It was announced in the middle of Monday afternoon that Attorney General William Barr would be attending the Monday meeting of the Coronavirus SuperFriends. Undoubtedly, this was in response to a major scoop by Betsy Woodruff Swan over the weekend in Politico.



Documents reviewed by POLITICO detail the department’s requests to lawmakers on a host of topics, including the statute of limitations, asylum and the way court hearings are conducted. POLITICO also reviewed and previously reported on documents seeking the authority to extend deadlines on merger reviews and prosecutions...In one of the documents, the department proposed that Congress grant the attorney general power to ask the chief judge of any district court to pause court proceedings “whenever the district court is fully or partially closed by virtue of any natural disaster, civil disobedience, or other emergency situation.”



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The proposal would also grant those top judges broad authority to pause court proceedings during emergencies. It would apply to “any statutes or rules of procedure otherwise affecting pre-arrest, post-arrest, pre-trial, trial, and post-trial procedures in criminal and juvenile proceedings and all civil process and proceedings,” according to draft legislative language the department shared with Congress. In making the case for the change, the DOJ wrote that individual judges can currently pause proceedings during emergencies but that their proposal would make sure all judges in any particular district could handle emergencies “in a consistent manner.”



Just as it’s crazy to hand someone with a track record like Steve Mnuchin's a half-trillion bucks to dole out, who in their right mind would hand someone with a track record like Bill Barr’s an open invitation like this to take a chainsaw to habeas corpus? The reaction among Democrats in the House was instantaneously agog. The reaction among civil libertarians was volcanic.



“Not only would it be a violation of that, but it says ‘affecting pre-arrest,’” said Norman L. Reimer, executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “So that means you could be arrested and never brought before a judge until they decide that the emergency or the civil disobedience is over. I find it absolutely terrifying. Especially in a time of emergency, we should be very careful about granting new powers to the government.” Reimer said the possibility of chief judges suspending all court rules during an emergency without a clear end in sight was deeply disturbing. “That is something that should not happen in a democracy,” he said.



Everything about this administration* is sui generis, and that especially includes its incompetence and venality. That has to be paramount in considering everything this administration* says and does. It’s not, “Do you want anyone to have these powers?” It’s, “Do you want these guys to have these powers?” Do you want someone making decisions who’s thinking like the guy described by Gabriel Sherman in Vanity Fair?



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According to two sources, Kushner has told Trump about experimental treatments he’s heard about from executives in Silicon Valley. “Jared is bringing conspiracy theories to Trump about potential treatments,” a Republican briefed on the conversations told me. Another former West Wing official told me: “Trump is like an 11-year-old boy waiting for the fairy godmother to bring him a magic pill.”



When you’re already at the bottom, the slippery slope looks like a mountain.

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