Trump and Barr are pursuing an expansive definition of executive power Barr has held for decades, and using Americans' suffering and danger from the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic to justify it the way Adolf Hitler used the Reichstag fire to justify his power grab. Below is a transcript of this report from Ari Melber and his guest, Maya Wiley, former civil prosecutor and attorney for the Mayor of New York. Any errors in the transcript are my responsibility alone. The link to the Democracy for America repost of the initial broadcast, which also includes a petition to sign opposing the Trump-Barr policy, appears at the end. — Mark Gabrish Conlan, April 7, 2020
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Ari Melber on MS-NBC, April 2020: Trump’s DOJ Wants Power to Detain Anyone
Ari Melber: Turning
to an important story that may have been flying below the radar: Donald Trump’s
Justice Department asking Congress formally for sweeping new emergency powers.
They’re citing [SARS-CoV-2] coronavirus as the justification. The DOJ wants the
ability to ask judges to detain people indefinitely, without
trial, during “emergencies,” and also being able to ask judges to pause the
typical statute of limitations. That is, of course, the limit on how long the
government can do prosecutions.
The powers would cover cases during “pre-arrest,
post-arrest, pre-trial and post-trial procedures.” That is a gigantic swath of
the criminal justice system. These are very significant demands which, whether
you’ve heard about them yet or not, with everything else going on, actually
show you a bit of a preview of how this administration, this government,
basically wants to invoke the pandemic to alter your Constitutional rights.
And you need a public hearing to address something like
this. The lawmakers, obviously, won’t necessarily have a chance. What would
have been Bill Barr’s, for example, first appearance before the House Judiciary
Committee just this past week [March 31] has been delayed “indefinitely”
because of the very virus that they’re using to argue for these powers.
Also, DOJ rules now say that those caught intentionally
spreading the virus can also be charged under — get this — terrorism laws. I’m
joined now by Maya Wiley, former counsel to the Mayor of New York City and a
former civil prosecutor. Maya, your reaction to this story, which people
hearing it right now might say, “Wow! That sounds really big.” And yet it
hasn’t got a lot of attention because we’re dealing with a pandemic.
Maya Wiley: It’s
certainly really big, and I would say Senator Rand Paul may have something to
worry about in terms of a terrorism charge. But it’s that serious. We are
talking about some of the most sweeping powers that our Founding Fathers absolutely
defined in the Constitution. Habeas corpus is what we call it. It
is explicitly in the Constitution of the United States.
Underneath it, of course, there are lots of statutes and
rules and procedures that we’ve put in place. And what Bill Barr drafted — and
part of why it is such a shocking attempt at a power grab — is it’s not just
limited to this particular pandemic or this moment in time. What the letter
asked for was any disaster, any
emergency. What’s an “emergency”? Who defines that?
And that what would be essentially blocked would be any
person who is arrested — whether or not you’ve already been convicted — but
you’ve just been arrested, and you might not be brought before a judge for who
knows how long under the way it’s framed. It’s simply astounding.
Melber: Let me ask
you: what does it reveal to you, out of all the things that could be done right
now — the government’s playing catch-up — this was something that Bill Barr
apparently rushed out.
Wiley: Well — so a
little bit in the reporting that I want to be fair to the Justice Department.
Some of what the spokesperson for the Department of Justice said was that
Congress had asked for some guidance on what the Department of
Justice may need to think about in terms of this very serious emergency. It is an emergency — there’s no question.
Courts are legitimately struggling with how to do social
distancing, how to have a safe space and not spread this virus by going through
regular courtroom business. And we have seen federal courts doing just that. So
I think it’s not just that they have started it. It’s that they went so far
above and beyond any powers that actually made sense in terms of balancing
public safety and the rights of our people: the rights of residents, the rights
of people who may not be citizens but have every right to due process in our
courts.
That is something that we’re seeing being eroded around the
world right now. And we can’t let it happen here.
Melber: A really
important perspective. You know your way around the Justice Department, and
it’s a story we wanted to stay on even with everything else happening. Maya
Wiley, thank you.
Democracy for America link to above: http://act.democracyforamerica.com/sign/stop_the_doj/?t=1&refcode=g-StopTheDOJ0322.d-20200404.m-23806.s-152667&akid=23806%2E609958%2E6WzdNq
