Senator Susan Collins is rightly criticized for her wrongminded response to Donald Trump felonies

Maome Senatpr Susan Collins, R-Maine, has incorrectly stated that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg campaigned on a promise to prosecute former President Donald Trump, according to fact-checkers at the Poynter Institute.  Reported in The Hill and Central Maine.com.

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) raised eyebrows and triggered a barrage of criticism when she echoed former President Donald Trump’s claim that he was the victim of political persecution after a jury found him guilty of 34 felony charges relating to hush money payments to a porn star.

Collins, a Republican who voted to impeach Trump after the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, repeated Trump’s talking point that the New York City prosecutor, Mr. Bragg, who filed the charges campaigned for his job on “a promise” to prosecute Trump, even though that claim has been discredited by fact-checkers.

“It is fundamental to our American system of justice that the government prosecutes cases because of alleged criminal conduct regardless of who the defendant happens to be. 

Senator Susan Collins is Maine's senior US senator

In this case the opposite has happened,” she said in the statement. “The district attorney, who campaigned on a promise to prosecute Donald Trump, brought these charges precisely because of who the defendant was rather than because of any specified criminal conduct. The political underpinnings of this case further blur the lines between the judicial system and the electoral system, and this verdict likely will be the subject of a protracted appeals process.”

Maine Writer-Obviously Senator Collins ignores the reason why Donald Trump was found guilty for commiting 34 felonies.  Reminder❗  

Donald Trump had a one night sexual encounter with porn actress Stormy Daniels and subsequently tried to cover his sin using hush money he illegally took from his campaign donations to prevent havign to pay this self inflicted penalty with his own money. 

If Trump had paid Stormy Daniels with his own personal check, none of this trial would have happened to him. Instead, he supported having the money come from his personal "fixer" Michael Cohen, who took out a second mortage on his home for the purpose of paying the hush money on behalf of his "boss" Trump.  

Then, Trump illegally signed a series of checks, while he was sitting in the Oval Office, for the purpose of using his campaign donations to reimburse Cohen for this expense. Trump lied on several levels.  Trump said Stormy Daniels lied about the sexual encounter, but this denial was never given while under oath.  

Second, just telling a lie about what Stormy Daniels testified to under oath was not a felony.  Rather, the felonies were the signed checks Donald trump signed to reimburse Michael Cohen for the $130,000 he paid to Stormy Daniels. In fact, the checks were fraudulent because the premise was that he was paying for legal services when there were no invoices attached.  #Guilty!

Collins was one of seven Senate Republicans to vote to convict Trump on the impeachment charge of inciting insurrection in 2021, and said earlier this year she would not endorse Trump, even if he won the GOP nominee for president.

Republican party tanked to a new low in in their kowtow response to the Trump cult

Echo editorial board opinion published in the: The Washington Post:

The Trump hush money trial shows how far the GOP has fallen. (Maine Writer- Nothing "grand" about the Grand Old Party's MAGA cult fealty to Trump.)

Alvin L. Bragg, Jr. is the 37th District Attorney elected in Manhattan.   (Thank you 🙏😍Mr. Bragg.)

Of the four criminal cases pending against former president Donald Trump, the one tried in a New York criminal court involved both the least serious charges against him and the most legally debatable. 

But the results from the Manhattan proceedings have  provided a damning indictment of the Republican Party over which the defendant, the soon-to-be official GOP presidential nominee, holds sway.

When Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg filed a 34-count business records falsification indictment against Trump last spring, legal analysts acknowledged it could be a tenuous case. 

The core offense was the alleged rebranding, in the Trump Organization’s internal documents, of a secret hush money payment paid to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels as a legal retainer to attorney Michael Cohen. The charge would usually be a misdemeanor, but Mr. Bragg was able to charge it as a felony by alleging that the payments amounted to an illegal campaign contribution (in violation of federal law), on the theory that the coverup was an attempt to influence voters in the 2016, election.

Manhattan hush money trial witness Michael Cohen

This was — and, more than five weeks after the trial began on April 15, still is — a venturesome strategy, lending some credence to critics’ claims that the prosecution by an elected Democratic district attorney in a deep-blue city was politically motivated. Mr. Bragg’s team did a fair job of rebutting that and demonstrating the link, aided by documentation that includes checks personally signed by the then-commander in chief. 

It appears as though the jury believed Mr. Michael Cohen, the defendant’s erstwhile fixer, who has already pleaded guilty to various offenses including lying to Congress, admitted multiple fibs in his testimony for the prosecution and wobbled under cross-examination.

The jury decided x 34- Trump paid off the the porn star because, he believed, he needed to suppress the seamy story, to win the election.

The mere fact such questions are relevant to the 2024, presidential race, let alone potentially pivotal to it, speaks volumes about the political moment.

The trial has taken the country back to the waning days of the 2016, campaign, when The Post had just reported on the “Access Hollywood” tape of Mr. Trump speaking cavalierly of sexual assault: “Grab ’em by the p----y. You can do anything.” Trump seemed on his way to losing to Democrat Hillary Clinton and taking the rest of the GOP down with him. 

Multiple Republicans, trying to control the damage, called on him to resign as GOP nominee. Then-House Speaker Paul D. Ryan declared himself “sickened.” Mr. Trump won anyway. (He did, however, apologize first — a rarity for him.)

In hindsight, this episode was the beginning of Trump’s unconditional hold on the Republican (MAGA cult❗) base, and the beginning of the end for what was left of the traditional GOP. 

Those who denounced him in the fall of 2016, have either left politics — or fallen in behind Trump. Hence the pilgrimage of Republicans to Trump’s trial in Manhattan. 

Everyone from would-be Senate Majority Leader Rick Scott (R-Fla.) to House Speaker (Bible thumping!) Mike Johnson (R-La.) to Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) to Vivek Ramaswamy paid their respects. Even Nikki Haley — who, when running against Mr. Trump for this year’s GOP nomination, called his lack of character disqualifying — said this week she would vote for him in November.

The country, and the party, have come a long way since 2000: Then, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, running to replace President Bill Clinton — who had been impeached, and acquitted, for alleged perjury to hide an affair — pledged to “restore honor and integrity” to the White House. That implied a connection between character and policy. But now, the operative GOP principle seems to be "anything goes".

To be sure, the conduct at issue in the New York trial seems minor relative to the charges Trump faces in his two stalled federal trials: obstructing justice after sneaking classified documents to Mar-a-Lago or, worst of all, conspiracy charges tied to the January 6, 2021, mob attack on the electoral vote count in the Capitol. But the New York case and the GOP hierarchy’s reaction to it are points on the continuum in which excusing little or midsize ethical violations leads to excusing bigger ones.

The New York (Manhattan) jury decided the evidence proved the complex charges beyond a reasonable doubt. 

Republicans act "shocked-shocked!" about the inevitable Trump indictment

Republicans voted for Donald Trump because they fell into a cult trance believing the "you're fired" reality character Trump would somehow be fit to lead the free world.  "NOT!"

Republicans cannot put the reality freak Trump genie back into the bottle!

This opinion echo letter led me to challenge Republicans about their wrong minded obsession with Donald Trump. 

Part of this opinion blogged her was published in The Philadelphia Enquirer: 

Now, Americans wish we could put the reality genie back into the jar. It is no small task putting the genie back in the bottle. This genie was released when Donald Trump, a reality-TV character and real estate mogul with a questionable business background (including several bankruptcies), was allowed to capture our attention during the 2016 presidential race. Calling Mexicans rapists and Democrats socialists, and making up a steady stream of lies, the media ate it up with front-page headlines almost every day. 

In fact, I clearly remember ABC’s George Stephanopoulos grinning from ear to ear as he repeatedly said Trump was “doubling down” on his outrageous statements. Entertainment trumped real news, ratings soared, and Trump’s campaign took off without spending a penny on advertising. 

Sadly, entertainment, no matter how ridiculous, is more interesting to the average American TV viewer than hard news and the difficult decisions that must be made in a democracy about our country and our future. 

Now comes Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, from the bluest of blue cities in one the bluest of blue states, who reignites the media firestorm. Thirty-four felony counts for a series of sexual trysts and falsifying business records for illegal political purposes.

Yet Republicans act like they are "shocked! shocked!", about the indictment of Donald Trump. Republican hypocrisy has no bottom. 

Angus Love, in Narberth Pennsylvania

P.S. Maine Writer- Although Republicans are in cult lock step acting in outrage about the Trump indictment, the fact is, the best predictor about a person's behavior is to look at what they have done in the past.  Donald Trump's indictment in Manhattan was inevitable. 

Donald Trump learns how the rules of law will finally will apply to him

Echo editorial published in The New York Times:

For the first time in American history, a grand jury has indicted a former president of the United States, The Times reported on Thursday. Donald Trump spent years as a candidate, in office and out of office, ignoring democratic and legal norms and precedents, trying to bend the Justice Department and the judiciary to his whims and behaving as if rules didn’t apply to him.

The former president was charged with 34 felonies in Manhattan, NYC, for his role in falsifying business records in order to conceal an illegal conspiracy to undermine an election. He pleaded not guilty.

As the news of the indictment shows, they do.
A pattern of disregard for the law often leads to a criminal indictment, and that is the outcome Mr. Trump now faces. Federal and state prosecutors were right to set aside concerns about political fallout, or reverence for the presidency, and initiate thorough criminal investigations of Mr. Trump’s conduct in at least four instances. The investigation by the Manhattan district attorney is the first known to result in an indictment.

Mr. Trump completely transformed the relationship between the presidency and the rule of law, often asserting that a president was above the law. 

So it is appropriate that his actions as president and as a candidate should now be formally weighed by judges and juries, with the possibility of criminal penalties on the line. Mr. Trump badly damaged America’s political and legal institutions and threatened them again with calls for widespread protests once he is indicted. But those institutions have proved to be strong enough to hold him accountable for that harm.

A healthy respect for the legal system also requires Americans to set aside their politics when forming judgments on these cases. While Mr. Trump routinely called for his enemies to be investigated by the F.B.I., to be indicted or to face the death penalty, his indifference to due process for others shouldn’t deny him the system’s benefits, including a fair trial and the presumption of innocence. At the same time, no jury should extend to him any special privileges as a former president.

Trump will finally have to follow the same procedures as any other citizen.

Alvin Bragg, the district attorney, has been pursuing a case of possible fraud and campaign finance violations by Mr. Trump for concealing payments he made to the porn-film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016, election. His actions — using money to silence critics and hide politically damaging information — were wrong. The question that will face a jury is whether that behavior meets the threshold for conviction as a felony.

If those are the charges, conviction will hinge on proving that Mr. Trump participated in falsifying business records while violating campaign finance law, a somewhat novel legal strategy. Falsifying records can be charged as a misdemeanor in New York; to make it a more serious felony requires proof that he combined it with a second crime, in this case, a potential campaign finance violation. The former president, who is seeking a second term in 2024, has denied the allegations and has said that the case against him brought by Mr. Bragg, a Democrat, is politically motivated.

While some legal experts have questioned the theory behind Mr. Bragg’s case, there is no basis for the accusation that it is politically motivated — a claim that Mr. Trump has made, for many years, about every investigation into his conduct. Just as jurors are routinely instructed to ignore evidence that is improperly introduced in a trial, they will also have to ignore the unsubstantiated implications raised by Trump supporters and attorneys in these cases and judge them strictly on the merits.

Among the most egregious are the accusations against him in Georgia. The Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, is weighing criminal charges against several people, including Mr. Trump, for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in that state, which President Biden won by 11,779 votes. Mr. Trump repeatedly pressured Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to “find” additional votes that would change the results of the state’s election, part of a scheme to undermine the will of the voters.

A special grand jury impaneled by Ms. Willis recommended in February that charges be brought in the case; it’s not yet known which people or allegations were included in the grand jury’s recommendations or whom, if anyone, Ms. Willis may seek to indict.

A federal Justice Department inquiry led by a special counsel, Jack Smith, could also result in charges against Mr. Trump. Mr. Smith is investigating the former president’s efforts to prevent the peaceful transfer of power on Jan. 6, 2021, when Mr. Trump roused an armed mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol, threatening lawmakers who were gathered to certify the results of the presidential election. A bipartisan Senate report last year found that seven deaths were related to the attack.

Mr. Smith’s team is also investigating the former president over his mishandling of classified documents that were removed from the White House and taken to Mar-a-Lago, his private residence in Florida. Some 300 classified documents have been recovered in the case. Prosecutors are also examining whether Mr. Trump, his attorneys or staff members misled government officials seeking the return of the documents.

Three of the other investigations that may result in indictments are more serious, because they involve allegations not just that Mr. Trump violated the law but also that he abused his presidential office.

Donald Trump is irresponsible in his Waco display as the Hitler reenactor

Trump is stoking the fires of Waco (Editorial)

Echo opinion published in the Houston (Texas!) Chronicle:

(Just my opinion but the word "waco" and the name of the place in Texas, seems to be synonymous.)

Branch Dividian cult flag in Waco Texas

On a sultry Sunday afternoon in August, 1980, the Republican nominee for president of the United States chose the Neshoba County Fair outside the little town of Philadelphia, Miss., for his first major campaign speech. 

Ronald Reagan — “appearing in an open-necked shirt and red clay-stained shoes,” a local reporter noted — assured a mostly white crowd that day that he was a firm believer in “states’ rights,” an oft-used code in the South in those days for racial segregation and discrimination.

Reagan happened not to mention that seven miles from where he was speaking, three young civil rights workers had been kidnapped and murdered 16 years earlier by a Ku Klux Klan gang that included the county sheriff. Debated to this day is the question of whether the candidate’s paean to states’ rights, combined with his failure to mention the martyred trio, represents an early example of what has come to be called dog-whistle politics — in other words, conveying a subtle message for those with ears to hear, while maintaining plausible deniability.

Waco version of the Ku Klux Klan- terrorist white men without the hoods.

Some historians suggest that a campaign scheduler made a mistake by sending the candidate to Philadelphia, and Reagan was reluctant to disappoint his Mississippi audience by backing out. 

Others maintain that the former two-term governor of California, a first-time presidential nominee but an experienced politician, was pursuing his own “southern strategy” by showing up in a place associated with all-out resistance to civil rights.

When Donald Trump went into Waco (Texas) on Saturday (March 25) evening for the first major campaign event of his 2024, reelection quest, dog ears were not the only ones twitching. Trump doesn’t do subtle; dog-whistle messages are not his style. The more apt metaphor is the blaring air horn of a Mack 18-wheeler barreling down Interstate I-10.

The former guy once upon a time president arrived in Waco during the 30th anniversary of the disastrous cult Branch Davidian debacle, a two-month-long siege by the ATF, the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies culminating in a fire storm that killed 74 people, including 21 children. What happened at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco on April 19, 1993, was the deadliest day in FBI history. (Additionally, four ATF agents and six Branch Davidians lost their lives on the first day of the 51-day siege.)

The GOP-friendly city of Waco — Trump won McLennan County by more than 20 percentage points in 2020 – has every right, of course, to host a former president, the leading contender for the 2024, Republican presidential nomination, but “Waco,” the symbol, like “Philadelphia, Miss.,” the symbol, means something else entirely. “Waco” has become an Alamo of sorts, a shrine for the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters, the Oath Keepers and other anti-government extremists and conspiracists.

What happened near Waco helped spawn what Fort Worth writer Jeff Guinn calls a “legacy of rage” in his new book about the Branch Davidian siege. The Northeast Texas Regional Militia of Texarkana erected a granite headstone at the site that reads as follows: "On February 28, 1993, a church and its members known as Branch Davidians came under attack by A.T.F. and F.B.I. agents. For 51 days the Davidians and their leader, David Koresh, stood as a cult, proudly." As Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh put it, “Waco started this war.”

The former guy Trump led a song of sedition in Waco Texas on March 27, 2023. A despicable display to instigate anti-democracy.

Trump is an Adolf Hitler reenactor.

Thirty years later, the anti-government paramilitary groups feeding off lies about the “deep state” and a stolen election periodically visit the modest, little chapel on the site of the sprawling, ramshackle building that burned to the ground. Although the Branch Davidians had nothing to do with anti-government conspiracists, chapel construction was funded by loud-mouthed conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

Militia members and conspiracists know exactly what Trump’s Waco visit symbolizes. They have heard him castigate the FBI and the “deep state,” particularly after agents searched for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. How they’ll respond to his remarks, particularly if he shows up as the first former president in American history to face criminal charges, has law enforcement in Waco and beyond taking every precaution. What he says will likely set the tone for the presidential campaign to come. Every American should be concerned.

The Trump campaign insists that the candidate’s visit during the Branch Davidian anniversary is purely coincidental. A spokesman said the campaign was looking for a site away from the big cities but close enough to Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, Houston and San Antonio to draw a crowd. The Waco Regional Airport and an expected crowd of 10,000 or so fit the bill. Of course, Temple or Belton or Killeen (home to Fort Hood) would have fit the bill, as well — without the weight of symbolism.

Trump alerted his followers that the feds were coming to get him with an all-caps alert last Saturday morning on Truth Social, his social-media site: “THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”

His call to arms echoed his “Be there, will be wild,” exhortation a few weeks before January 6, as well as his “fight like hell” screed on the Ellipse, shortly before several thousand insurrectionists took him at his word, marched up Pennsylvania Ave. and sacked the Capitol.

The Proud Boys and other anti-government extremists with a propensity for violence took him seriously on that ignominious day. They might do the same in Waco.

Although Trump's predicted arrest did not take place, he appears to be close to facing criminal charges in Manhattan, where District Attorney Alvin Bragg may bring charges involving an allegation that the former president attempted to hide a hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels, an adult-film actress with whom he allegedly had a sexual encounter. The $130,000 payment would be in violation of federal election laws. Trump denies the encounter.

Whatever Bragg decides about bringing charges will be controversial. Legal experts and political observers with no ties or allegiance to Trump have questioned whether the Daniels imbroglio, one of multiple investigations involving the former president, is worthy of indictment.

“The problems are manifold,” Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post wrote in a recent column. “New York state law makes it a crime to falsify business records — for example, listing hush-money payments as a retainer — but that is only a misdemeanor. It could rise to the level of a felony charge if prosecutors could show that Trump ordered falsification of records to conceal another crime. But would ‘another crime’ need to be a federal offense, or would a state offense be sufficient?”

While the merits of the Daniels case are debatable, there should be no controversy about castigating an American presidential candidate encouraging extremists among us. In a deeply divided nation, a nation under stress, incitement should be cause for exile from public life.

Go to Waco, we suggest. Go to Waco to take in Baylor football and basketball, and the Armstrong-Browning Library on the Baylor campus. Marvel at a fossil herd of Ice Age mammoths and enjoy a forested municipal park along the banks of the Brazos and Bosque rivers, sample Chip and Joanna Gaines’s ever-expanding Fixer Upper empire. Don’t bother with a bombastic, bullying candidate inclined to incitement and bent on “retribution.” His appearance is ample reason to stay home.

Jim Jordan thinks with his ass

Echo opinion published in The Washington Post by Jennifer Rubin: 

Political commentator who writes opinion columns for The Washington Post.

"Following DeSantis’s lead, Georgia lawmakers proposed a law that would allow a body they largely control to fire locally elected prosecutors."

MAGA Republicans, devoid of policy solutions and addicted to performance politics, act as if their House majority invests them with the power to rove the landscape to spot MAGA victims, skewer their enemies and defend their political allies. That’s not their job! 

Moreover, as we are seeing with their attempt to intimidate Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in his investigation of defeated former president Donald Trump, it’s a gross abuse of congressional power.

For starters, Congress has no business meddling with any ongoing investigation at any level. In response to an outrageous letter from House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) demanding Bragg testify about a case under consideration by a New York grand jury concerning New York law, Bragg’s office wrote, “Consistent with these constitutional obligations, the DA’s Office is cognizant of the Justice Department’s consistence policy ‘of not providing Congress with non-public information about investigations.’ ”

Jim Jordan desecration: "First, they came for your guns. Then, your gas stoves. Then, your gas cars. What’s next?" Stephen King: "You!"

Bragg’s office made the constitutional case succinctly:

Congress is not the appropriate branch to review pending criminal matters. As the Supreme Court noted in Watkins, “Congress [is not] a law enforcement or trial agency. These are functions of the executive and judicial departments of government.” 354 U.S. at 187. “[T]he power [of Congress] to investigate must not be confused with any of the powers of law enforcement; those powers are assigned under our Constitution to the Executive and the Judiciary.” Quinn v. United States, 349 U.S. 155, 161 (1955).

Congress is not a supercharged prosecutorial supervisor. In our system of separation of powers, the duty to investigate and prosecute rests with the executive branch, either at the state or federal level. Attempts to politicize prosecutions and turn prosecutors into lackeys of right-wing legislatures is a dangerous trend that strikes at the heart of the impartial administration of justice and the rule of law.

But it’s not only Congress that is seeking to abuse prosecutorial independence.

In Florida, for example, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) removed Hillsborough County prosecutor Andrew Warren for, among other reasons, decrying abortion restrictions and bans on gender-affirming care. (Warren won on the merits but was denied reinstatement in federal court on 11th Amendment grounds; he has appealed to the Florida state Supreme Court and to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.)

Following DeSantis’s lead, Georgia lawmakers proposed a law that would allow a body they largely control to fire locally elected prosecutors. As the Center for Constitutional Litigation’s Robert Peck wrote in a Bloomberg Law post, “The new law would render blanket statements about a prosecutor’s unwillingness to prosecute certain crimes to be a form of misconduct. A primary concern of the bill’s proponents is opposition to criminal prosecutions under Georgia’s so-called fetal heartbeat law that restricts abortions to approximately six weeks.” Again, this attempted legislative infringement on the executive branch violates the separation of powers and tramples on the right of voters to select district attorneys who adopt the priorities they think are important.

Just as Georgia prosecutors and Florida prosecutors have every right to prioritize cases the voters want prosecuted (e.g., violent crime), Bragg and the people who elected him can choose to pursue public corruption and other white-collar crime free from interference from lawmakers.

Jordan’s attempted power grab not only violates the separation of legislative and executive power, but also runs roughshod over the 10th Amendment, which Republicans invoke at the drop of the hat to shield states from federal regulation and interferences. Jordan’s letter is a blatant violation of New York sovereignty (and the interests of Manhattan voters who elected Bragg).

The reply from Bragg’s office to Jordan’s letter aptly made this point. “The Letter’s requests are an unlawful incursion into New York’s sovereignty. Congress’s investigative jurisdiction is derived from and limited by its power to legislate concerning federal matters. … The Constitution limits Congress’s powers to those specifically enumerated; and the Tenth Amendment ensures that any unenumerated powers are reserved to the States.” Moreover, Bragg’s office argued, “To preserve the Constitution’s federalist principles, the District Attorney is duty bound by his constitutional oath to New York’s sovereign interest in the exercise of police powers reserved to the States under the Tenth Amendment.”

If Bragg oversteps his authority, New York courts and juries will protect the interest of defendants, be they the former president or not. And if his priorities don’t address the concerns of the voters who sent him there, they can vote him out.

Would there ever be a time to bring a local prosecutor into testify under oath to Congress? Certainly, but not on a pending matter and not on an issue of state law.

Congress first would need a valid legislative purpose. 

In Trump v. Mazars USA, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling that Congress had a “valid legislative purpose” in demanding tax documents from Trump’s accountants:

Congress has no enumerated constitutional power to conduct investigations or issue subpoenas, but we have held that each House has power “to secure needed information” in order to legislate. … Most importantly, a congressional subpoena is valid only if it is “related to, and in furtherance of, a legitimate task of the Congress.” … Furthermore, Congress may not issue a subpoena for the purpose of “law enforcement,” because “those powers are assigned under our Constitution to the Executive and the Judiciary.”

Valid legislative purposes for a hearing at which local prosecutors might testify could include, for example, amendment of federal voting rights laws (e.g., testifying about threats to voters and poll workers), police reform (e.g., testifying about police abuse in their jurisdiction) and revision of drug laws or funding of anti-addiction programs (e.g., testifying to the strain on courts posed by nonviolent drug abusers). In other words, local prosecutors can assist Congress as fact finders and experts in policy matters over which Congress has jurisdiction.

If a local prosecutor arrests President Biden after leaving office for spurious reasons? If a U.S. attorney indicts Hunter Biden without probable cause? Congress would have no authority to investigate, haul the prosecutors into a hearing room and demand answers. Those matters would get resolved by other branches and levels of government.

It doesn’t matter if Jordan and his cohorts actually believe Bragg is abusing his office. It doesn’t matter if Bragg actually were using poor judgment in exercise of his prosecutorial discretion. It is not Congress’s job to “fix” these things. Congress is confined to its limited constitutional role. 

That, too, is what we call the “rule of law.”

P.S. on Twitter:  Jon Stewart totally rejects the notion Trump shouldn't be indicted because doing so would make him a 'martyr': We either have the rule of law' or we don't. https://