Trump judge's ruling in Mar-a-Lago case proves Biden was right: MAGA is fascism

[catbyte]

Judge Aileen Cannon's "special master" ruling employs the same logic as the Big Lie and the Capitol insurrection

By AMANDA MARCOTTE
Senior Writer

It had been little over a week since President Joe Biden called Donald Trump and his supporters "semi-fascist" when a Trump-appointed judge, Aileen Cannon of Florida, proved Biden's point. While most Americans were too busy enjoying Labor Day cookouts to pay much attention to the news, Cannon let loose with a decision breathtaking in its disregard for both the law and the judicial branch's legitimacy.

In one sense, it's not a surprise that Cannon, a judge who Trump selected precisely because he knew how corrupt she was, eagerly issued a ruling slowing down the Department of Justice's (DOJ) efforts to investigate Trump's theft of hundreds of classified documents from the U.S. government. But even though she had already taken the highly unusual action of signaling her intention to do her crony this favor, the most cynical observers of Trump's shady judicial appointees were surprised at how far she took it. Cannon not only threw a bunch of wrenches in the DOJ's ability to investigate a former president, undergirding her decision with the same logic of the Big Lie and the January 6 insurrection, but she extended a nearly unlimited right to Trump to break the law. As national security legal expert Bradley Moss noted on Twitter, this ruling "is meant for Trump and Trump alone," giving him special rights not enjoyed by any other person in the country, including the actual president. All of this, even though Trump is a private citizen and not the president at all.

At stake are boxes of classified documents that Trump stole from the government when he left the White House. For months, the DOJ has been trying to get these documents out of Trump's illegal possession, but Trump — for whatever no-doubt nefarious reason — has been resisting. Even after the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago resort in an attempt to seize the stolen documents, they found that many of the folders marked "classified" were empty, suggesting Trump removed the documents and either hid them, sold them or gave them away.

snip

Cannon's ruling on Monday is just further proof that Trump is, ideologically, a fascist leader. By asserting that Trump enjoys all these powers that the duly elected president does not, Cannon is reinscribing the foundational — and utterly fascist — assumption of Trumpism: Trump's power should be absolute and not constrained by either rule of law or a lost election.

snip

Salon article

[dem4decades]

1. Great. So one woman can take down the justice system?