Is the “Covid Hoax” President Guilty of First Degree Public and Reckless Endangerment?
By intentionally misinforming the American public about the lethality and extreme contagiousness of Covid-19, to the point of calling it a “Democratic hoax”; by ridiculing and discouraging the wearing of masks; by promoting large gatherings of his own supporters without social distancing and without wearing masks; and by calling for the premature opening of bars and restaurants, Trump is arguably guilty of reckless endangerment and public endangerment in the first degree, felonies punishable by imprisonment.
Arguably, Trump is also guilty of other serious crimes, as the Mueller Report refers to readied indictments for obstruction of justice and other crimes, which indictments have been held back only because of a fraudulent and corrupt Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel rule, ordered by Richard Nixon in 1973 to protect himself as Watergate was unfolding. Attorney General Barr has been enforcing that corrupt and unconstitutional rule which states that it is unconstitutional to indict sitting presidents. For that, Barr should be impeached and removed as well as indicted for obstruction of justice.
Trump’s ordering migrant children to be separated from their parents, including with no precautions to enable their reunion, is extremely immoral and arguably a serious crime. It recalls the Nazis separating children from their parents in the concentration camps.
Trump’s public encouragements to his often armed supporters to supervise voters at polling stations can be seen as an open call for the crime of voter intimidation. Meanwhile, instructing his new Post Office director to slow down mail service in order to interfere with mailed-in votes, along with his totally unjustified criticisms of voting by mail, can arguably be described as voter suppression, another crime.
The Office of Legal Counsel’s opinion that sitting presidents cannot be constitutionally indicted is available online. It is the basis for the DOJ rule. Its reasoning is completely illogical, asserting that indicting a sitting president would be too distracting from presidential duties. But, impeaching a sitting president is constitutional, explicitly provided for in the Constitution, and impeaching is actually more distracting than indicting. Not only is the OLC opinion irrational, all the cases it cites in defense of its fallacious argument are irrelevant. Last but not least, nowhere does the Constitution assert directly or indirectly that indicting sitting presidents would be unconstitutional. That conforms to the Constitution’s fundamental ethos that no one is above the law, not even presidents. The Constitution is a highly moral document. It cannot possibly be logically interpreted as wanting to protect sitting presidents from being held accountable for their crimes in a timely manner, or as wanting to keep criminal presidents in power.
Democratic Party leaders and conscientious lawyers should immediately make a major effort to delegitimize the fraudulent, corrupt, and unconstitutional OLC rule against indicting sitting presidents. The rule was corruptly ordered by Nixon since he feared being indicted, though not impeached and removed since his own party controlled the Senate. The rule was put in a drawer and forgotten for 50 years until Trump’s defenders brought it out in the open and have illegally enforced it. It must be invalidated immediately and forever.
© Edward Sonnino 2020
October 30, 2020
