Biden is busy doing the people's business

June 5, 2024

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, President Biden has been busy doing the people’s business. On Tuesday, he signed an executive order that suspends the asylum process when “encounters” with immigrants illegally crossing the border surpasses 2500 per day. Biden’s effort was born of frustration. Congress was within days of passing a bipartisan immigration and border security bill in May when Convicted Felon Trump ordered the GOP to kill the bill to preserve immigration as an issue in the 2024 election.

In issuing the order, Biden relied on the same theory of executive power that Trump invoked when he sought to ban travel from majority-Muslim nations. The ACLU plans to sue the Biden administration to overturn the executive order.

The details of the order are here: FACT SHEET: President Biden Announces New Actions to Secure the Border | The White House. For a description of how the plan will work in. practice, see How Biden's new order to halt asylum at the US border is supposed to work | AP News.

As expected, the proposal did not satisfy everyone in the Democratic Party. See WaPo, Democrats divided over Biden’s immigration executive order. (Accessible to everyone.)

Biden issued a statement with the executive order, saying, in part,

I would have preferred to address our issues at the border through bipartisan legislation because that’s the only way to actually fix our broken system – But Republicans in Congress have left me no choice.

So today, I’m announcing actions that bar migrants who cross our southern border unlawfully from receiving asylum – unless they seek it after entering through established lawful processes.

Biden also listed recent actions to address immigration and border security:

• Strengthening the asylum screening process

• New docket to address cases and make asylum decisions within 6 months versus 6 years

• Revoking visas of CEOs and government officials who profit from the exploitation of vulnerable migrants

• Expanding efforts to dismantle human smuggling and support immigration prosecutions

• Enhancing immigration enforcement

• Seizing fentanyl at our border

As President Biden is trying to solve the challenges at our southern border, he is also actively pressuring both Israel and Hamas to reach a complete cease fire that results in the release of all hostages. See ABC News, Biden takes a big swing at hostage-for-truce deal, puts onus on Israeli, Hamas officials to step up.

As noted in the ABC article, President Biden’s strategy is an aggressive approach to an intractable problem. Per ABC,

White House officials on Monday said Biden's decision to make public what it describes as an Israeli proposal — just one day after it was delivered to Hamas — was driven by a desire to put Hamas on the spot. The move diverged from the U.S. administration's position throughout the conflict to allow the Israelis to speak for themselves about hostage negotiations. [¶]

“This wasn't about jamming the prime minister, the war cabinet,” [National Security Advisor Spokesperson John] Kirby said. “This was about laying bare for the public to see how well and how faithfully and how assertively the Israelis came up with a new proposal. It shows how much they really want to get this done."

Finally, Biden sat down with Time Magazine’s Washington Bureau Chief (on 5/28) for an on-the-record, full-transcript interview. See Time Magazine, President Biden on World Leadership, War, and 2024 Election. Overall, the tone of the interview is begrudgingly respectful toward President Biden. But as with most political discussions today, it normalizes Convicted Felon Trump by discussing his policy positions as if they are not the product of a criminal who attempted a coup and incited an insurrection.

Per the Time interview,

Biden’s record in facing these tests is more than just nostalgic talk. He has added two powerful European militaries to NATO, and will soon announce the doubling of the number of countries in the Atlantic alliance that are paying more than the target 2% of their GDP toward defense, the White House says.

His Administration has worked to prevent the war in Gaza from igniting a broader regional conflict. He brokered the first trilateral summit with long-distrustful regional partners South Korea and Japan, and coaxed the Philippines to move away from Beijing’s orbit and accept four new U.S. military bases.

He has rallied European and Asian countries to curtail China’s economic sway. “We have put together the strongest alliance in the history of the world,” Biden says, so that “we are able to move in a way that recognizes how much the world has changed and still lead.”

While the Time interviewer noted Biden’s “stiff gait” and “fitful syntax” (a product of his lifelong stutter), the sweep of the interview, Biden’s command of the facts, and the breadth of his career clearly impressed the author.  Read the article—all of it. You will be impressed (again) by the remarkable career and accomplishments of Joe Biden.

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Wisconsin charges three Trump campaign officials in the fake electors scheme

In another positive step in defense of the rule of law, Wisconsin’s attorney general announced charges against three Trump campaign officials who helped devise, plan, and implement the fake electors scheme. See Talking Points Memo, 3 Organizers Of Trump Fake Elex Plot—Including Chesebro—Charged In Wisconsin.

Per TPM,

[P]rosecutors cast the three defendants as trying to use the alleged forgery of Wisconsin’s electoral college votes as a means to overthrow the results of the 2020 election. That, the complaint says, was done in concert with senior, unnamed Trump campaign officials.

The complaint portrays Chesebro as generating a series of increasingly aggressive legal theories, all based around the fake electors plan, to prevent the election from being resolved for as long as possible. Troupis, the complaint says, then sent these ideas to the Trump campaign, which then selected Mike Roman to help implement the fake elector slates.

The charges are long overdue. Still, they are significant. Combined with the January 6 convictions, the 34-county guilty verdicts against Trump, disbarments and discipline against several Trump attorneys, the message has been sent that interfering with the federal elections is a crime. Sooner or later, that message will pierce the consciousness of wannabee insurrectionists in the future. Good!

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Merrick Garland tells House Judiciary Committee to back off!

The House Judiciary Committee is threatening to hold Merrick Garland in contempt for failing to turn over audio of Biden’s interview by special counsel Robert Hur. The Committee doesn’t have the votes to issue a contempt citation against Garland, so they did the next best thing (for Republicans): They yelled at the witness during a sham hearing.

But Garland gave as good as he got (or better). As described by The Guardian, Garland said, in part,

He described Republican attacks on the justice department under his watch as “unprecedented and unfounded”, vowing not to allow them to influence his decision-making.

Garland also upbraided Trump for claiming the FBI had been “authorized to shoot him” dead when they raided his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida to retrieve classified documents in 2022.

“This is dangerous,” Garland told the committee. “It raises the threats of violence against prosecutors and career agents. The allegation is false.”

Garland’s fiery speech was a welcome change of pace from his usual milquetoast manner. Let’s hope that the cumulative effect of the Trump guilty verdicts and the new charges against the fake electors will convince some persuadable voters that Convicted Felon Donald Trump poses an existential threat to American democracy.

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Opportunity for Reader engagement

Airlift is excited to feature historian Heather Cox Richardson, author of the award-winning newsletter, “Letters from an American” and best-selling Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America at our next Live from the Frontlines event: “Pennsylvania: Putting Democracy in Action” Tuesday, June 11, 2:00 PM PT/5:00 PM ET.  A keen observer of progressive movements, she will discuss how the struggle for economic justice is feeding into pressure for political change. 

HCR will be joined by leaders from Airlift partner group, Pennsylvania Stands Up. PA Stands Up is working to channel the local sense of economic unfairness to build a potent grassroots political movement. Their incredible success in helping pass legislation for Whole Home Repair is a model for the power of grassroots organizing to demonstrate to low propensity voters how their votes do matter.

Register here for Pennsylvania: Putting Democracy in Action June 11, 2:00 PM PT/5:00 PM ET.

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Concluding Thoughts

Part of MAGA world’s fury at the Trump guilty verdict is their firm belief that the jury instructions permitted the jury to convict Trump without coming to a unanimous view about the means by which Trump intended to interfere in the 2016 election. A reader who is a highly regarded attorney (and a Biden supporter) has convinced me that there is a non-frivolous appealable question of constitutional law lurking in the jury instructions.

Whether and when that question makes its way to the US Supreme Court is important from a legal standpoint but not from a practical standpoint. As articulated by Ian Millhiser in Vox, “While there are some plausible legal arguments Trump could raise on appeal, these arguments largely turn on the proper way to understand New York’s laws.”

Were it not for the presence of Trump in the case, the Supreme Court would likely leave New York’s interpretation of its law to New York’s appellate courts.

The good news is that the resounding unanimity of the 34-count guilty verdict transcends the vexing legal questions surrounding New York’s falsification of business records statute. Trump's defense amounted to (a) I didn’t have sex with Stormy Daniels and (b) I didn’t interfere in the 2016 election by falsifying documents. It is clear the jury rejected both of those defenses. And it is clear the public understands the jury rejected both defenses.

In the final analysis, the jury spoke the truth about Trump's depravity and corruption. Whether that truth threads the needle of Sixth Amendment jurisprudence is a question that will not invalidate the underlying truth as determined by the jury.

Trump falsified business records to deprive the American people of knowledge relevant to the fitness and qualifications of a presidential candidate. That is a crime against democracy that should be punished by an overwhelming defeat at the ballot box—for Trump and for every member of the GOP who continues to support him.

In short, don’t worry about Trump's appeal of the verdict. Instead, focus on beating Convicted Felon Donald Trump at the ballot box. That will ensure Trump can be retried on New York’s state charges and tried for federal election interference in DC and retention of defense secrets in Florida.

Talk to you tomorrow!