Ei siinä mitään olla lopettamassa. Tuossa uutisessakin sanotaan, että syytteet voidaan nostaa uudelleen vaalien jälkeen. Tämä tietenkin kiukuttaa demokraatteja.
Tästä voimme olla samaa mieltä.
Mitä korruptiota tuossa nyt on tapahtumassa, jos syytteiden nostoa siirretään ja tällä tavalla annetaan vaalirauha?
Kyllä syytteistä ollaan luopumassa. Ne voidaan nostaa myöhemmin tai olla nostamatta (jos Adams riittävästi Trumpin takapuolta nuolee).
Nuo konservatiiviset liittovaltion syyttäjät ovat kyllä sitä mieltä, että syytteistä luopuminen ei voi tapahtua poliittisin perustein, niinkuin nyt on käymässä. Kannatttaa lukea selkärangan omaavien syyttäjien erokirjeet:
I have received correspondence indicating that I refused your order to move to dismiss the
indictment against Eric Adams without prejudice, subject to certain conditions, including the
express possibility of reinstatement of the indictment. That is not exactly correct. The U.S.
Attorney, Danielle R. Sassoon, never asked me to file such a motion, and I therefore never had an
opportunity to refuse. But I am entirely in agreement with her decision not to do so, for the reasons
stated in her February 12, 2025 letter to the Attorney General..
In short, the first justification for the motion—that Damian Williams’s role in the case
somehow tainted a valid indictment supported by ample evidence, and pursued under four different
U.S. attorneys—is so weak as to be transparently pretextual. The second justification is worse.
No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or
the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy
objectives.
There is a tradition in public service of resigning in a last-ditch effort to head off a serious
mistake. Some will view the mistake you are committing here in the light of their generally
negative views of the new Administration. I do not share those views. I can even understand how
a Chief Executive whose background is in business and politics might see the contemplated
dismissal-with-leverage as a good, if distasteful, deal. But any assistant U.S. attorney would know
that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens,
much less elected officials, in this way. If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to
give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or
enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.
Please consider this my resignation. It has been an honor to serve as a prosecutor in the
Southern District of New York.
Vaalien läheisyys on ihan yleisesti tunnustettu syy jenkeissä lykätä syytteiden käsittelyä tai julkistamista, tunnetaan esim. nimellä 60 day rule tai 90 day rule. Ihan tarkkaa määritelmää tuolle tai ajanjaksolle ei ole, ja siitä voi kiistellä tulisiko tätä soveltaa näin tähän caseen, mutta se ei vaan pidä paikkaansa että tämä olisi joku Trumpin hallinnon keksimä juttu.
Ja periaate on varsin ymmärrettävä maassa, jossa syyttäjät ovat poliittisesti nimitettyä ja poliittisen johdon alla palvelevia. Tällöin olisi aika helppoa koittaa vaikuttaa vaaleihin nostamalla tekaistu syyte juuri vaalien alla, niin että faktat eivät ehdi tulla esiin, vaan yleisö tietää vain että vaikka istuvan presidentin (tai hänen puolueensa) vastaehdokasya syytetään lasten hyväksikäytöstä. Mitä luulet että tuo vaikuttaisi vaaleihin ja hyväksyisitkö itse, jos Trumpin DOJ tekisi näin juuri ennen ensi vaaleja?
Tässä ei ole ollenkaan kyse tuosta, vaan tämä oli jo otettu huomioon:
Regarding the timing of the indictment, the decision to charge in September 2024—nine
months before the June 2025 Democratic Mayoral Primary and more than a year before the
November 2025 Mayoral Election-complied in every respect with longstanding Department
policy regarding election year sensitivities and the applicable Justice Manual provisions. The
Justice Manual requires that when investigative steps and charges involving a public official could
be seen as affecting an election the prosecuting office must consult with the Public Integrity
Section, and, if directed to do so, the Office of the Deputy Attorney General or Attorney General.
See JM §§ 9-85.210, 9-85.500. As you are aware, this office followed this requirement.
Further,
the Justice Department's concurrence was unquestionably consistent with the established policies
ofthe Public Integrity Section. See, e.g. , Public Integrity Section, Federal Prosecution ofElection
Offenses 85 (2017) (pre-election action may be appropriate where “ it is possible to both complete
an investigation and file criminal charges against an offender prior to the period immediately
before an election") . The Department of Justice correctly concluded that bringing charges nine
months before a primary election was entirely appropriate.
The timing of the charges in this case is also consistent with charging timelines of other
cases involving elected officials, both in this District and elsewhere. See, e.g., United States v.
Robert Menendez, 23 Cr. 490 (SHS) ( S.D.N.Y.) ( indictment in September 2023); United States v.
Duncan Hunter, 18 Cr. 3677 (S.D. Cal. ) ( indictment in August 2018).
I am not aware of any
instance in which the Department has concluded that an indictment brought this far in advance of
an election is improper because it may be pending during an electoral cycle, let alone that a validly
returned and factually supported indictment should be dismissed on this basis.
Syyttäjien erokirjeet:
Jännä, miten korruptio onkin täysin ok, kunhan Trumpin hallinto sitä harrastaa...