested December 12 while investigating the killing of 10 Rohingya men and boys and other abuses involving soldiers and police in the village of Inn Din.

Myanmar has denied allegations of atrocities against Rohingya by its security forces, saying it conducted a legitimate counterinsurgency operation against Muslim militants.

The military acknowledged the killing of the 10 Rohingya at Inn Din after arresting the Reuters reporters.

A U.N-mandated fact-finding mission said last week that Myanmar’s military carried out mass killings and gang rapes of Muslim Rohingya with “genocidal intent” and called for top generals to be prosecuted. Myanmar rejected the findings.

The International Criminal Court is considering whether it has jurisdiction over events in Rakhine, while the United States, the European Union and Canada have sanctioned Myanmar military and police officers over the crackdown.
…

President Donald Trump’s latest attack on social media against Attorney General Jeff Sessions is seen by experts and lawmakers as an aberration in American politics and yet another assault on the country’s judicial independence.

Critics view Trump’s disparaging remarks about Sessions for his department’s indictments of two Republican lawmakers as an example of how much Trump misunderstands the president’s authority and obligations under the U.S. constitutional system.

In a tweet Monday, Trump accused Sessions of jeopardizing the chances of re-election for two Republican congressmen by bringing criminal charges against them just before the midterm elections in November.

Representatives Duncan Hunter of California and Chris Collins of New York were indicted last month on unrelated charges. Hunter was charged with using campaign funds for personal use. Collins was charged with 13 counts related to securities fraud and insider trading. Both lawmakers have pleaded not guilty.

Damage to administration of justice

Trump’s denunciation of Sessions “crosses a well-established line,” said Nancy V. Baker, emeritus professor of government at New Mexico State University and author of Conflicting Loyalties: Law and Politics in the Attorney General’s Office.

Baker noted that even if all of this remains in the level of discourse and Trump doesn’t fire Sessions or anyone else in the Justice Department he’s unhappy with, the president “severely damages the administration of justice” every time he makes a threatening remark.

“Public perceptions are important,” Baker said. Trump’s comments make it clear that he sees his office as “above the law, which directly undermines the ancient principle of rule of law, that the law applies without fear or favor, and no one is above it.”

In an interview with The New York Times in 2017, Trump was asked if he would reopen the investigation into former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state. Trump replied, “I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department.”

In the same interview, Trump asserted that Eric Holder, attorney general under President Barack Obama, “protected” Obama during his presidency. Holder pushed back, saying that as attorney general, he had a president he “did not have to protect.”

Fraught relationship

Sessions was an early Trump supporter in 2016. But their relationship has been fraught with conflict, particularly after the attorney general recused himself in March 2017 from any Justice Department investigations into Russian meddling in the U.S. 2016 election. American intelligence agencies have concluded that Moscow interfered to help Trump win.

Trump told the Times in July 2017 that he wouldn’t have considered Sessions for the Cabinet role if he had known Sessions would bow out of the Russia investigation. Trump said he thought it was “very unfair to the president” that Sessions “takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himself.”

Since Sessions’ recusal, Trump has lashed out at him multiple times, blaming the attorney general for multiple offenses, including “being weak on Hillary Clinton” and the Russia investigation.

According to Fear: Trump in the White House, a new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bob Woodward, aside from his public chastising of Sessions, in private, Trump has called him “mentally retarded” and a “dumb Southerner.”

In response to these attacks on Sessions, the nonprofit advocacy group Protect Democracy released a white paper in March titled No “Absolute Right” to Control DOJ: Constitutional Limits on White House Interference with Law Enforcement Matters.

The authors of the paper wrote that White House interventions based on the president’s personal or corrupt interests are “always unconstitutional.” In addition, they wrote that in a constitutional democracy, “those in office should not wield the powers of the state to benefit their political allies and punish their opponents.”

Alarm from Congress

Members of Congress from both political parties have expressed alarm.

“Our justice system is under attack,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said Tuesday.

Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, called Trump’s actions “unprecedented in American history.” He said Trump’s tweets had demonstrated that he “has virtually no respect for the rule of law.”

Lawmakers from Trump’s own party argued that the president was trying to politicize the Justice Department.

Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska released a statement saying, “The United States is not some banana republic with a two-tiered system of justice — one for the majority party and one for the minority party.”

Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona tweeted that Trump was “looking to use the Department of Justice to settle political scores.”

Although presidents and attorney generals have clashed in previous administrations, experts see Trump as breaking new ground in terms of the public and aggressive ways he pressures Sessions.

Baker noted that after Watergate, presidents were “careful to restrict White House communications with anyone at Justice except the attorney general, and even then, keeping records of any communication.”

In the 1972 Watergate scandal, Republican President Richard Nixon and Attorney General John Mitchell were linked to a crime in which former FBI and CIA agents broke into the offices of the Democratic National Committee, located in the Watergate office complex in Washington, to steal secret documents. The scandal severely damaged public confidence in the impartial administration of justice.
…

President Donald Trump’s latest attack on social media against Attorney General Jeff Sessions is seen by experts and lawmakers as an aberration in American politics and yet another assault on the country’s judicial independence.

Critics view Trump’s disparaging remarks about Sessions for his department’s indictments of two Republican lawmakers as an example of how much Trump misunderstands the president’s authority and obligations under the U.S. constitutional system.

In a tweet Monday, Trump accused Sessions of jeopardizing the chances of re-election for two Republican congressmen by bringing criminal charges against them just before the midterm elections in November.

Representatives Duncan Hunter of California and Chris Collins of New York were indicted last month on unrelated charges. Hunter was charged with using campaign funds for personal use. Collins was charged with 13 counts related to securities fraud and insider trading. Both lawmakers have pleaded not guilty.

Damage to administration of justice

Trump’s denunciation of Sessions “crosses a well-established line,” said Nancy V. Baker, emeritus professor of government at New Mexico State University and author of Conflicting Loyalties: Law and Politics in the Attorney General’s Office.

Baker noted that even if all of this remains in the level of discourse and Trump doesn’t fire Sessions or anyone else in the Justice Department he’s unhappy with, the president “severely damages the administration of justice” every time he makes a threatening remark.

“Public perceptions are important,” Baker said. Trump’s comments make it clear that he sees his office as “above the law, which directly undermines the ancient principle of rule of law, that the law applies without fear or favor, and no one is above it.”

In an interview with The New York Times in 2017, Trump was asked if he would reopen the investigation into former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state. Trump replied, “I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department.”

In the same interview, Trump asserted that Eric Holder, attorney general under President Barack Obama, “protected” Obama during his presidency. Holder pushed back, saying that as attorney general, he had a president he “did not have to protect.”

Fraught relationship

Sessions was an early Trump supporter in 2016. But their relationship has been fraught with conflict, particularly after the attorney general recused himself in March 2017 from any Justice Department investigations into Russian meddling in the U.S. 2016 election. American intelligence agencies have concluded that Moscow interfered to help Trump win.

Trump told the Times in July 2017 that he wouldn’t have considered Sessions for the Cabinet role if he had known Sessions would bow out of the Russia investigation. Trump said he thought it was “very unfair to the president” that Sessions “takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himself.”

Since Sessions’ recusal, Trump has lashed out at him multiple times, blaming the attorney general for multiple offenses, including “being weak on Hillary Clinton” and the Russia investigation.

According to Fear: Trump in the White House, a new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bob Woodward, aside from his public chastising of Sessions, in private, Trump has called him “mentally retarded” and a “dumb Southerner.”

In response to these attacks on Sessions, the nonprofit advocacy group Protect Democracy released a white paper in March titled No “Absolute Right” to Control DOJ: Constitutional Limits on White House Interference with Law Enforcement Matters.

The authors of the paper wrote that White House interventions based on the president’s personal or corrupt interests are “always unconstitutional.” In addition, they wrote that in a constitutional democracy, “those in office should not wield the powers of the state to benefit their political allies and punish their opponents.”

Alarm from Congress

Members of Congress from both political parties have expressed alarm.

“Our justice system is under attack,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said Tuesday.

Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, called Trump’s actions “unprecedented in American history.” He said Trump’s tweets had demonstrated that he “has virtually no respect for the rule of law.”

Lawmakers from Trump’s own party argued that the president was trying to politicize the Justice Department.

Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska released a statement saying, “The United States is not some banana republic with a two-tiered system of justice — one for the majority party and one for the minority party.”

Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona tweeted that Trump was “looking to use the Department of Justice to settle political scores.”

Although presidents and attorney generals have clashed in previous administrations, experts see Trump as breaking new ground in terms of the public and aggressive ways he pressures Sessions.

Baker noted that after Watergate, presidents were “careful to restrict White House communications with anyone at Justice except the attorney general, and even then, keeping records of any communication.”

In the 1972 Watergate scandal, Republican President Richard Nixon and Attorney General John Mitchell were linked to a crime in which former FBI and CIA agents broke into the offices of the Democratic National Committee, located in the Watergate office complex in Washington, to steal secret documents. The scandal severely damaged public confidence in the impartial administration of justice.
…

A panel of federal judges formally backed off Tuesday on the idea of requiring a new congressional map for North Carolina’s fall elections, one week after broaching the possibility when the judges declared the current lines illegal partisan gerrymanders.

While declaring 12 of North Carolina’s 13 districts violated the U.S. Constitution, the three judges had suggested ordering the Republican-dominated legislature or an outside expert to redraw the entire map, possibly by mid-September. They envisioned holding primaries for redrawn seats on Election Day, or perhaps having no primaries this year at all.

The panel shelved those ideas after hearing from the parties in the lawsuit late last week.

“We conclude that there is insufficient time for this court to approve a new districting plan and for the state to conduct an election using that plan prior to the seating of the new Congress in January 2019,” the judges wrote in Tuesday’s order.

In particular, the election advocacy groups, the state Democratic Party and Democratic voters who were victorious in their lawsuits wrote that regretfully they opposed a quick fix for the fall because it would be “too disruptive and potentially counterproductive.”

Any new map also would have required weeks of preparation by state election officials to carry out. The state elections board also told the court there was essentially only one doable option — holding a stand-alone congressional election a week before Christmas.

Democratic prospects

New boundaries may have helped Democrats be competitive in more seats on a map that Republicans approved in 2016 with a goal of preserving 10 of the seats for the GOP. Democrats nationally need to flip about two dozen Republican seats in November to take control of the House again.

But the plaintiffs wrote last Friday that a rush to alter the map and hold an election on an unusual date could make it harder for Democrats to pick up seats in North Carolina in part by depressing voter turnout among young people and minorities.

“Because these populations tend to support the Democratic Party, it is entirely possible that this proposal would actually hurt, rather than help, the electoral prospects of the Democratic Party — exactly what the legislative defendants sought to do through the unconstitutional 2016 plan,” they wrote.

It wasn’t surprising that attorneys for the Republican lawmakers who were sued fought any new map this fall. They say partisan gerrymandering claims are groundless and have never been affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court. They had asked the judges to delay the enforcement of last week’s ruling and filed a notice of appeal to the Supreme Court.

Attorneys for some of the plaintiffs wrote earlier Tuesday that they would be willing to accept a delay as long as a schedule is in place to make it likely for the Supreme Court to hear the cause during the upcoming term if the justices chose to do so. That would mean a ruling by next June that affirms the lower-court decision would leave time for a redraw well before the 2020 elections, the attorneys wrote.

In Tuesday’s order, the three judges also asked for more responses to the GOP lawmakers’ delay request by late Wednesday.

The same three-judge panel declared unconstitutional the state’s congressional map last January, but the Supreme Court returned the case to the judges in June to review in light of a Wisconsin case.
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A panel of federal judges formally backed off Tuesday on the idea of requiring a new congressional map for North Carolina’s fall elections, one week after broaching the possibility when the judges declared the current lines illegal partisan gerrymanders.

While declaring 12 of North Carolina’s 13 districts violated the U.S. Constitution, the three judges had suggested ordering the Republican-dominated legislature or an outside expert to redraw the entire map, possibly by mid-September. They envisioned holding primaries for redrawn seats on Election Day, or perhaps having no primaries this year at all.

The panel shelved those ideas after hearing from the parties in the lawsuit late last week.

“We conclude that there is insufficient time for this court to approve a new districting plan and for the state to conduct an election using that plan prior to the seating of the new Congress in January 2019,” the judges wrote in Tuesday’s order.

In particular, the election advocacy groups, the state Democratic Party and Democratic voters who were victorious in their lawsuits wrote that regretfully they opposed a quick fix for the fall because it would be “too disruptive and potentially counterproductive.”

Any new map also would have required weeks of preparation by state election officials to carry out. The state elections board also told the court there was essentially only one doable option — holding a stand-alone congressional election a week before Christmas.

Democratic prospects

New boundaries may have helped Democrats be competitive in more seats on a map that Republicans approved in 2016 with a goal of preserving 10 of the seats for the GOP. Democrats nationally need to flip about two dozen Republican seats in November to take control of the House again.

But the plaintiffs wrote last Friday that a rush to alter the map and hold an election on an unusual date could make it harder for Democrats to pick up seats in North Carolina in part by depressing voter turnout among young people and minorities.

“Because these populations tend to support the Democratic Party, it is entirely possible that this proposal would actually hurt, rather than help, the electoral prospects of the Democratic Party — exactly what the legislative defendants sought to do through the unconstitutional 2016 plan,” they wrote.

It wasn’t surprising that attorneys for the Republican lawmakers who were sued fought any new map this fall. They say partisan gerrymandering claims are groundless and have never been affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court. They had asked the judges to delay the enforcement of last week’s ruling and filed a notice of appeal to the Supreme Court.

Attorneys for some of the plaintiffs wrote earlier Tuesday that they would be willing to accept a delay as long as a schedule is in place to make it likely for the Supreme Court to hear the cause during the upcoming term if the justices chose to do so. That would mean a ruling by next June that affirms the lower-court decision would leave time for a redraw well before the 2020 elections, the attorneys wrote.

In Tuesday’s order, the three judges also asked for more responses to the GOP lawmakers’ delay request by late Wednesday.

The same three-judge panel declared unconstitutional the state’s congressional map last January, but the Supreme Court returned the case to the judges in June to review in light of a Wisconsin case.
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