The American legal system badly needs some modifications

April 1, 2025

Since Donald Trump entered the political arena the number of times he has been involved in legal actions has grown enormously. And as he continues to be involved in politics, that list continues to expand.

Each of the times he has been charged with a crime or sued excites his political enemies, and provides them with ammunition to fight him with. And his supporters and some others say that is mostly why these allegations are made and charges are brought in the first place.

The term “lawfare” has become a common term. It means to use legal elements as warfare, or using the law as a weapon of political war.

A shining example provided by Trump supporters of how lawfare is used occurred in New York not too long ago. In May of 2024, he was charged by a Democrat DA who campaigned on “getting Trump,” and he was tried in a court in a heavily Democrat county, presided over by a judge with heavy Democrat ties, and found guilty by a jury of all or mostly Democrats.

Democrats disagree with that description, of course. But the heavy influence of Democrats in that part of that heavily blue state are inarguable.

And as time has passed more questionable actions have only added to the concerns that our legal system is sometimes driven more by politics than it is by the law and the Constitution.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered the Trump administration to immediately halt efforts to remove criminal illegal aliens until he has more time to consider whether Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act was illegal. And, there are other instances where a district judge has also intervened in a presidential action.

There are 94 federal judicial districts and each one has at least one district judge, who is appointed for a life term. In total there are more than 670 federal district judges in the U.S. And as some of these judges see it, each of them, having judicial authority over a very small area of the country, somehow has the power to overrule the President of the United States.

Other actions by trial judges have brought about resistance. New York Republican House of Representatives member Elise Stefanik produced two ethics complaints, alleging judicial abuse by two judges in cases against Trump.

One of them was Judge Arthur Engoron of the Manhattan Supreme Court. Stefanik’s complaint noted that Engoron had called Trump “a bad guy,” and had supported Attorney General Letitia James for going after him. When challenged on this, he refused to recuse himself.

During the trial, Engoron told Trump’s attorney, who was trying to file a routine motion, that he wasn’t interested in what he had to say, and “to just sit down.” He then issued a gag order against Trump.

The second complaint was filed against New York state Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over the trial in which Trump was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records. Stefanik provided evidence that Merchan’s daughter was working for the Kamala Harris presidential campaign, calling into question his ability to preside impartially.

The New York Judicial State Commission on Judicial Conduct did not even consider those complaints.

A theory on what has led to many judges making rulings and taking other actions beyond their actual authority is the existing assumption that judges hold absolute immunity for their actions. There are cases where obvious errors and deliberate improper actions by judges have been ignored. Judicial immunity has been awarded to judges by other judges.

One example: An Indiana judge ordered a 15-year-old girl to be surgically sterilized for no better reason than that her parents asked for it. There was no hearing of evidence or a trial that determined this action, and the girl was told she was going to have an appendectomy, not sterilization. She didn’t realize what had actually happened until she was married years later, and discovered she could not have the children she wanted.

The victim later sued the judge, but his peers defended him from being held accountable for his horrific action. You see, he was protected by absolute immunity. The court wrote that, “A judge will not be deprived of immunity because the action he took was in error, was done maliciously, or was in excess of his authority.” 

The idea of judicial immunity was inherited from English common law, and has survived several legal challenges. However, this situation has caused some organizations to seek a change to this assumption of blanket immunity from all actions. 

One of them, the Institute for Justice (IJ) — a nonprofit, public interest law firm — has launched the “Project on Immunity and Accountability.” The basis for this, IJ states, is this simple idea: “If we the people must follow the law, our government must follow the Constitution.”

We do not want a situation where judges and their decisions will be challenged every time one side or the other in a legal matter is displeased with the outcome. 

But what we must have are conditions in existence that will insure that judicial decisions are based upon the law and the Constitution, as written, not on personal or political opinions.

Laws are apolitical devices to protect the people of the country

March 26, 2024

A man bought a house several years ago for $150,000. Through the years, he had made $23,000 worth of improvements, and the market was good, so when he applied for a loan with the house as collateral, he valued it at $179,000.

The bank, however, valued it at just $171,500. So, he got his loan, and over the years paid it back on time with interest.

That’s the way it works. Lenders do their own evaluations of property offered as collateral. That’s the way it is for individuals, companies, and even billionaires like Donald Trump.

In Trump’s case, the document his business submitted for loans even has a disclaimer telling the lender to ignore his valuation and do their own, which, they would do anyway.

So, Trump got his loans with the lender’s valuation of his property, paid back the loans on time with interest, and even has the lenders saying they want him to continue as a customer.

Despite doing business this way for years, and that there was no victim that experienced losses from Trump, the New York Attorney General charged him under a statute that — believe it or not — does not require intent to commit fraud or anyone to be harmed by the fraud.

John Myers, the retired head of GE Asset Management, had this to say: “These high valuations may not be true but the banks and other sophisticated financial institutions do their own due diligence on valuations and basically could care less what Trump’s valuation was. Plus, the loans were all repaid, so who was the victim?” 

And when the case went to court, the judge did not use a jury, but decided the case by himself, and has fined Trump over $354 million in damages, and barred him “from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity in New York for a period of three years.”

The Attorney General said that with pre-judgment interest, the judgment totals over $450 million, an amount “which will continue to increase every single day” until the judgment is paid.

Trump wants to appeal the ruling, so he must pay the judgement amount, plus interest, which totals more than $500 million. That deadline was yesterday.

A spokesperson for the Trump Organization called the ruling “a gross miscarriage of justice. The Trump Organization has never missed any loan payment or been in default on any loan.” This lawsuit is an election stunt to motivate base voters, the spokesperson said.

The Attorney General in this legal matter is Letitia James. She ran for office four years ago on a platform that included finding something, anything, to bring Trump down when he was the Republican president. 

Fox Business Network’s Charles Gasparino noted that what Trump did is commonplace, and it is so common that this case should be laughed out of court. 

“It won’t be, of course,” Gasparino wrote. “James may be the most partisan Democratic prosecutor in the country, but New York state courts are packed with like-minded judicial types who also think Trump needs to rot in jail. Even worse, objective evidence abounds of James pushing the boundaries in using her office to advance her political goals.”

The actions of Arthur Engoron, the judge in this case, are also under attack. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-NY, the House GOP conference chair, has filed a judicial ethics complaint against Engoron. Stefanik accuses the judge of weaponizing the legal system against Trump, and called on the judge to recuse himself.

As reported by NBC News, “Engoron has exhibited ‘clear judicial bias’ against Trump, including telling Trump’s attorney that the former president is ‘just a bad guy’ whom New York Attorney General Letitia James ‘should go after,’ Stefanik sent a letter to the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct. She said the judge has failed to honor Trump’s due process rights, concerns that she said are exacerbated by the former president’s position as the front-runner for the presidential nomination.”

She wrote that “Engoron had illegally gagged Trump’s protected political speech, violated political giving rules with financial contributions to Democrats as recently as 2018, and ignored a decision on the appropriate statute of limitations in the case. At the start of the trial, Engoron ‘infamously smiled and posed for the cameras,’ she noted,” according to the NBC report.

A term that has come to the fore recently is one that applies to this situation. “Lawfare” is warfare using laws as weapons, and the legal systems and institutions against an opponent, and/or to interfere with an individual's usage of their legal rights.

The term may refer to the use of legal systems and principles against an enemy, such as by damaging or delegitimizing them, wasting their time and money, or winning a public relations victory.

Lawfare in this case was made easier by a stupid law that allows someone to be prosecuted for essentially doing nothing wrong, and harming no one, other than the other political party.

That’s not how things should work in the United States of America, and those that are behind this should be relieved of their positions and disbarred.