A Puzzlement
Surely whether Trump staff are above the law is a philosophical matter, n'est-ce pas?
Hope Hicks, one of the best-known but least visible former members of President Trump’s White House staff, is facing an existential question: whether to comply with a congressional subpoena https://nyti.ms/2I329XZ
— Tweet from the New York Times politics desk, May 24
Steve Bannon faced a dilemma. On the one hand, Miami-Date PD forensic investigators recently examined the infamous bathtub destroyed by acid in a house where Bannon had lived, traced it to a pair of dead prostitutes, and had a warrant for Bannon’s arrest. On the other hand, as a former Trump aide, Bannon needed to protect the president.
“This is all just a fishing expedition,” said Bannon as he added a seventh button-down shirt to his outfit. “The kind of women I pay for sex would never have come to my house. Besides, I’m obligated to protect the president.”
President Trump has repeatedly made it clear, in tweets and in screaming fits in the Oval Office, that he will tolerate no questioning of his aides, cabinet officials, family members, or friends, current or former.
“Surely any reasonable person can see the quandary in which Mr. Bannon finds himself,” said Jay Sekulow, a personal lawyer to the president. “While I’m sure Mr, Bannon would love to clear his name, given the risk to our national security, it is understandable and even noble that he refrains from doing so.”
“Well, they got me,” said Miami-Dade District Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, scratching her head.
D.C. Superior Court Judge Robert E. Morin, who would normally be called on to effect extradition of Bannon from the District of Columbia to Florida, said he understood the former aide is currently in Italy running his “gladiator school” — and that Trump’s friend Matteo Salvini would block any extradition of Bannon to the U.S., rendering the point moot for the time being, which the judge said was “just as well, given the philosophical issues inherent in the case. I hope that things will sort themselves out eventually. Frankly this is more the kind of thing that should be discussed by an academic panel, rather than adjudicated in a court of law. I would love to see Cornell West and Ben Shapiro duke this one out.”
A similar conundrum has been playing out in Syosset, New York, home of Joseph Patrick “Fingers” McGillicuddy, an employee of the Trump Organization, who was arrested last week for pistol whipping a bartender who had refused him service on grounds of inebriation. Though taken into custody by the Nassau County Police Department, McGillicuddy was ordered released by County Executive Laura Curran after calls from Trump, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, and Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (who, sources say, told Curran she was “making the party leadership look bad”). The case against McGillicuddy is currently “under consideration” and is expected to remain in abeyance until what Curran has called “the Constitutional perplexity” has been resolved in “forums more exalted than ours.”
“Perplexity, Schenectady,” McGillicuddy dismissively told a reporter as he chugged from a 20 oz. can of Corona Extra at the LIRR train station in Syosset. “What the boss says goes and that’s all ya gotta know.”
I'm reasonably convinced that the NYT's piece on Hope Hicks is the signal artifact showing the United States is officially dead. When we have reached a point where whether or not to comply with black-letter law has become a philosophical question--a personal option instead of an enforceable obligation--then we are no longer a nation united by anything.
Krugman wrote years ago about how self-styled objectivity in journalism would lead to headlines such as "Shape of Earth: Views Differ." He underestimated just how shitty journalism would become in so short a time.
"I would love to see Cornell West and Ben Shapiro duke this one out.” Naah, Shapiro would just run away like he did before.