Australia should cancel extradition treaty with Donald Trump’s US

The show trial of former FBI director James Comey began yesterday in a Virginia courtroom, where Comey pleaded not guilty to a charge of lying to Congress. started by a hand-picked Donald Trump prosecutor Even after a while, on Trump’s orders his predecessor refused to follow suit. The prosecutor, Florida insurance attorney Lindsey Halligan, is a former personal Trump attorney.

Prosecution of Comey – ironically, one of the people responsible Trump’s first election victory In 2016 – one of the few Trump clearly wanted Attorney General Pam Bondi allegedly included New York attorney general Letitia James, who successfully prosecuted Trump and his family for fraud, and Democratic politician Adam Schiff. Former Trump adviser John Bolton is also under investigation and was raided by the FBI. Trump called on the prosecutor’s office of former supporter Chris Christie, among others.

FBI agents and justice department officials working on the prosecution of participants in Trump’s failed insurrection on January 6, 2021, were also detained. was fired en masse and ironically researched For “weaponizing” the FBI against Trump.

Trump supporters insist that far from politicizing the federal criminal justice system, Trump merely restored objectivity, and that it was actually Democrats who subverted it with investigations into the Jan. 6 rioters, Trump’s business activities and his handling of classified documents.

You don’t need to accept this to understand that Trump is not the first president to abuse the justice department. It was the Obama administration that engineered the unprecedented investigation of Julian Assange for espionage after WikiLeaks exposed US war crimes and atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan and revealed the extent to which US foreign policy was determined by corporate interests. The Trump administration was content to continue the investigation and eventual prosecution of Assange, as was the Biden administration – despite Trump benefiting politically from WikiLeaks’ revelations about Hillary Clinton.

But the open targeting of both domestic critics and politicians of other parties who have proven effective at getting under the president’s skin, and the reliance on disturbing levels of accusations to harass them, represents a significant departure even for the United States, toward a dynamic much more familiar to observers of Vladimir Putin’s Russia and its descent into tyranny.

While the Albanian government’s position is that there is nothing wrong with Trump’s America and that it is business as usual for Australia as a loyal vassal state, the rapid erosion of the rule of law in America and Trump’s blatant political use of the criminal justice system creates an inevitable problem for us, along with most Western countries: We cooperate extensively with US law enforcement and extradition agreement While the US is in effect.

And this treaty, like all of Australia’s extradition treaties, contains an exception for “political crimes” (vaguely defined). within the scope of relevant legislation), in the Comey case, is being targeted for the seemingly non-political crime of lying to Congress; James and Schiff under investigation mortgage fraud claim – Something weapon of choice For the Trump regime.

It’s hypothetical at the moment, but as Trump’s show trials spread, the risk increases that the US could pressure another country to turn over a Trump critic for prosecution on false charges. As the Assange case shows, Australian governments are reluctant to toe the line with the US even when their own citizens are targeted by blatant and unprecedented abuses of the US justice system; So an American hoping Australia would understand the political nature of the investigation against them might find themselves out of luck.

Also remember is the FBI, which is headed by Trump’s hand-picked director, Kash Patel. who fired the agents Investigating the 2021 uprising office in canberra and there is embedded officers In the Australian Federal Police. Albanian government Happy to court Patel despite his record when he visited Australia earlier this year. Australia is therefore locked into Trump’s politicized security apparatus and privileged access to Australian law enforcement.

In 2017, when the Turnbull government tried to approve an extradition treaty with China, following through on Tony Abbott’s foolish promise to Xi Jinping to secure a free trade deal, opposition from Labor and the Greens and a subsequent rebellion forced it to back down. Concern: China’s legal system was not fair and transparent, said Cory Bernardi, one of the deal’s critics.

With the US legal system now transformed into a political system of show trials, exactly the same criticism can be made of our extradition treaty with the US and the privileged role that Trump’s security apparatus has within Australia’s security and policing system.