National Qualified Immunity? No Thanks.
Plus: Trouble for Trump: Mark Meadows Talks.
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CHRISTIAN LANSINGER: No, Congress Should Not Make Qualified Immunity the Law of the Land.
LAST WEEK, THE AMERICA FIRST POLICY INSTITUTE (AFPI), one of several new policy groups run by acolytes of Donald Trump, published a report calling for Congress to codify “qualified immunity” nationwide. The report’s author, an alumnus of the Trump Department of Homeland Security, Scott G. Erickson, argues that police officers need special legal protections so they can keep their communities safe, that eliminating qualified immunity would be dangerous, and that legislators could find a way to address “the concerns of accountability and transparency” while also lastingly making qualified immunity the law of the land.
But enshrining qualified immunity does not, so to speak, place Americans first. Instead, it places all government officials—prosecutors, agency bureaucrats, and yes, police officers—first, and the American people last.
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KIMBERLY WEHLE: Trouble for Trump: Mark Meadows Talks.
ON TUESDAY, NEWS BROKE that Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has been cooperating with Special Counsel Jack Smith in exchange for immunity from prosecution regarding any statements he made under oath. Meadows has reportedly spoken with Smith’s team at least three times, including once before a federal grand jury—the same body that indicted Trump in August on four counts: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy “to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate” people from exercising their constitutional “right to vote, and to have one’s vote counted.”
🚨OVERTIME🚨
Happy Thursday! Programming reminder: No TNB tonight as folks head back from the Big Easy. I heard great things about the event, with special guest Walter Isaacson joining last minute birthday guest James Carville.
What awaits Mike Johnson… My buddy Liam Donovan, who still operates in GOP circles, in the NYT on what awaits the new Speaker. Glad we did that?
The new speaker… Has some interesting thoughts on school shootings. Until he gets vacated, it’ll be a depressing new “choose your own adventure” game for all of us.
It’s well past time… To expel George Santos.
Cheaters never prosper… After ruining a fishing tournament, a Pennsylvania man gets caught cheating… again. But stay for the kicker about bad parenting.
Here’s how a children’s privacy law… figures into that big legal effort against Meta.
The gift for the pedant that has everything… A £795 copy of 1984 made out of old Dan Brown novels.
Shabbat at Times Square… A powerful image and video.
Red in the face… Trump’s very bad day in New York.
Mike Johnson and Democracy… A useful thread from David Pepper.
“The British comedy of the year…” Might do pretty well here, too.
Mysterious bylines appeared on a USA Today site.... Did these writers exist?
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