21jun24 – Alexandria, VA Well said, Bruce, Ralph and Lou ! It needs to be repeated, forcefully, until SCOTUS decides that the Constitution must be respected. But what to think of that half the U.S. electorate which tolerates, nay, applauds Trump’s aberrant behavior and the political party that supports his every move ? Paul From: Salon <salon-bounces@listserve.com> On Behalf Of Chas Freeman via Salon 300 New Jersey Avenue, N.W., Suite 900 Washington, D.C. 20001 Phone: 202-465-8728 June 10, 2024 United States Chief Justice John G. Roberts Associate Justice Clarence Thomas Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayer Associate Justice Elena Kagan Associate Justice Neil M. Gorsuch Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Re: Former President Donald Trump and Presidential Immunity Dear Mr. Chief Justice and Associate Justices: The United States is racing towards a constitutional catastrophe reminiscent of Dred Scott v. Sanford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857). Former President Donald Trump, probable Republican Party presidential candidate for 2024, aims to torch the United States Constitution and subordinate the judicial process featuring multiple safeguards against injustice to Fascist mob rule. Mr. Trump’s appalling, dictatorial, feral ambitions are as clear as Adolf Hitler’s in Mein Kampf. On July 23, 2019, President Trump extra-constitutionally proclaimed, “Then I have Article 2, where I have the right to do anything I want as president.” In December 2022, Mr. Trump called for “termination” of the Constitution if he discerned massive electoral fraud invisible to impartial and independent judges. On January 6, 2021, President Trump demanded of Vice President Mike Pence to choose between him and the Constitution in performing his constitutional duty to count state-certified electoral votes under the Twelfth Amendment and the Electoral Count Act. Mr. Trump and his would-be vice-presidential running mates have repeatedly balked at committing to accept the outcome of the November 2024 presidential election after all legal challenges have been resolved. They have tacitly threatened another January 6 violent attack on the Capitol to torpedo the Vice President’s counting of state-certified electoral votes. (Mr. Trump has virtually pledged to pardon the more than 800 found guilty of January 6 offenses by federal judges and juries, including seditious conspiracy). After a New York state jury found Mr. Trump guilty of 34 felonies under state law, Mr. Trump and his fanatical mob threatened civil war and the replacement of the judicial process with vigilante justice if the verdicts were not reversed. Violent threats against Mr. Trump’s accusers, judge, jurors, and detractors mushroomed on social media. If re-elected, Mr. Trump’s appointees would be counterparts of Herman Goering, Joseph Goebbels, Martin Borman, and Adolf Eichmann under the Third Reich. Mr. Trump and his loyalists have boasted of their aim to turn the prosecution function under Mr. Trump into a carbon copy of Vladmir Putin’s Russia or Xi Jinping’s China. Peaceful political opposition would be criminalized. The Congress of the United States has diminished itself into an inkblot. The United States Supreme Court is the only remaining barrier to a Trump dictatorship and the undoing of the American Revolution. This fact should weigh heavily on your minds in deciding Trump v. United States and Fisher v. United States in the coming weeks. We know how republics die. Tacitus observed about the demise of Rome, “The worst crimes were dared by a few, willed by more, and tolerated by all.” The Weimar Republic succumbed to Adolf Hitler’s fanaticism. Chancellor Franz von Papen’s conviction that he could control Hitler after his assumption of power proved delusional. Georges Santayana admonished, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” You cannot escape the judgment of history. Sincerely, Bruce Fein Esq. Ralph Nader Esq. Lou Fisher |