This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The exact mirroring is eerie, though. Some of Jack Smith's cases against Trump got dismissed because his appointment was considered unlawful by the District Judge (and Clarence Thomas).
It did ultimately lead to the clusterfuck that's happening now, though. If Bondi could have appointed a special counsel to investigate Trump's enemies, she likely would have done so. But because of the Smith decision, she had to push the interim appointments laws beyond where the court was willing to take them and throw the district offices into disarray as a consequence. There is effectively no one in charge of four offices at this point, though I can imagine that the career supervisors there will keep things running in the meantime, at least as far as routine matters are concerned.
Aren't courts supposed to appoint US attorneys if the AG's choices can't secure Senate confirmation?
In theory, yes. In theory, there's also someone already in the office who would automatically become Acting US Attorney in the event of a vacancy without an appointment. In practice, both of these are the same person—a career prosecutor who anticipates outlasting the current administration and would prefer to prosecute boring criminal cases rather than participate in Trump's revenge tour. So what happens is the Administration appeals the court ruling and fires whoever the court appoints, or tries to use some backdoor shenanigans to appoint their preferred candidate to a position where she'd automatically take over as US Attorney upon her own disqualification, creating confusing arguments where one holds multiple titles at once. At least this is how it's playing out in New Jersey. I'd offer a more detailed explanation but I'm not entirely sure I understand Pam Bondi's reasoning so I'll hold off.
The upshot here, though, is that the Trump Administration is going to continue to insist that Halligan is the US Attorney for the EDV, despite a court ruling saying she isn't. Imagine if you got an email from your company saying that your boss was no longer employed there, but he continued to show up and was assigning your team work that would cost the company a lot of money. When you email top leadership they tell you he doesn't work there anymore, but when you email his immediate supervisor you're told that he does and just continue the way things have always been. How much work do you think gets done in that situation? How long can the company continue to operate amid the uncertainty? How efficient will any work be? Now assume that this guy is also entirely unqualified for the job and was hired for the position because he was his boss's college roommate and he occasionally makes bizarre decisions that no one in the company can justify. You have absolutely no idea what's going on. What do you think morale is like? This is basically what's going on in New Jersey right now, where the entire office isn't doing anything because nobody knows who has the authority to do anything.
Getting an email from some judge saying that your boss is no longer employed at your company would be quite unusual though; "your company" in this case is the executive branch (c'est Trump!), no?
Within Rov's analogy, "your company" is the US gov as a whole (with Trump being the "immediate supervisor").
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Could you please explain this?
I think the OP does a pretty good job of explaining Trump's interpretation of the law and why the court didn't buy it. As for the second part, there are four US Attorney's offices operating without a US Attorney for the time being. While the district courts can appoint a US Attorney, I don't know how long this will take, and I don't know what's going to happen if they appoint someone the administration doesn't approve of. Right now it's currently a matter of dispute who is, in fact, the US Attorney, if anyone even holds the position at all, and Federal prosecutions there have accordingly ground to a halt.
More options
Context Copy link
Judge Cannon ruled that Jack Smith had no statutory power to bring the classified documents case. Thus, Bondi couldn’t just spawn a Special Counsel to manage the lawsuits Trump wanted. She had to slot them into an existing office.
In this case, Siebert was the lawfully appointed U.S. Attorney for Virginia. But he wouldn’t sign the indictment. Bondi fired and replaced him with Halligan, who did. Since that skipped the confirmation process, though, it ran into the same problem which got Smith.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link