Former prosecutor pursued by Trump calls for crackdown on election lies: ‘Lying can be held to account’ | US politics
Politicians should be held accountable if their lies harm democracy, according to a former US federal prosecutor and FBI chief counsel who is tracking Donald Trump.
Andrew Weissmann has put forward a legal crackdown on election fraud, saying the US needs to be “as creative as possible” and undertake comprehensive structural reforms to get out of the current “mess”.
“He can be held responsible for lying,” said Weissmann, one of the senior figures in former FBI director Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and Trump’s connections with Moscow.
The former federal prosecutor remains a leading voice against Trump and his attacks on U.S. institutions and justice as a professor and analyst on the liberal cable network MS Now.
He speaks from Paris, where he teaches NYUWeissmann said: “If we ever get out of this mess, what systemic reforms can we make? Because I think we’ve tried to go back to the old norms.” [under Joe Biden] and I think that will be enough and maybe it will be enough, but I think a lot about what we can do differently structurally.
“I think the conditions in the United States make it imperative for us to be as creative as possible.”
In a new book Kingdom of LiarsIn: How to Stop Trump’s Hoax and Save America, Weissmann lays out the need for major reform to hold political liars accountable when their lies undermine democracy, without running afoul of First Amendment rights to free speech.
Weissmann proposes a Truth in Elections Act that would build on existing law. Stolen Valor Act A 2005 law that criminalizes lying about military ranks “for the purpose of obtaining money, property, or other tangible benefits” survived a U.S. supreme court challenge.
Introducing the new law proposal, Weissmann drew attention to the countries that protect elections from damaging lies. Examples include Brazil, where former president Jair Bolsonaro was jailed for election fraud lies that fueled a failed coup, and the United Kingdom, where Labor MP Phil Woolas lost his seat in 2010 by falsely suggesting that a rival supported extremist violence.
Weissmann said the “main argument” against strict policing of election lies is that it deters free speech. “However, for a variety of reasons I am not keen on the idea that the solution to false speech is more freedom of speech. And if the problem is to freeze some true speech, that is the problem we are facing now.
“To take MS Now as an example: we have a standards department… and you can see this as a hair-raising conversation in the sense that they go through it piece by piece to see if everything is supported, does it clear a sufficient barrier. “We want to make sure we’re right because the lawyers say we don’t want to get sued.
“So libel law certainly has a chilling effect, and I’m not sure anyone would say that’s a bad thing.”
Trump is being compared to famous figures in the world of organized crime; including “Dapper Don” John Gotti. Died in prison in 2002. Weissmann takes on the strange case of Vincent “Jaw” Gigante, nicknamed Weird Dad, who evaded accountability by feigning mental illness until federal prosecutors led by Weissmann could prove his competence and secure his conviction.
It is in this light that Weissmann considers Trump’s public claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, setting the stage for the January 6 insurrection. has happened well documented Trump privately admitted that Biden won.
“The No. 1 quality we see in a lot of people being nominated for incredibly important positions seems to be loyalty rather than expertise,” Weissmann said. “I worked for the Department of Justice. I worked for the FBI. I don’t think anyone can say that.” [current FBI director] “Kash Patel was the best person for the job of FBI director.”
Politicized investigations under the Trump administration include that of former FBI director James Comey. Last week the Ministry of Justice announced a complaint against DC Bar Lies about disciplinary proceedings against lawyers who supported Trump’s election, with acting attorney general Todd Blanche calling the association a “blatantly partisan arm of left-wing causes.”
Weissmann said with a laugh: “They said that about the FBI, too. You know, I worked for the FBI. That wasn’t my impression.”
But being on Trump’s enemies list is no laughing matter. Weissmann’s name appeared in administrative orders twice.
For the first time, security clearances were canceled for names including Biden, Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney. Weissmann did not have a security clearance from his time working with Mueller. Second law firm targeted Jenner and Blok For employing “unethical Andrew Weissmann.”
Trump called Weissmann a “bad guy”; This statement, Weissmann wrote in Liar’s Kingdom, “seemed like a slight improvement from his speech at the Justice Department weeks earlier, in which he used the suggestive but uneducational word ‘scum’ to describe me.”
While a federal judge declared the ruling “null and void,” Weissmann writes, “the harm to law firms, academic institutions, and others from these and other executive orders is over.”
“Rather than finding themselves on the government’s enemies list, they remain silent or become complicit, as was the case during the McCarthy era.
“They settle bogus lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies. They give up defending academic freedom to avoid losing critical scientific grants. They refuse to file good-faith lawsuits against administration policies to avoid becoming targets of illegal government retaliation.
“I could not escape the effects of such submission. Despite the judge [John D] Following Bates’ decision, the law firms representing me decided to quietly withdraw. The publishing house that was originally scheduled to publish this book backed out within hours of Trump’s executive order on Jenner & Block; “This is proof that fear works.”
When asked how it felt to be ostracized, Weissmann said: “You have to move on with your life. But it’s not right to say you’ll get used to it. It’s not like it’s gone.”
Weissmann passes Île de la Cité and Île Saint-Louis on his way to work in Paris, which prompts him to compare the rebuilding of Notre Dame after the 2019 fire to the work that will be done in the United States after Trump.
“As someone who grew up in the legal system, who is an institutionalist, who has seen the inside of courtrooms, when we look at which parts of the government are still functioning effectively, it’s the district courts,” he said. “This is a place where there is due process, where facts matter, where there is the ability to actually get to the truth. And you’re dealing with civilians: we have a jury system, and people rise to the occasion and take it seriously.”
While Weissmann acknowledged that the proposal to test dangerous political lies in such courts had “flaws,” he said the courts “remain with me as a place where you can still conduct due process, where you can have a forum where the truth matters.”
“When Trump or his aides challenged the election in 2020, it was in court and he lost,” he said. “That’s different than going out in public and saying anything, whether it’s true or not.”
