I’m feeling a bit as though I had been preempted. I had been preparing a post on President Trump’s “anti-weaponization” fund but his announcement that he was not implementing it has made that unnecessary. I’ll just mention a few of my thoughts.
First, I thought that the president was pointing to a very real injustice—that the Supreme Court had found that the federal obstruction statute had been applied too broadly. But it was the wrong remedy for the problem. Those who pay taxes and those who feel monetization of the debt most acutely were paying for something over which they have little control while for those doing the enforcing the incentives did not actually change.
My ideal situation is that the law be enforced vigorously and even-handedly and those doing the enforcing be held responsible if they do so unjustly. With the “anti-weaponization” fund, we are no closer to that ideal than without it.
Meh. The law refers to destroying documents and then also adds “otherwise” attempts to interfere with the election. It’s a pretty tight interpretation if you decide that otherwise does not mean attempts to interfere. Otherwise, why even add the second part if all it means is destroying documents is illegal?
Anyway, only about 1/4 of the people were charged with obstruction and about half of those were also convicted of other, usually felony charges IIRC. Of the the 150 convicted/pled guilty many/most had other charges dropped and it was noted they could be brought up again if the obstruction convictions were overturned.
Steve