Judge's ruling aids in political corruption

Daily Beast essay tees off on Rep. Stefanik's lust for power

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Special prosecutors exist for a reason.

Politicians have shown over a couple centuries they are often corrupt and will do almost anything to hold onto power, including influencing the decisions of the attorney general they appointed.

President Richard Nixon did this during Watergate.

In October 1973, Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire the special prosector looking into a burglary at the Watergate complex.

Richardson refused, then resigned.

Nixon then ordered the Deputy Attorney General William Ruckleshaus to fire the special prosecutor.

Ruckleshaus also refused and resigned.

Nixon then ordered Solicitor General Robert Bork to fire the special prosecutor and Bork complied.

This series of events became known as "the Saturday night massacre," led to special hearings by Congress and the eventual resignation of Nixon.

It's what happens when corruption penetrates the highest levels of government.

In the wake of the Watergate scandal and the Saturday night massacre, Congress tried to pass legislation to make the Justice Department into an independent agency and insulate it from presidential pressures.

Unfortunately, Congress did not go far enough. It enacted a more modest reform called the "Ethics in Government Act of 1978" and created the Office of Independent Counsel. This allowed for investigations into misconduct that insulated it from presidential control. The new law prevented employees in the Justice Department and the attorney general from participating in investigations.

In 1988, the Supreme Court ruled independent counsels were constitutional.

Over the years, independent prosecutors have embarrassed both parties with investigations into the Iran-Contra scandal and the Monica Lewinsky affair, but in 1998, Congress let the Ethics in Government Act expire. There was much hand-wringing over whether the prosecutors had too much power.

But Attorney General Janet Reno authorized a stopgap measure in 1999 with the the appointment of "special counsels" to investigate certain sensitive matters the way independent counsels were used. That has been the accepted practice ever since.

For instance, Robert Mueller was a special counsel assigned to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election.

But last week, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that Special Counsel Jack Smith, who was prosecuting the classified documents case against Donald Trump, was unlawfully appointed to his role and did not have the authority to bring the case.

"So Judge Cannon took a wrecking ball to this way of doing business by saying that Justice Department regulations alone aren’t enough under the Constitution to appoint or govern a special counsel," New York Times reporter Alan Feuer said on The Daily podcast. "There has to be an actual law passed by congress, as in the old post-Watergate days, or a special counsel has to get their job just like any other high-ranking, say, cabinet official. They have to be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

"And so she (Judge Cannon) said neither of those options, A or B, apply to Jack Smith. And so this just flew in the face of 25 years of procedural practice of how the Justice Department operates,"Feuer said on the podcast. "And it flew in the face of many, many court decisions reaching back to Watergate that have upheld the legality of this mode of doing business."

But nothing about the rule of law seems settled these days.

Not a woman's right to choose or that no one is above the law.

Many suspect the ruling will be overturned on appeal - after a long further delay in the case - but it leaves us regular folks wondering about the politicization of the judicial system since Cannon was appointed by Trump and seemed to be dragging her feet since the case landed in her court.

So if independent counsels are against the law, how do we ferret out corruption in any sitting administration?

Cannon insists that is the job of Congress, but it seems incapable of passing any type of meaningful legislation, especially if it might impact their candidate for president.

Judge Cannon has cleared the way for making political crimes legal just as the Supreme Court has made it legal for presidents to commit crimes.

Oddly, as part of its decision on presidential immunity, Justice Clarence Thomas expressed doubts in a concurring opinion about the appointment of Jack Smith in the Trump case even though it had nothing to do with the immunity case.

Judge Cannon took her cue from there.

It opens the door to making political corruption almost impossible to prosecute.

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Stefanik comes up short

Jill Twiss, an Emmy-winning writer for her work on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, weighed in with an essay on The Daily Beast on Elise Stefanik coming up short in her quest to be a vice-presidential candidate.

"Essentially, Elise Stefanik sold her soul for an audience of one—Donald Trump," Twiss wrote. "And in doing so, she let down a lot of people. Her previous mentor, Paul Ryan, called her “the biggest disappointment of his political career.” She even lost her former prep school headmistress, Caroline Mason, the woman who helped preside over her wedding. As Mason told Time: “She basically abandoned her own core values for a man who had no core values.”

Then Twiss added this personal message to Stefanik: "Hey girl! The important part is, you leaned in. You gave it your all. And I do mean your all. Congratulations! You couldn’t possibly have degraded yourself any more for the former president. You were humiliated in every possible way and some ways that I would have argued were impossible. And you still lost."

That seems to sum up Stefanik's transformation.

Maybe Stefanik will eventually find her way back to the North Country and address some of its pressing problems, but I believe that is doubtful.

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Thirst for commentary

I've been writing a newspaper column for more than 40 years. I've always believed that columnists are the heart and soul of a newspaper, spurring debate and giving their publications personality.

Of all the changes I have seen in local newspapers in recent years, one of the worst is the reluctance to publish commentary and editorials.

I wrote in my book The Last American Newspaper that columns and editorials were the town squares of our communities.

This Front Page newsletter continues to host a robust debate with commentary from its readers. Recently, my Front Page column about the exodus of people from New York was published on the Adirondack Almanack website where it quickly garnered some 50 comments.

What was even more appreciative was that the comments were from people expressing a variety of viewpoints and remained civil and respectful.

People want to express their opinions.

They want to debate.

Newspapers that don't provide those forums are missing the boat.

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Never lie to a newspaper

Charles Evans Hughes may be the most prominent person ever to be born in Glens Falls.

He served two terms as governor, ran for president - and lost - in 1916 and served two different terms on the Supreme Court.

Former Post-Star reporter Maury Thompson covers all this in his short book The Animated Feather Duster, along with a long history of Hughes' beard and its place in American politics.  Considering that J.D. Vance has a beard, there may be more discussion about beards in politics.

My favorite quote from Thompson's book was that Hughes followed two important rules when dealing with the press: "Never lie to a newspaper man" and "Treat all newspaper men alike."

Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.