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Not That McCarthyism
QAnon Shaman, Destroyer of Democracy.
His columns are clear, concise, and indicate someone trying mightily to call balls and strikes. If there is one blind spot in his analysis, it is that he consistently assumes facts in evidence which are not. Almost always, this is the result of his accepting, as a predicate and at face value, the righteousness of government actors. He particularly tends to extend to the FBI and the DOJ a presumption of professionalism and moral conduct that is not warranted — a tendency I refer to as McCarthyism.
I tend to accept as a sad truth the proposition that the highest levels of the FBI and the DOJ are ardent advocates of and forces for fascism. From the suppression of free speech that challenges the government’s propaganda, to collusion with enemies of the state such as Hillary Clinton to the prosecution of praying Americans to ignoring the intimidation of Supreme Court justices, fascists are plying their evil trade all around us.
I believe this blind spot in Mr. McCarthy’s worldview will soon come back to bite him as regards one Mr. Chansley, Shaman of the Common. He being the horn-bedecked denizen of the Capitol. Tucker Carlson’s reporting has recently broadcast video showing Mr. Chansley as the honored guest of scores of security personnel and Capitol police as they guide him around the environs.
In defense of his comrades in arms, federal prosecutors, Mr. McCarthy asserts in a recent column disparaging the accuracy of Tucker’s reporting, “His [Chansley’s] lawyers would have insisted on being shown any potentially exculpatory evidence prior to the guilty plea, and the prosecutors would have been obliged to produce it. I presume Chansley knew about this video, or at least images just like it; after all, he was in the Capitol and knew what he experienced there, including his interactions with the police.”
Well, presume not, want not. On Wednesday’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Al Watkins, Mr. Chansley’s former lawyer, made very clear that (1) they asked for all exculpatory video and were denied access, (2) that the prosecution had a legal duty to provide the possibly exculpatory video showing Mr. Chansley’s engaged in exclusively peaceful behavior (which is true) and (3) that there now appears to be strong grounds for an appeal.
Mr. McCarthy would do well to cut back on his presuming, unless it is a presumption that an increasingly fascist administration is stripping innocent civilians of their civil rights. Merrick Garland is like Albert Speer though lacking his aesthetic genius much as Biden is a lot like Hitler though lacking his warmth. Even Hitler never showered with his daughter.
Published in General
Violin and trumpet solos are the worst.
But the picture is of a viola.
It isn’t whether is was exculpatory or not, but whether the one making the confession would have believed it might have been at the time before signing his plea arrangement.
I agree – McCarthy columns are well written and informative. He does have a soft spot for DOJ/FBI. It makes sense, given the amount of years he spent in the Justice Department. I have no delusions for any federal agency. I think they got too powerful and filled people who are never held in account for their behavior.
McCarthy and shill and apologist for the deep state, and as long as you understand that, its good to read his stuff.
But we should demand better of the bureaucracy. The Swamp is now 97 percent hard core Democrats and its impossible to find a fair jury pool there. The DC court should be abolished and people tried in their local jurisdictions.
The fact is the guy is guilty of tresspass and should have paid a fine and done at most 30 days in county jail. 4 years in prison is garbage. I will stop there.
If I recall correctly, kedavis once corrected me for that very typographical error. Good times.
On the question of prosecutorial misconduct, though, it matters a lot whether it was exculpatory or not. It’s the main question. A prosecutor does not have a duty to disclose inculpatory evidence unless he intends to use it at trial. They must turn over exculpatory evidence, of course, but the government does not have to do the defense’s investigation for them. The defense can issue their own subpoenas for videos, witnesses, etc.
As to the validity of the plea, it has to be voluntary and intelligent (defendant knows the circumstances of the charge, the potential penalties), but the defendant doesn’t have to necessarily be aware of all the evidence against him. Some people plea right out of the gate, before they get any discovery. Unwise, but not invalid, plea.
The potential problem here is that Chansley requested disclosure of evidence to be used against him and (if his attorney is right) didn’t get to see some of it. But what’s his argument to withdraw his plea? “Judge, I never would have accepted this plea bargain if I had known there was even more evidence against me, especially showing me guilty of one of the charges getting dismissed.”? Makes no sense
And what would he get if for some reason they let him withdraw it? He faces all 5 charges again. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
I say it all the time to my wife as a joke. It drives her nuts!
The justice system depends on evidence for decision making at all levels. If the evidence at the time of a plea bargain was wrong in any way, then the plea bargain needs to be thrown out.
Plea bargaining has become a source of injustice in and of itself, especially so in an environment in which law enforcement agents can legally lie to the accused.
I hope the release of these videos will inspire lawyers to work together to fix the system. The goal of the system should be truth and justice, not scoring points in some type of game where prosecutors are honored and rewarded for the number of guilty pleas they exact from the accused.
And juries should refuse across the board to accept testimony from any witness who got something in return for that testimony. That would go a long way to fix the flaws in our present system.
I heard it was a “tramp stamp” but I’ll take your word on this.
There is the old saying: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”
CTLaw’s take: “Fool you once, shame on them; fool you twice, shame on you; fool you three times, stop lying to me about being fooled!”
You keep saying that (in your years of legal experience, doing just this kind of defense) placing the accused at the scene of the crime is negative to the defense. But if that evidence does not support the accusation so much as refute it, I know that I would rather consider the evidence as exculpatory. As a former jury member I can say that seeing a “trespasser” being escorted around in a friendly way by police would undercut the accusation of trespassing. My decision to allow myself to be forced to enter a false guilty plea to avoid years of further injustice at the hands of the justice system would be less likely.
It does seem odd when lawyers seem less understanding than regular people that a guilty plea does not in fact mean the person did what they are pleading guilty to.
This is a point without distinction. Totalitarianism is the central desire for and retention of all power. Fascism is a sharing of power to achieve and keep power. Bottom line, every totalitarian needs cooperation to gain and retain authoritarian power, hence, is fascist.
In case you missed this in 20th century history, fascism was coined by Mussolini. He was brought up by staunch Marxist parents, but was disuaded when the “workers of the world” failed to rise up and cross borders. Nationalism, he knew, was a powerful tonic, even after the great monarchs of Europe lost power, and hence saw the benefit in a combination of nationalism and socialism. The state, he knew, could not efficiently or reasonably assume the means of production, so he sought the industrialists in his rise to power, rewarding supporters with exclusivity and government largesse, and punishing others. He called this new governing philosophy “fascism.” Hitler held similar views, adding to it the evil notions of racial purity and aryan determinism.
End of lesson.
It is negative, and I do know that from experience. The prosecutor has to prove everything from the ground up. So, the more video there is, the less they have to rely on more probelematic (but not necessarily unreliable) forms of evidence, such as eye witness testimony.
With trespassing, obviously the defendant’s location is a primary element of the crime. So the video provides indisputable evidence of that. That element is therefore that much easier to prove.
in this case, the video also happens to corroborate what the officers said – that they followed him around trying to get him to leave peacefully. Nothing about a trespass charge requires police to forcibly arrest somebody on the scene. In fact, they often don’t do that if the person isn’t violent and it’s not someone’s home, and they’re outnumbered by a bunch of other trespassers. They’re trying to tamp down the emotions.
So, the video is very helpful to the prosecutors here. Of course the defense may try to explain away the evidence by saying the officers were actually telling him he was allowed to be there, but that doesn’t make the video exculpatory, and would also likely go nowhere with the jury once it hears the rest of the evidence of what was going on that day. I highly recommend reading his plea and the accompanying statement of offense to get a better picture of his predicament and the evidence he was facing. He got a good deal on the charges, even if I do think the sentence was a little harsh.
And remember, the trespassing charge, the one to which the video is most relevant was dismissed in the plea deal.
I know. I was not being sarcastic. This is your field. If I had one question, it would be: Is there ever a time when one should not take a plea bargain? And if so, what would those circumstances be?
The correct answer to “should I correct her grammer” is always “no”, unless one suspects that the person writing the question is disposed to self-referential humor. Even if she is referring to her grandmother, the decent answer is still “no”.
Sure. If the defendant has an alibi, if there’s an identification issue – sometimes there are more than one person who is dressed similarly, for example -, or if it’s a he said / she said, or any other issue that weakens the case, it may better to go to trial.
If you’ve got a good self defense claim – like the kid in Kenosha, you might want to go to trial.
Sometimes, too, the plea offer isn’t much of an offer. If the plea offer doesn’t really make a lesser sentence more likely, sometimes you might as well take your chances at trial.
That would be “grammar,” Shakespeare.
Not my meme, it didn’t bite you, plus you kicked it first.
Where and when was Chansley arrested? Was it after he left the capitol?
Thanks.
Right. I was making a little joke about the misspelling of “grammar“ in the graphic. I found it ironic.
But now I’ve decided to quit trying to become a humorist, again.
It’s okay. I’m just joshing you.