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Law ‘Requires’ Alito and Thomas to Recuse Says Former Federal Prosecutor

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U.S. Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas have no choice but to observe federal law and recuse themselves from cases involving the 2020 presidential election, according to an attorney who served as a federal prosecutor for 30 years, while a noted constitutional law expert is warning Justice Alito “may be responsible for delaying” the Court’s decision on Donald Trump’s claims of absolute immunity.

Their remarks come as Americans are waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court to issue its decision on Donald Trump’s claim of absolute and total immunity from prosecution.

“The Supreme Court, as led by insurrection advocates Alito & Thomas, has caught & killed Trump’s prosecution for trying to overturn the 2020 election. The impartiality of Thomas & Alito ‘might reasonably be questioned’ so the federal law REQUIRES their recusal. Period. Full stop,” wrote Glenn Kirschner, now an NBC News/MSNBC legal analyst.

Kirschner posted text from federal law, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 455, which reads: “Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

READ MORE: ‘Partisan Insurrectionist’: Calls Mount for Alito’s Ouster After ‘Stop the Steal’ Scandal

The renewed interest in both far-right justices comes after Friday’s New York Times bombshell report that revealed a symbol of January 6 insurrectionists, the “Stop the Steal” flag, which is the U.S. Stars and Stripes flying upside down, was flown at Justice Alito’s home just days before President Joe Biden was inaugurated.

Justice Alito claimed his wife was responsible for flying the American flag in that manner, which is also used to indicate a situation of dire or extreme distress. He claimed she had done so after an altercation with a neighbor, who had a “F*** Trump” sign on their lawn that could be seen by children awaiting the school bus. But those claims seemed to fall apart after sleuths noted because of COVID schools were operating virtually, so there were no school buses running, and neighbors did not remember what allegedly was extreme neighborhood drama.

On Friday, Laurence Tribe, University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, a constitutional law scholar and professor who has argued three dozen times before the Supreme Court, told CNN (video below) he believes Justice Alito must recuse.

“I do. I don’t think there’s any question about it. It’s in many ways, more serious than what we’ve seen with Justice Thomas. At least Justice Thomas could say that, ‘my wife Ginny has her own separate career. We don’t talk about the cases.’ You may believe that or you may not, but that’s very different from what’s going on with Justice Alito. He’s not saying, ‘My wife has her own separate career.’ He’s throwing her under the bus and blaming her for what is on his house, his flagpole. It’s his flag malfunction. It’s his upside down flag and everyone knows that the upside down the flag, which the United States Code says should be flown that way only in cases of absolute emergency as a kind of SOS, was in this case, a symbol of the claim that the election was stolen from Donald Trump.”

“It was the banner of the insurrectionists,” Tribe continued. “And I’m reminded of something that the late Justice Scalia said in the opinion he wrote in 1987, he said, ‘you cannot expect to ride with the cops if you cheer for the robbers.’ In this case, Justice Alito expects to preside over a decision about whether there was an insurrection and who was responsible for it. And whether Donald Trump who has been charged with involvement in trying to obstruct the operations of government and the transfer of power is immune, or if cases before the court, he’s obviously not qualified to sit in this case.”

READ MORE: ‘Mouths of Sauron’: Critics Blast ‘Mobster Tactic’ of Trump Surrogates ‘Violating’ Gag Order

Like Kirschner, Tribe pointed to 28 U.S.C. Sec. 455, saying, “28 US Code section 455 says that any federal judge or justice must – not may, but must – recuse him or herself in any case where either that justice or the justice’s spouse has any skin in the game. There’s no distance here between Mr. Alito and Mrs. Alito. It’s clear that whatever offensive sign was involved, that dispute between neighbors trivializes what’s involved here.”

On the Supreme Court’s pending decision on Trump’s immunity claims, Tribe added, Justice Alito “may be responsible for delaying it.”

“After all, the protocol within the court is the different justices dissenting and Alito is probably writing a dissent from a rejection of the extreme claim of absolute immunity. That didn’t seem to gain traction with the court. If a justice is dissenting, you wait till the dissent is done before announcing the case. So by delaying this immunity decision so long that a trial can’t occur before the election, the effect may be to give de facto immunity to the former president, who if he wins the election will pick an attorney general who will dismiss the case. So ultimate accountability is very much on the line.”

As for Justice Thomas, back in March of 2022, The New Yorker‘s Jane Mayer wrote: “Legal Scholars Are Shocked By Ginni Thomas’s ‘Stop the Steal’ Texts,” which also read: “Several experts say that Thomas’s husband, the Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, must recuse himself from any case related to the 2020 election.”

And in June of 2022, former Bush 43 chief White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter, also posting that federal law, wrote: “Justice Thomas’s participation in Dobbs means Ginni Thomas was not receiving payment from persons seeking reverse of Roe. Right?”

He was referring to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, coincidentally written by Justice Alito, which overturned five decades of civil rights law and removed abortion as a constitutionally-protected right.

“We have no idea who’s paying Ginni Thomas,” he continued, referring to Clarence Thomas’s spouse, who also alleged worked to overturn the 2020 election. “Justice Thomas refuses to recuse from any cases because of her. This conflict of interest is unworkable.”

Watch Professor Tribe below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Not Weighing in on That’: Republicans Refuse to Pull Support for Trump as Trial Nears End

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Trump NatSec Nominees Are ‘Worse Than Worst Case,’ ‘Functional Foreign Agents’: Experts

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National security and political experts are sounding the alarm over several of Donald Trump’s nominations to top Cabinet-level positions, saying they are not only “totally absurd and appalling,” but a threat to the nation’s—and the world’s—security.

Here’s the current list of all of Trump’s Cabinet-level nominations (Politico is keeping track):

• White House Chief of Staff – Susie Wiles

•Secretary of State – Marco Rubio

•Secretary of Defense – Pete Hegseth

•Attorney General – Matt Gaetz

•Secretary of Homeland Security – Kristi Noem

•Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency – Lee Zeldin

•Director of National Intelligence – Tulsi Gabbard

•Ambassador to the United Nations – Elise Stefanik

•Director of the CIA – John Ratcliffe

READ MORE: Musk and Ramaswamy Heading New ‘DOGE’ Prompts Legal and Ethical Concerns: Experts

“Good lord,” remarked Phillips O’Brien, a historian, professor of strategic studies, and author of books on World War II, “an outright Putin apologist is named to be head of US national intelligence.”

O’Brien was referring to Trump’s nomination of former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard to be the Director of National Intelligence (DNI).

Economist Anders Åslund, a former economic advisor to Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Ukraine, said: “Tulsi Gabbard appears a pure Russian asset. How can she become Director of US National Intelligence? How could she possibly pass a normal security clearance?”

“If Tulsi Gabbard becomes Director of National Intelligence,” Åslund added, “it would be better for US national security to close down all intelligence.”

The Washington Spectator’s Dave Troy, an investigative journalist with expertise on Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin, explained: “This is the reality. This can’t happen. The other Five Eyes countries will cut us off. This is a decapitation strike.”

“Five Eyes” is the joint intelligence-sharing alliance of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Dr Ruth Deyermond, a Senior Lecturer in Post-Soviet Security at King’s College London’s Dept. of War Studies writes: “Even by Trump standards, this an extraordinary demonstration of the extent to which Russia-aligned interests have captured the incoming US executive. What NATO partner (Hungary aside) will trust the US with any intelligence now?”

Journalist Craig Unger is a New York Times best-selling author of books about 9/11, the Bush family, and Trump, including: “House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia.”

He writes: “As of now, NATO is effectively over. Why would any of our allies share intelligence with us when the head of National Intelligence is effectively in bed with Putin.”

Former FBI special agent Asha Rangappa, an attorney and legal contributor to ABC News, issued this warning: “I very much hope that the USIC [U.S. Intelligence Community] takes measures to protect sources (or hand them off to allied intelligence services) pronto because Pooty [Vladimir Putin] is about to learn EVERYTHING we know about them and Ukraine.”

The Guardian’s Carole Cadwalladr, who exposed the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, posted the video below by Tulsi Gabbard and wrote: “Trump has just appointed this woman Director of National Intelligence. A pro-Russian, pro-Putin mouthpiece. To remind you the UK shares intelligence with the US. Worse than worst case scenario.”

Christopher Miller is the Financial Times’ award-winning chief Ukraine correspondent whose “reporting has focused on Ukrainian politics and various aspects of Russia’s war against Ukraine, exposing war crimes and revealing the plight of people forced to live under brutal occupation,” according to his bio.

He weighed in on the appointment of Tulsi Gabbard to ODNI:

The Atlantic’s David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter who recently renounced his membership to the Republican Party, declared Congressman Gaetz’s nomination is the “most absurd,” and former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard’s is “the most sinister.”

READ MORE: MAGA Congressman Vows Loyalty: ‘If Trump Says Jump 3 Feet High We Jump 3 Feet High’

The Lincoln Project’s Stuart Stevens, author of “The Conspiracy to End America: Five Ways My Old Party Is Driving Our Democracy to Autocracy,” warned:

“A prediction: assuming we get through this period as a functioning democracy, there will be the first treason trials in America since 1949. Trump is giving functional foreign agents access to America’s security.”

Trump’s latest announcement, that he is nominating U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz to lead the U.S. Dept. of Justice as Attorney General, drew consternation, with critics noting that the Florida Republican lawmaker is currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, and had been under federal investigation for a litany of possible offenses, including illicit drug use, sex trafficking, and having sexual relations with a minor. He also reportedly had asked outgoing President Donald Trump for a “blanket pardon,” to cover any number of possible crimes, including his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

“Evidence suggested that he had spent time with a number of young women who advertised on a Web site that seemed to be a thinly veiled venue for prostitution,” The New Yorker reported in February. “Gaetz, then a three-term congressman with a reputation for a freewheeling private life, appeared to have the impulse control of a teen-age boy.”

O’Brien also weighed in on Gaetz: “Good lord 2, Matt Gaetz as Attorney General. The GOP seems hellbent on turning the US Government over to Russia.” And he warned that “all of us who have been saying that Europe needs to take care of its own security without the USA…need to scream it louder.”

Gaetz has suggested Russia be admitted to NATO, instead of Ukraine.

Alyssa Farah Griffin, the former Trump White House director of strategic communications and a co-host on “The View,” suggested there may be a “strategy” in play.

“Perhaps there’s some strategy to the more *bonkers* Cabinet picks? Trump may be signaling to the Senate to be thoughtful in what nominees it considers blocking -Kristi Noem, for example, suddenly looks immensely qualified for DHS compared to say Gaetz as AG or Tulsi as ODNI.”

Media Matters’ Matthew Gertz observes, “Matt Gaetz pick is so crazy people have forgotten the Tulsi Gabbard pick which was so crazy people had forgotten about the Pete Hegseth pick. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Tenfold Increase in Number of Deportations’: Trump Hands Stephen Miller Top Policy Post

 

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MAGA Congressman Vows Loyalty: ‘If Trump Says Jump 3 Feet High We Jump 3 Feet High’

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Bragging about his total fealty to Donald Trump, U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) made clear he and and the House Republican Conference are in complete lockstep with the President-elect and will do anything to support their leader.

“There’s no question, he’s the leader of our party,” Congressman Nehls told reporters after the President-elect visited with House Republicans Wednesday before heading to the White House for a photo-op with President Joe Biden.

“So now he’s got a mission statement—his mission, and his goals and objectives, whatever that is, we need to embrace it,” Nehls said, before holding up his finger and adding, “All of it. Every. Single. Word.”

READ MORE: MAGA Loses ‘First War’: Rick Scott Rejected by Senate GOP, Thune Elected Leader

“If Donald Trump says ‘jump three feet high and scratch your head,’ we all jump three feet high and scratch our heads,” vowed Nehls, a former sheriff who was accused of stolen valor last year.

Also last year, Congressman Nehls, who appears to be the subject of an investigation by the House Ethics Committee. bragged about House Republicans’ true motivation to impeach President Joe Biden: “Trump 2024, baby!” he told a reporter.

A few short months later, at the State of the Union, Congressman Nehls wore a t-shirt with Donald Trump’s booking mug shot and the words, “Never Surrender.”

See the photos and video above or at this link.

READ MORE: Musk and Ramaswamy Heading New ‘DOGE’ Prompts Legal and Ethical Concerns: Experts

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MAGA Loses ‘First War’: Rick Scott Rejected by Senate GOP, Thune Elected Leader

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Senate Republicans in a secret ballot election behind closed doors on Wednesday rebuffed President-elect Donald Trump’s hopes to install a Majority Leader who would allow him to usurp Senate power and freely make recess appointments without the constitutional requirements of advice and consent. Republicans immediately rejected far-right MAGA Senator Rick Scott of Florida on the first ballot, and rejected U.S. Senator John Cornyn of Texas on the second, choosing U.S. Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the current Senate Minority Whip and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s second in command, to lead the Republican conference.

Thune, seen as the least-extreme of the three candidates, will become Majority Leader in January. And while he did agree that recess appointments could be “on the table,” Thune has a history of not blindly bowing down to Trump.

“Rick Scott wants to help Trump sidestep the body to install extremists in the Cabinet,” Rolling Stone reported, suggesting that Thune is not a “MAGA fixer, greasing the skids to ram controversial appointees and legislation through the Senate.”

READ MORE: Musk and Ramaswamy Heading New ‘DOGE’ Prompts Legal and Ethical Concerns: Experts

Also suggesting the U.S. Senate might serve at least as a deterrent to me of Trump’s far-right and extremist tendencies, Rolling Stone noted:

“Following last week’s election, Republicans will have a small majority in the Senate, likely 53-47. Two of those votes are Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska who are perceived as moderates and could potentially withhold consent on extreme nominees. Another vote is a wild card: whomever Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine chooses to replace Vice President-elect J.D. Vance. DeWine recently clashed with Vance and Trump over their racist lies about Haitian immigrants living in Springfield, Ohio, and may not send a MAGA rubber stamp to Washington.”

Axios founder Jim VandeHei also agreed this was a repudiation of Trump’s MAGA machine:

MAGA media waged its first war – and lost badly. Scott eliminated on first ballot. John Thune wins Senate Republican leader race. He’s the closest thing to an establishment figure left in DC power.”

It is the end of the nearly two-decade long McConnell era. McConnell opted to hold the election for his replacement early, angering President-elect Trump.

Trump on Sunday had issued a threatening statement, signaling his desire to effectively co-opt the upper chamber of a co-equal branch of the federal government”

READ MORE: Trump Victory Was ‘Slim’ and Not the ‘Historic Mandate’ Republicans Claim, Analysis Shows

“Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner. Sometimes the votes can take two years, or more. This is what they did four years ago, and we cannot let it happen again. We need positions filled IMMEDIATELY! Additionally, no Judges should be approved during this period of time because the Democrats are looking to ram through their Judges as the Republicans fight over Leadership. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. THANK YOU!”

Politico’s Kyle Cheney posted Thune’s statements on his votes after each of the Trump Senate impeachment trials. Thune made clear he opposed Trump’s actions.

CNN’s Manu Raju reports Thune’s “politics are much more in the mainstream of GOP orthodoxy,” and notes he “called on Trump to drop out” of the 2016 presidential are after the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape.

Thune had endorsed U.S. Senator Tim Scott for the presidency over Trump.

Watch CNN ‘s report below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘No Excuse’: Dems Have Just Weeks to Get Dozens of Biden’s Judicial Nominees Confirmed

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