{"id":1459901,"date":"2024-02-29T03:20:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-29T08:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1459901"},"modified":"2024-02-29T03:20:00","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T08:20:00","slug":"the-beltway-judge-hearing-trump-cases-her-anti-trump-anti-kavanaugh-husband","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/the-beltway-judge-hearing-trump-cases-her-anti-trump-anti-kavanaugh-husband\/1459901\/","title":{"rendered":"The Beltway Judge Hearing Trump Cases & Her Anti-Trump, Anti-Kavanaugh Husband"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Beltway Judge Hearing Trump Cases & Her Anti-Trump, Anti-Kavanaugh Husband<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Julie Kelly via RealClearInvestigations,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Washington glitterati assembled at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in October to celebrate federal employees making a difference in government. Hosted by CNN anchor Kate Bolduan, the black-tie\u00a0affair<\/a>\u00a0featured in-person appearances by top Biden White House officials including Chief of Staff Jeffrey Zients, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, and Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Judge Florence Pan, who now has key Trump issues such as presidential immunity before her in court … U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia\/Wikimedia<\/em><\/p>\n

Midway through the evening\u2019s festivities, Max Stier, president of the group sponsoring the event \u2013 the Partnership for Public Service, a $24 million nonprofit based in Washington that recruits individuals to work in the civil service \u2013 took the stage to thank his high-profile guests.<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat leaders are the heart and soul of effective organizations,\u201d <\/strong>Stier said, \u201cwhich is why I am so thankful to see so many of our government\u2019s amazing leaders here tonight.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Stier also acknowledged one federal employee, his wife, Judge Florence Y. Pan, who sits on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Pan would soon need no introduction. Earlier this month she made headlines\u00a0 by asking Donald Trump\u2019s lawyers whether the presidential immunity he sought in connection with alleged Jan. 6 crimes was absolute.<\/p>\n

“Could a president order SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival?\u201d <\/strong><\/em>Pan asked Trump lawyer John Sauer. \u201cThat\u2019s an official act \u2013 an order to SEAL Team Six?\u201d she clarified.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

… while her husband, Democrat insider Max Stier, continues campaigning against Trump after\u00a0 emerging as a key accuser of his former Yale classmate and present Trump-appointed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Business Wire<\/em><\/p>\n

Although the back and forth between Pan and Sauer was inconclusive as to the question about a president\u2019s criminal liability, many mainstream outlets misconstrued the exchange while lionizing Pan for posing a question that they then used to advance their description of Trump as a lawless menace. <\/strong>The exchange, which Pan prompted when she posed the pre-arranged hypothetical at beginning of the hearing, has raised new questions about the impartiality of judges hearing politically charged cases.<\/p>\n

For months progressives have been insisting that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from any case that involves Trump because of his wife Ginni Thomas\u2019 political involvement and participation in the events of Jan. 6. Those same interests have yet to express similar worries about Pan\u2019s objectivity, despite her husband\u2019s longtime political activism and current opposition to another Trump presidency.<\/p>\n

Power couples<\/a>\u00a0are the lifeblood of Washington <\/strong>so it\u2019s not unusual for political activists, judges, and White House bigwigs to rub elbows at fancy soirees like the October gala at the Kennedy Center. But Max Stier\u2019s longtime ties to the Democratic Party, his access to key Biden administration officials, and his suggestion that Trump represents a threat to democracy at the same time his wife is handling sensitive matters related to the Department of Justice\u2019s prosecution of the former president should raise questions about her impartiality.<\/p>\n

A member of Bill Clinton\u2019s legal team during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Stier, 57, has been a Democratic Party fixture for nearly three decades. Since 2001, he has run the Partnership for Public Service, which is funded by some of the most generous benefactors of progressive causes including the Gates Foundation, Democracy Fund, and the Ford Foundation. In 2020, the Partnership\u00a0launched<\/a>\u00a0an effort tied to the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) movement, pledging to demand what it considers greater diversity in government agencies and institutions.<\/p>\n

In a\u00a0letter<\/a>\u00a0to mark the group\u2019s 20-year anniversary, Stier lamented the country\u2019s democratic \u201ccrisis\u201d caused by \u201ca violent insurrection against Congress and growing suspicions about the results of a legitimate election.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Liberal media and Democrats see big conflicts of interest in conservative Justice Clarence Thomas and his activist wife, Ginni. They seem less concerned about Judge Florence Pan and her Democrat activist husband, Max Stier. MSNBC\/YouTube<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Recently, Stier has joined the growing chorus of Beltway voices warning that a second Trump presidency would pose a unique \u201cthreat\u201d to the country\u2019s future. Stier and others are particularly concerned with Trump\u2019s promise to convert tens of thousands of federal bureaucrats into political appointees, meaning they could be fired without cause by the president. Such a plan, according to Stier, undermines the Constitution and the law.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou wind up with a workforce that is not only going to deliver poor service, but also that is going to be a tool for retribution and actions that are contrary to our democratic system,\u201d Stier\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0in a December 2023 Politico interview. \u201cIf you are selecting people on the basis of their political persuasion or their loyalty as opposed to their expertise and their commitment to the public good, you\u2019re going to wind up with less good service and more risk for the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we have a deep state today,\u201d<\/strong><\/em> he said. But \u201cthe proposals that are on the table would create a deep state, rather than the effective state that we all should be pursuing.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Stier is doing more than just discussing the issue in media interviews; he is\u00a0working directly with Biden officials<\/a>\u00a0to prevent Trump from following through on his pledge if he wins in November. Stier has\u00a0called<\/a>\u00a0Trump\u2019s plans to reform so-called \u201cSchedule F\u201d employees \u201can assault on our civil service, the core to our system of government and democratic institutions.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Republicans threatened to shut down the government last year over disagreements with Democrats on federal spending levels, Stier warned it would sideline what unions estimate as 4 million government employees. \u201c[It] is the equivalent of burning down your own house,” he\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0of a potential\u00a0shutdown.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Stier recalled bad things about Kavanaugh, above, decades after their Yale days together in the 1980s. AP<\/em><\/p>\n

But Stier is perhaps best known for his involvement in attempting to thwart Brett Kavanaugh\u2019s nomination to the Supreme Court. <\/strong>Stier and Kavanaugh attended Yale University together in the mid-1980s. In September 2019, while reporting on a sexual abuse accusation made by another Yale student, Deborah Ramirez, the New York Times\u00a0disclosed<\/a>\u00a0Stier\u2019s account of an incident he allegedly witnessed during their freshman year.<\/p>\n

Two Times reporters, in their first-person-plural \u201canalysis\u201d favoring Kavanaugh\u2019s accusers,<\/strong> wrote:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The New York Times reporting quoted below led to the book above including Stier’s allegations. Amazon.com<\/em><\/p>\n

A classmate, Max Stier, saw Mr. Kavanaugh with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student. Mr. Stier, who runs a nonprofit organization in Washington, notified senators and the F.B.I. about this account, but the F.B.I. did not investigate and Mr. Stier has declined to discuss it publicly. We corroborated the story with two officials who have communicated with Mr. Stier; the female student declined to be interviewed and friends say she does not recall the episode.<\/em><\/p>\n

Stier\u2019s still unproven allegations are included in a new documentary, \u201cJustice,\u201d about the Kavanaugh scandal<\/strong>. The film, which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, centers on Ramirez and features a recording of Stier\u2019s never-before-heard 2018 call to the FBI tip line detailing what he claimed to have seen and heard.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Washington Post entertainment reporter Jada Yuan\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0in January 2023:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Deborah Ramirez, Kavanaugh accuser: In a 2023 documentary, Stier, also a Yalie, adds support to her questioned account of sexual lewdness. Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence<\/em><\/p>\n

In the previously unheard recording, Stier says classmates told him not just that Kavanaugh stuck his penis in Ramirez\u2019s face, but that afterward, Kavanaugh went to the bathroom to make himself erect before allegedly returning to assault her again, hoping to amuse an audience of mutual friends, In the film, Ramirez says she\u2019d suppressed the memory so deeply she couldn\u2019t recall this second incident. \u2026 Stier\u2019s message to the FBI also cites another incident involving a different woman, which he says he witnessed “firsthand”: A severely inebriated Kavanaugh, his dorm mate, pulling his pants down at a different party while a group of soccer players forced a drunk female freshman to hold his penis.<\/em><\/p>\n

Stier did not appear as an interview subject in the film. Some\u00a0speculated<\/a>\u00a0that Stier\u2019s involvement in the Kavanaugh matter was retaliation against former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for allowing his wife\u2019s earlier nomination as district judge to expire with the end of the Obama administration.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Jack Smith, special counsel: Trump and Jan. 6 issues arising from his work have come before Judge Pan, and she has sided with the government. AP<\/em><\/p>\n

Judge Pan, 57, a Taiwanese-American, has longstanding ties to the Democratic Party. A graduate of Stanford Law School, Pan worked for President Clinton\u2019s departments of Justice and Treasury before joining the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the District of Columbia in 1999. In 2009, President Barack Obama nominated her to serve as an associate judge on the\u00a0Superior Court of the District of Columbia<\/a>. As his tenure drew to a close, Obama then nominated her unsuccessfully to serve as a\u00a0United States district judge<\/a>\u00a0for the\u00a0District of Columbia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After Trump left office in 2021, Pan became one of President Biden\u2019s first judicial nominees, tapped again to serve as a U.S. district judge in Washington. Less than a year later, Biden promoted her to the D.C. appellate court; in both instances, Pan replaced Ketanji Brown Jackson as she made her way to the Supreme Court. She is the first Asian American to serve on both benches.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a perfect example of how the Deep State defends its interest,\u201d <\/strong><\/em>Russell Vought, president of the Center for Renewing America, one of the organizations pushing for the Schedule F reforms told RealClearInvestigations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn and out of government, multiple branches of government, relying on personal networks, even marriages, to defeat President Trump and thereby protect a permanent, unaccountable bureaucracy.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

During her brief tenure on the appellate court, Pan has found herself on an unusually high number of politically charged cases.<\/p>\n

A panel of three judges initially hears appeals before the full court selected out of 11 sitting judges.\u00a0Pan has been seated on two such panels regarding cases involving Jan. 6 and Donald Trump. In both cases she provided the key vote in a split, 2-1 decision, that sided with the government. In\u00a0Fischer v. USA,<\/em>\u00a0Pan\u00a0acknowledged<\/a>\u00a0that the government was making a \u201cnovel\u201d use of a post-Enron statute that addressed tampering with documents to increase the legal jeopardy of individuals who disrupted the Electoral College Count on Jan. 6.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be sure, outside of the January 6 cases brought in this jurisdiction, there is no precedent for using 1512(c)(2) to prosecute the type of conduct at issue in this case.\u201d <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Pan applied a \u201cbroad reading of the statute\u201d to allow application of the law.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Pan reached the same conclusion in\u00a0Robertson v. USA<\/em>\u00a0on the same matter in another 2-1 decision. Her opinion in the Fischer case is now before the Supreme Court; legal observers predict the court might reverse her opinion, essentially overturning how the DOJ has interpreted the statute\u2019s language to charge more than 300 Jan. 6 protesters with the felony count. (This would put Judge Kavanaugh in the unique position of voting against a decision written by the spouse of one of his accusers.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Unusual GOP Dissent on Court<\/h2>\n

Pan also upheld another controversial lower court ruling that favored the DOJ and worked against Trump, one that recently resulted in a harsh rebuke from some of her colleagues on the circuit court.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell, another Obama appointee, in 2023 authorized an application from Special Counsel Jack Smith to obtain a search warrant for Trump\u2019s Twitter data in his Jan. 6 case against the former President. Not only did Howell force the company to produce the records, which included direct messages and draft posts, she signed a nondisclosure order to prevent Twitter \u2013 now X and owned by liberal b\u00eate noire Elon Musk \u2013 from notifying its customer, Trump, about the warrant for 180 days.<\/strong><\/p>\n

X appealed Howell\u2019s nondisclosure order; Judge Pan backed Howell\u2019s decision and ruled against the company\u2019s appeal, citing the need to \u201csafeguard the security and integrity of the investigation\u201d and \u201cavoid tipping off the former President about the warrant\u2019s existence.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

But Pan\u2019s conclusions were wrong, four Republican-appointed judges on the D.C. circuit court wrote this month in what legal observers described as an unusual 12-page statement related to the appeal.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Judge Neomi Rao, Trump appointee: She and three other colleagues on the DC circuit court dissented from Pan. AP<\/em><\/p>\n

“The Special Counsel\u2019s approach obscured and bypassed any assertion of executive privilege and dodged the careful balance Congress struck in the Presidential Records Act,\u201d<\/strong> Judges Neomi Rao, Justin Walker, Gregory Katsas, and Karen Henderson wrote in an order filed Jan. 16. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe district court and this court permitted this arrangement without any consideration of the consequential executive privilege issues raised by this unprecedented search. We should not have endorsed this gambit. Rather than follow established precedent, for the first time in American history, a court allowed access to presidential communications before any scrutiny of executive privilege.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

But it was Pan\u2019s exchange with Trump\u2019s defense attorney during oral arguments related to Trump\u2019s claims of presidential immunity against criminal prosecution that caught the media\u2019s attention.<\/strong> Trump is seeking to dismiss Smith\u2019s Jan. 6 indictment on immunity grounds; Judge Tanya S. Chutkan issued a landmark ruling in December denying Trump\u2019s motion and concluded that presidents are subject to criminal prosecution.<\/p>\n

Roughly one minute into the Jan. 9 discussion, Pan interrupted Trump lawyer Sauer with her hypothetical question. The exchange went as follows:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

D. John Sauer, Trump lawyer: Impeachment conviction before criminal prosecution. AP<\/em><\/p>\n

Pan:<\/strong>\u00a0Could a president order SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival? That\u2019s an official act, an order to SEAL Team Six?<\/em><\/p>\n

John Sauer:<\/strong>\u00a0He would have to be and would speedily be impeached and convicted before the criminal prosecution.<\/em><\/p>\n

Pan:\u00a0<\/strong>But if he weren\u2019t … there would be no criminal prosecution, no criminal liability for that?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sauer:<\/strong>\u00a0Chief Justice\u2019s opinion in\u00a0Marbury against Madison …\u00a0and the Impeachment Judgment Clause all clearly presuppose what the Founders were concerned about …<\/em><\/p>\n

Pan:\u00a0<\/strong>I asked you a yes or no question. Could a president who ordered SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival who was not impeached, would he be subject to criminal prosecution?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sauer:<\/strong>\u00a0If he were impeached and convicted first.<\/em><\/p>\n

Pan:<\/strong>\u00a0So your answer is … no.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sauer:<\/strong>\u00a0It is a qualified yes.<\/em><\/p>\n

Despite Sauer\u2019s answer, figures in major media nonetheless reported that Sauer claimed a president could not be prosecuted for ordering the assassination of a political rival. (It was unclear whether Pan suggested the order or the act itself was illegal.) Legal analysts, cable news hosts, and columnists praised Pan regardless of the plausibility of such a scenario.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Former federal prosecutor Harry Litman\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0MSNBC host Chris Hayes that \u201cafter Judge Pan asked that hypo about SEAL Team Six, Sauer \u2026 was a dead man walking. He will lose. He should lose.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Writing for the Atlantic, former federal prosecutor and Trump antagonist George Conway described Pan\u2019s hypothetical as a way of setting a \u201ctrap\u201d for Team Trump. He\u00a0further<\/a>\u00a0suggested Pan could host \u201cMeet the Press\u201d if she decided to pursue a different career outside the judiciary.<\/p>\n

Conway\u00a0continued<\/a>\u00a0to praise Pan in a CNN interview, calling her SEAL Team Six line of inquiry an \u201cintellectual tour de force.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats also seized on Sauer\u2019s response. Rep. Adam Schiff, currently running for the U.S. Senate in California,\u00a0denounced<\/a>\u00a0Trump and his legal team, insisting \u201cthere is no immunity for murder.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Rep. Adam Schiff seized on the Trump lawyer’s response to Judge Pan,\u00a0 insisting “there is no excuse for murder.” AP<\/em><\/p>\n

A reporter asked Trump about the exchange during an appearance on Jan. 11. \u201cDo you agree with your lawyers, what they said on Tuesday, that you should not be prosecuted if you ordered SEAL Team Six to kill a political opponent?\u201d Trump replied that presidents \u201chave to have immunity,\u201d otherwise every president would be prosecuted by that leader\u2019s successor of the opposite political party.<\/p>\n

Some pundits took Pan\u2019s hypothetical a step further. MSNBC contributor Elie Mystal\u00a0misrepresented<\/a>\u00a0Sauer\u2019s answer, then proposed that Joe Biden could \u201claunch a preemptive strike on a rebel stronghold at Mar-a-Lago\u201d under Trump\u2019s way of thinking.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Paul Rozenzweig of the anti-Trump conservative site The Bulwark\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0that Trump\u2019s reasoning meant Biden could assassinate Trump without any consequences.<\/p>\n

The controversy presumably will continue to swirl until Pan\u2019s panel issues its ruling. It could be weeks until the opinion is filed. Until then, Trump\u2019s March 4 trial date is on hold and looks less likely by the day, which is why Jack Smith asked the court to fast-track the announcement to expedite the process as it inevitably heads toward the Supreme Court. Considering the political composition of the three-judge panel \u2013 two judges appointed by Democratic presidents \u2013 most observers expect the appellate court to uphold Chutkan\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Pan\u2019s hypothetical scenario of a presidentially ordered hit likely will figure prominently in any opinion.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nWed, 02\/28\/2024 – 22:20<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bRead More<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Beltway Judge Hearing Trump Cases & Her Anti-Trump, Anti-Kavanaugh Husband Authored by Julie Kelly via RealClearInvestigations, Washington glitterati assembled at the John F. Kennedy…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1459901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1459901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459901\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1459901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1459901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1459901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}