The Empire Strikes Back

The country was greeted by the following news yesterday:

"Attorney General William Barr’s expanding review of the Russia probe has evolved into a criminal investigation, according to a person familiar with the matter, giving a federal prosecutor who is leading the inquiry the ability to subpoena witnesses and use a grand jury" 

I don't know about you, but I have dreading this development for several months, assuming that this would happen if Trump's legal situation began to really deteriorate.  So far, though this news has been reported some way or other by most of the press, I have seen no one who is willing to state openly what this really means.

We now have the spectacle of the most corrupt Attorney General in at least a hundred years (the history of which I pointed out in my last post) abandoning his job to go traveling around the world seeking to gather "evidence" that the Democrats are responsible for the crimes that we all know that Republicans have committed.  And let's just be blunt about this:  Trump, Barr, Pence, Pompeo, Mulvaney and all the rest of them know perfectly well that these accusations are nothing but lunatic right wing conspiracy theories without a shred of fact to them.  What Barr is doing is not seeking evidence, but attempting to find some foreign leader who will succumb to Trump's combination of bribery and threats, and agree to fabricate evidence against Trump's opponents.   This extends, as we all know, to threatening the very existence of an ally of the United States if they will not collaborate in this crime. The Attorney General of the United States is engaged with the President in one of the most vicious extortion plots in history, in plain view, and absolutely unconcerned that any person who follows American politics knows perfectly well that there is not a shred of substance to his claims.

And can anyone doubt that he is prepared to continue, and prosecute anyone and everyone who opposes Trump on these fake charges, in front of courts that have been systematically packed with corrupt right wing judges, unless all opposition to Trump comes to an end?

Well, I think it is time to point out, by historical analogy, where this is leading.  I present to you the story of the People's Court:

"Hitler determined to increase the political reliability of the courts. In 1933 he established special courts throughout Germany to try politically sensitive cases. Dissatisfied with the 'not guilty' verdicts rendered by the Supreme Court (Reichsgericht) in the Reichstag Fire Trial, Hitler ordered the creation of the People's Court (Volksgerichtshof) in Berlin in 1934 to try treason and other important "political cases." Under Roland Freisler, the People's Court became part of the Nazi system of terror, condemning tens of thousands of people as "Volk Vermin" and thousands more to death for "Volk Treason."

 The Volksgereichtshof in action

The trials were characterized by screaming abuse directed at the defendants, who were denied the right to present a defense, by the "judges"  Let me quote from the statement of Telford Taylor, US prosecutor at the Nuremburg Trials:

"This case is unusual in that the defendants are charged with crimes committed in the name of the law. These men, together with their deceased or fugitive colleagues, were the embodiment of what passed for justice in the Third Reich. Most of the defendants have served, at various times, as judges, as state prosecutors, and as officials in the Reich Ministry of Justice. All but one are professional jurists. They are well accustomed to courts and courtrooms, while their present role may be new to them. But a court is far more than a courtroom. It is a process and a spirit. It is the house of law. This the defendants know or must have known in times past. I doubt that they ever forgot. Indeed, the root of the accusation in this case is that these men, leaders of the German judicial system, consciously and deliberately suppressed the law, engaged in an unholy masquerade of tyranny but disguised as justice, and converted the German judicial systems to an engine of despotism, conquest, pillage, and slaughter."

You may see a video of this speech here.

This is what is coming to us if we do not act.

The end game for defendants, guilty or innocent

Lest you think that the death penalty would be a step too far even for Trump, remember that he has begun routinely attacking people who criticize him as traitors who deserve the death penalty, and in a recent court filing, his attorneys argued that he has the right to do exactly that, killing his opponents without consequence.  He would gleefully murder his opponents in plain sight, and his degraded "base" would cheer him on.

Is there anyone left who thinks it is wrong to talk about Hitler now?

I have written periodically about actions of the Trump administration, such as the imprisonment without trial of immigrant children, or the threatened relocation of homeless people to concentration camps, which are moves in the direction of lawless dictatorship exactly analogous to the Nazis.  This is the next step, and it is a big one.  There can be no doubt what type of government convicts its opponents in rigged trials with false evidence.