{"id":247031,"date":"2022-01-14T11:19:03","date_gmt":"2022-01-14T05:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/?p=247031"},"modified":"2022-01-14T19:34:31","modified_gmt":"2022-01-14T14:04:31","slug":"the-threat-to-american-democracy-grows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/column-news\/the-threat-to-american-democracy-grows\/","title":{"rendered":"The Threat to American Democracy Grows"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
By Kenneth Tiven in Washington<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n With each passing day, it becomes clearer how determined the Donald Trump faction of the Republican party was to overturn a presidential election to destroy 250 years of democracy and keep their leader in the White House. Lawyers keep telling judges that Trump has immunity regarding everything that happened on January 6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The latest is Attorney Jesse Binnall, who tried the blanket immunity claim for anything \u201csaid or done while president\u201d before a federal district court this past week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n US District Judge Amit Mehta wasn\u2019t buying it. \u201cSo the president, in your view, is both immune to inciting the riot and failing to stop it?\u201d Mehta asked this in a civil suit brought by Capitol Police officers hurt in the insurrection battle. He was dealing with the meaning of Trump\u2019s refusal to call off the rioters for 187 crucial minutes during the insurrection as they stormed the Capitol building. Binnell intimated that the judge was holding Trump to a different standard than he would hold a Democrat. Mehta called the charge \u201csimply inappropriate\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Judge Mehta was born in Patan in Gujarat. He went to college in the US and graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1997. He was nominated for the federal judiciary by President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was Metha who ruled in 2019 that the accounting firm Mazars must release financial records regarding president Trump from before his time in office. He wrote then that \u201chistory has shown that Congressionally-exposed criminal conduct by the president or a high-ranking executive branch official can lead to legislation. It is simply not fathomable that a Constitution that grants Congress the power to remove a president for reasons including criminal behaviour would deny Congress the power to investigate him for unlawful conduct\u2014past or present\u2014even without formally opening an impeachment inquiry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, the House Investigating Committee indicated it is also looking at state-level efforts to overturn the vote that put Democrat Joe Biden in the White House. We now learn that in several states Trump supporters fabricated election certificates submitted for the electoral college vote. This happened in Michigan and Arizona. Sticklers for authenticity in Arizona, they affixed the state seal to the filing. The national archivist rejected the false certificates and alerted the secretaries of state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unlike the secrecy surrounding progress in the Robert Mueller probe of Trump\u2019s 2016 election, the House Committee continuously reveals in a number of formal and informal ways what it is finding. Apparently evidence suggests the role of Republicans in Congress to pressurise state officials to find votes for Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n