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Lawfare: The Corruption of our Legal System
The abuse of our legal system for insidious purposes seems to be growing every day. The political rewards for the Left are abundant, and the costs for the Right are horrendous. And yet the outcomes from these acts continue, with no end in sight. This is where we find ourselves:
The newest buzzword in our politics is lawfare, or using the legal system as a weapon against a political opponent. It sits before us now as a spectacle of political gluttony. How many lawsuits, court motions and judgments against Donald Trump can the Democratic Party chow down? More disturbing is the high price the American system may pay for this excess.
The calamity that Leftist members of the legal system are creating seems to escape their awareness. They don’t realize that not only are they damaging the status of the legal system, but their own personal reputations are being destroyed in the process. They don’t realize that half the population is beginning to understand the destruction they are causing, because the abuse is so extreme. Politics are being subsumed into the legal process and everyone is a potential victim.
The origins of the word “lawfare” emerged as part of military strategy, developed by Charles Dunlap, J.D. He explained it this way:
Thus, the law can be employed as something of a weapon – an instrumentalization of the law that purists abhor but which to me reflects reality. Whether such use is for good or for ill depends much upon who is wielding it and why. There are legitimate forms of lawfare that can serve to mitigate the destructiveness of war, but there are also abusive interpretations which seek to turn adherence to the law into a vulnerability to be exploited by malevolent actors.
I wasn’t aware of the source of the word, but ironically, Dunlap’s definition describes precisely how lawfare in the legal profession is being used. And I think it’s fair to conclude that it is being “exploited by malevolent actors.”
I especially appreciated another author’s observations about how, until recently, the law has served this country extraordinarily well:
The American rule of law sustained our capacity for self-governance. The legal system midwifed the most sophisticated property rights regime in the world, improved our collective reasoning faculties, balanced the imperative of change with the demands of tradition, and settled disputes of trivial insignificance as well as controversies of monumental importance. The system functioned so well that most Americans never even thought about it. And it commanded such astonishing respect that virtually everyone obeyed its commands in even the most partisan contests.
I realized then the extent and devastation that lawfare has inflicted on our country. Those who use lawfare not only attack our citizens, but they pursue conservative lawyers or those who choose to defend conservative causes:
If the legal system exists to deter violence by providing an alternative forum for dispute resolution, access denial lawfare upends that purpose. Until recently, America had never witnessed a systematic effort to deny millions of people access to the legal system. Now, it’s commonplace. The 65 Project is one such effort deployed by Big Law regime apparatchiks. These opportunists have filed grievances around the country, seeking to disbar conservative attorneys who advanced causes disapproved by the regime.
The specific effect on the targeted attorneys has been devastating: John Eastman, a constitutional originalist, has spent enormous sums defending his California license against this cynical attack. But the general chill is even worse. Even if the regime fails to take the bar licenses of Eastman and 64 other conservative attorneys, every attorney in the country will think twice about taking a case the regime opposes. There will then be nobody willing to advance or defend conservative causes, or even their rights to freedom of speech, assembly, and religion. [italics mine]
And now we’ve seen the weaponization of federal and state criminal law through the cases brought by federal prosecutor Jack Smith, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, Attorney General Letitia James, and District Attorney Alvin Bragg, all against Donald Trump.
There are other abuses as well; you can count on the Left to be able to commit endless types of attacks.
You might ask, as I have, how is all this corruption and abuse possible? Victor Davis Hanson explains what all these machinations have in common: (1) the defendant is a conservative; excuses are made for those on the Left to avoid justice; (2) the judges make excuses for not charging those on the Left, such as the jury will not convict them; (3) they make excuses for manipulating the law; (4) Leftist judges excuse all those on the Left.
Kevin O’Leary weighed in with these thoughts:
There is certainly an argument that Trump could make an emergency appeal for relief to a higher court, citing violations of the 8th Amendment (excessive fines) and the 14th Amendment (due process). But in the United States of America, it should never have gotten this far. And at this point, the rot in our legal system has become so advanced and reaches so high that there may no longer be any adults to call into the room.
What will it take to end this unconscionable practice? When will people realize that they could be the next person on the chopping block?
Published in Law
Very good points, Nathanael. Lawfare can destroy lives–those who use it intend to do just that.
If I can vote for McCain out of party loyalty in spite of how much I loathed the man, the Murk can hold her nose and vote for Trump . . .
Does anyone know what Murkowski finds unsuitable about Trump?
I think this is the totally missing element that is presented by those who have claimed falsely to be Republicans or conservatives before Donald Trump. Now they pose this opposition but are not able to express that opposition in policy terms. I think Kari Lake maybe had the right idea, just go away from today’s Trump supporting candidates if you cannot explain yourselves.
I’d guess he wounds her sensibilities.
I added to my comment. Yes, that must be it.
That’s because you are the better man.
Driving the normals out of cities and blue states means that (a) partisan hacks can become prosecutors without fear of consequence and (b) jury pools will be reliably partisan. Elections, a free press and demographic diversity are supposed to be the checks on prosecutorial misuse. All three have been neutered or eliminated in much of the country.
It used to be that some jurisdictions (Houston TX, a couple of counties in Mississippi) were famous for being hopeless locations for corporate defendants in civil suits so plaintiffs’ lawyers would go to great lengths to file in those venues. DC lawyers might joke about the “chromatics” of a case–a black woman suing a white male doctor for malpractice was a better bet than a white plaintiff suing a black doctor or business owner. Built-in prejudice is just a reality that litigators must deal with.
But the political bias in criminal cases is now much worse than ever.
The news media, greenies, and consumer watchdog groups got anti-SLAPP legislation passed to dismiss suits brought by deep pockets plaintiffs intended to punish and silence critics with the cost of litigation. These laws create a chance to dismiss burdensome but largely bogus suits before costly discovery begins. It is a good idea.
The problem is that it requires an objective court to enorce SLAPP rules. For example, Mchael Mann’s silly lawsuit against Steyn et al should have been dismissed with the filed SLAPP motion but there was no way a leftwing icon was going to lose on such a motion even if richly deserved.
NY judge Engoron should be disbarred for being a partisan hack and an embarrassment to the profession. Instead, he is job-secure and the unjust attack on Trump family holdings still stands. Our system depends on the integrity of its stewards and on a society that collectively demands professionalism and fairness. We don’t have either and no way to punish abuse.
How did we so terribly lose our way? Is this really all about power and control? It is mind-boggling to me.
Exactly
This works the way it should when state and local people honor American constitutional principles. I see a continued diminishment of trust in commerce and contracting if this continues. It will be interesting to see what happens to Wall Street.
It is a perverse form of bullying by authoritarians.
Murk is a closet Democrat.
She has none.
There is this video Go here from the dailyreckoning.com where, in the first few minutes, Jeffrey Tucker gives a comprehensive explanation of where we are and it is essentially a contest between the Administrative State, represented by those opposing Donald Trump, and “the people” who are supporting Trump. Tucker thinks the Administrative State has a great advantage.
Tucker spends some time discussing the Murthy v. Missouri case and is not optimistic on the outcome of that based on what we have seen from the SCOTUS so far.
They said that voting for the party despite our disapponitment was the adult thing to do.
An exception to the rule – plus it was a very followed case which would have allowed basic first year law students to tear apart whatever jurist decided to go the wrong way.
It is. And it bespeaks a change for which most of us are unprepared. We have lived our lives in a “high trust” society. That’s doesn’t mean we have never been betrayed. It just means that most people kept their word or the courts awarded damages to victims of betrayal. High trust societies thrive because of the rule of law and a concomitant compliance. Low trust societies do not thrive because everyone engages in preemptive actions “to get theirs” before it is taken from them without recourse to law. Lawfare moves us from a high trust to a low trust society begging for a strongman and hoping for protection.
And everyone on all sides feels it too.
That’s where military dictators come from. Out of chaos.
It’s always the same series of events.
Justice should not shift under our feet like beach sand.
Why would they care about first-year law students tearing apart their arguments? It doesn’t seem to have stopped any judges from supporting Roe, for example.
This article at RedState SEE HERE
details much of the structure about how those carrying out Lawfare programs manage to do that using government funding.
More proof of Lawfare purposes here:
New York Appeals Court Intervenes at Last Minute to Lower Trump Appellate Bond and Remove AG Letitia James Restrictions on Trump Family Organization
Here’s an excerpt from James Howard Kunstler’s article at daily reckoning.com on Saturday, March23. I just think it is accurate and the sane are starting to prevail:
Insane “Lawfare”
The insane don’t care about the rule of law. The conduct of “lawfare” is the subversion of the law by dishonest means. It’s a species of racketeering.
And that’s why lawfare rogues such Marc Elias, Norm Eisen, Andrew Weissmann, Mary McCord, Lisa Monaco, Matthew Graves and Merrick Garland should be charged under the federal RICO statutes for conspiring to deprive sane citizens of their rights and property in many cases related to the 1/6/21 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
People are still being arrested for simply walking around the Capitol and taking selfies. They didn’t hurt anyone or damage property. Doesn’t matter. Meanwhile, the feds show remarkably little interest in finding out who left pipe bombs at the DNC and RNC headquarters that day. Strange.
It is, so far, an abiding mystery of contemporary history as to how New York Attorney General Letitia James managed to get away with prosecuting a real estate case against Donald Trump that was no more than victimless business-as-usual between a borrower and his lenders.
Ms. James ran for that elected office promising to “get” Mr. Trump on something, anything. That is not how the rule of law works. Under the rule of law, first you determine that there is a crime and then look for who did the crime.
Letitia James must be insane and/or pretty stupid. The short-term gain of stealing Mr. Trump’s property under a false color-of-law and creating impediments to his election campaign will, sooner or later, blow back at her as a matter of malicious prosecution and, plausibly, racketeering as well. (With whom did she conspire to bring this case? We shall find out.)
She’ll eventually be disgraced publicly as her teammate Fani Willis has already been disgraced in Fulton County, Geor
Exactly.
Viva Frei, the lawyer who is also a well known youtube blogger, mentions in today’s video that PM Trudeau was forced to rescind his edict to penalize those involved in “The Trucker’s Revolt” from having their assets seized not due to his having a change of heart, but because once normal Canadians who had not really paid attention to the protest became aware of how “their” government was encouraging the seizure of private bank accounts without due process, then there was a semi-run on the banks. Which could have led to an actual economy-collapsing run on the Canadian banking system.
So the nasty illegal bank seizures were ended.
The NY appellate court may well have made the decision in Trump’s favor today due to the extensive publicity surrounding how so many NYC investors and financial people are fleeing not just the Big Apple but The Empire State itself. (This according to Frei.) When the basic common sense principle of trust is illegally impacted by legal monsters like Engeron, then someone has to step in and stop it.
If it will not come about through legal means, the old tar and feather methods might need to re-surface.
Back in 1838, people in an East Coast city believed that customs officials were enforcing policies that would cause economic hardships not only to their businesses but due to a ripple effect, throughout the economy. The citizens got together and tore the Customs House down brick by brick. This defininetly indicates that people in our judicial system should respond to the beliefs, fears and will of the people, or else.
Today Biden would call out F 16s to straff them and the media including all Internet would supress the information from getting out
Their cities will suffer but someone who hates Trump will reward them personally if their strategy wins. All those corrupt folks are racing to win the lottery.
I would love to see these people brought up for their crimes. All of them.
Harris Faulkner asked today (from memory) “I understand that this is all political, but what are people who are doing this like James getting paid?”
We have that problem in SC. Our state is so heavily Republican, there are some districts where a Democrat – moderate, but still a Democrat – has to run as a Republican to have a chance at election . . .
By rich guys who want to take out Trump. Some even support the elections of DAs they can control.
Yes, but I was thinking that even for pretty much mainstream personalities, the thought occurs that these people are not doing it for the principle or upholding the law, but for getting something in return. That’s not exactly saying it’s a glitch or ‘All’s well.’