Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?
— Attorney Joseph Welch to Senator Joseph McCarthy, McCarthy-Army hearings 1954
Joseph Welch was the U.S. Army’s attorney during a series of hearings in the U.S Senate held by Senator McCarthy, who claimed there were communists in the government and that he was going to root them out. Though popular at the time, these proceedings are now seen by most historians as a witch hunt, which damaged the reputations of those unfairly accused. During a public session, McCarthy falsely called a junior associate of Welch’s a communist sympathizer, which drew the famous response. That was the beginning of the end of McCarthy. The dean of Harvard Law School later described McCarthy as “judge, jury, prosecutor, castigator, and press agent, all in one.” Sound familiar?
Like McCarthy, President Donald Trump rails against the First Amendment right of freedom of the press. He wants to change the law, to make it easier to sue the press. He wants to squelch any news he feels is against him.
Fortunately for us, he has yet to prove that any newspaper intentionally or recklessly published falsehoods about him and injured his reputation. This irks him to no end.
Now, he has moved on to attack our legal system.
Like McCarthy, he has no “sense of decency,” attacking Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, because they have issued opinions that differ with the legal positions taken by his administration. He demands the removal of these justices in cases involving the government for a conflict of interest. (What about Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, whose wife regularly visits the White House to provide the president with a list of disloyal employees she wants fired. Should Thomas not also be removed?)
Before his most recent attacks on the Supreme Court, Trump attacked both the judge and jury in the case against his convicted buddy, Roger Stone. He says Stone was treated unfairly, but gives no reasons. Wasn’t Stone represented by highly paid attorneys who helped pick his jury and defended him in the trial? Those jurors were just citizens doing their duty, and the trial court judge had only the highest reputation for impartiality. People say they are concerned about U.S. Attorney William Barr’s interference in the case because he recommended a lighter sentence for Stone after Trump pressured him to do so, but Barr’s conduct pales in comparison to what the president is doing.
Trump now calls himself the chief law enforcement officer of the country, and he has no restraints. He has Barr specially review cases involving his friends and enemies. He pardons friends, but constantly pressures Barr, who serves at his pleasure, to investigate former FBI Director James Comey, Comey’s Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and even Hillary Clinton. The president has the ultimate power to destroy anyone who opposes him, particularly political enemies, by subjecting them to a criminal investigation.
So far, however, it appears Barr does not want to lose his license to practice law for abusing his authority by investigating and filing unfounded cases. He has refused, for example, to follow up on the President’s vendetta against the Bidens. Barr has also found no wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton in the use of her email account, much to Trump’s displeasure. Although Barr did try to indict McCabe for “saying bad things about the president,” two grand juries have rejected that attempt. Our fellow citizens have spoken, but the president cannot accept these decisions.
The president does not believe in the independence of the judiciary, or in the sanctity of our jury system, let alone the First Amendment’s freedoms of speech and of the press.
So, any citizen in this country, of any party, who opposes the president could be investigated by those who serve at the president’s pleasure. An attack on one jury, one juror and one judge, should be considered an attack on the rights of all.
Greg Jacobs is a retired assistant district attorney for Sonoma County.
