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Incoming State Attorneys General Set to Abuse Power

As 2018 draws to its inevitable end, a new crop of state attorneys general will take office.  Many represent a wholly alien view of what the American legal system is all about.

During the Obama Administration, federal agencies such as the Department of Justice (Remember Loretta Lynch’s comment that she was seriously considering “criminally prosecuting” anyone who disagreed with the then-president’s views on climate change?) and the Internal Revenue Service were used to attack political opponents of the White House (IRS official Lois Lerner was found to have used the tax agency to assault the Tea Party, for example)

With the regime change following the 2016 elections, the center of gravity for using public office to benefit party or ideological interests shifted to some state attorneys general.  Martin Morse Wooster, writing for the Capital Research Center  notes that “Aiming to reshape society, state attorneys general wield ever-expanding powers over private corporations, foundations and nonprofits. Their activities–too often motivated by ideology and politics–frequently undermine the very institutions they are supposed to protect. The author was discussing partisan assaults on private organizations, but the concept now applies to the highly partisan and overt attempt to de facto overturn the impact of the 2016 election.”

Governing magazine notes that “State attorneys general may be the freest actors in the American political system. Their broad discretion gives them enormous power… it’s clear that attorneys general today have close and sometimes questionably comfy relations with entities looking to profit from their work.”

Alan Greenblatt writing in Governing magazine noted that  “Paul Nolette, a political scientist at Marquette University believes left-wing AGs ‘will be prepared to use a kitchen sink strategy …’ A single activist attorney general …can command a small army of lawyers.…”

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Democrats won the majority of state attorneys general races in the 2018 campaign, taking 27 of the key positions.  Josh Siegel, writing in The Washington Examiner quotes Zack Roday, spokesman for the Republican Attorney Generals Association:  “Democratic AGs are tripping over themselves in endless litigation and renting out their badges to liberal billionaires…The State Energy & Environment Impact Center, a coalition launched in August 2017 to assist state attorneys general contesting Trump’s deregulatory agenda, says attorneys general have filed 38 lawsuits against the administration on energy and environmental issues as of Oct. 5. Most of these have been over the Trump administration’s early efforts to delay or suspend rules that had been completed at the end of the Obama administration.”

NBC reports that New York Attorney Gen.-elect Letitia James plans to use her office to engage in “extensive probes of President Donald Trump and his family members… ‘We will use every area of the law to investigate President Trump and his business transactions and that of his family as well,’ James, a Democrat, told NBC News…” James’ determination is so fierce that she has threatened to overturn constitutional safeguards in her Jihad against the White House. “James campaigned on passing a bill to change New York’s double jeopardy laws with an eye on possible pardons coming out of the White House. James told NBC News she wants to be able to pursue state charges against anyone the president were to pardon over federal charges or convictions and whose alleged crimes took place in the state. Under current New York law, she might not be able to do that.”

The issue of utilizing the legal system to achieve partisan political goals has been taken far too lightly.  No one in the Obama Administration has been punished for their actions.  None of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judges who have repeatedly issued decisions (frequently overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court) clearly passed on their political leanings and utterly unsupported by legal precedent, the U.S. Constitution, or statutory law has faced disciplinary action. This has led the incoming class of state attorneys general to believe that they can abuse their office without fear of punishment.

Illustration: New York State incoming Attorney General Leticia James (official photo)

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Government Resources Hijacked for Partisan Purposes

Recent statements and actions by key elected and appointed officials have highlighted a deeply worrisome trend. Politicized judges, governors, attorneys generals, agency officials and elected office holders have unlawfully hijacked their positions for illicit purposes.

The unprecedented scale, over the past seven and one-half years, of the abuse of public resources and agencies for partisan political purposes is a major threat to the American form of government. The effort has grown thanks in part to the lack of serious criticism by a media that largely agrees with the goals (even if they are uncomfortable about the methods of achieving them) of those who are responsible to these affronts to the Constitution and the very concept of equality under the law.

The resulting size and scope of the disregard, as a result of these actions, for First Amendment rights of speech and assembly is deeply troubling. The Internal Revenue Service harassed nonprofit groups that disagreed with the White House. The Federal Communications Commission sought (unsuccessfully) to place monitors in newsrooms in response to the White House’s anger that talk radio stations were substantially disagreeing with presidential policies, and has attempted to harass a leading news organization that has been highly critical of the Administration. The Federal Election Commission has imposed draconian penalties in response to minor infractions, if the alleged violator is of a party not in power in the White House.

The latest examples come from both elected government as well as the legal system.

The illegal use of the law itself as a partisan weapon was highlighted this year by the attempt of 17 Democrat-led attorneys general, led by New York’s AG Eric Schneiderman, to harass think tanks and research organizations for merely disagreeing with President Obama’s climate change policy. Subpoenas were issued to research and writing organizations such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute for no valid legal reason other than to further the oppression of those who have different views than the White House.

One truly wonders whether these individuals have even a basic comprehension of their role. An attorney general’s job is to enforce the law.  They are neither policy makers nor are they the strong arm enforcers of a politician or a political party. Their actions have led to investigations into their unlawful actions.  Congress is examining the actions of both Schneiderman and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey for what has been described, according to reports in the Washington Times, as their “coordinated efforts to deprive companies, nonprofit organizations, scientists and scholars of their First Amendment rights.”

The unlawful assault by Democrat elected officials on those disagreeing with President on climate change has taken to an extremity never before seen in this nation. A proposed legislative bill in California cleared two committees in the state legislature that would have actually criminalized espousing a view that opposed the concept of man-made global warming.
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Once considered a paragon of impartiality, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has also succumbed to the epidemic of politicization. The Free Beacon reports that agents involved in the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email scandal were required to sign an unusual non-disclosure agreement about their work, a probable forerunner to the startling decision to not indict the Democrat presidential candidate for acts which any other individual, as even FBI Director Jim Comy admits, would have resulted in punishment.

The Congressional affairs newspaper The Hill puts it this way:“Despite clear evidence, which would culminate in an extensive tour at a government facility in Leavenworth, Kan., for you or me, the director of the FBI failed to recommend any form of accountability for Clinton, now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee; no prosecution, no loss of access to classified material, no loss of future positions of ‘special confidence and trust’ with the U.S. government.”

The abuses of official positions for partisan purposes do not just occur at the national and state levels.  The almost exclusively Democrat New York City Council, reports the NY Post, used taxpayer dollars and city government resources to produce  a “report” that paints a biased, critical picture on the impact  of presidential candidate Donald Trump’s policies on the city.

New York State’s Governor, Andrew Cuomo, has also come under intense scrutiny , and a complaint has been filed with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel and with state ethics personnel for using his position and taxpayer resources to influence politial races in another state.

Refreshingly, one act, that of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, did uniquely receive widespread condemnation. Justice Ginsberg, (who in 2012 during a speech in Cairo made the stunning statement that if she were drawing up a constitution today, she would not use the U.S. Constitution as an example) openly criticized the Republican presidential candidate, a move which violates the necessity of impartiality on the part of the august body on which she sits.