Rudy Giuliani is under investigation, CNN reports

Man it is a lot harder to source Bat Boy covers than it used to be.

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Around 1736, my grandfather Daniel Curtis marries my grandmother Mary Curtis. They share a common great grandfather-- John Curtis.

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Pretty sure that the Welles branch also has a tight loop.

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what kind of gun does the sgt at arms have? backup?

because trump “always carries a gun”. this is a serious thing to consider.

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This is so never going to happen. The executive branch has all the guns. The only actual power the Congress has is to deny funds and declare the president removed from office. If those are ignored, well there’s not a whole lot anyone can do about it.

…am I misreading that family tree? It seems to be saying your grandfather was born in 1695? 1695 is like 12 generations ago. Mine was born in the 20th century and I’m not young…

Not to mention, those John Curtises seem to have different birth and death years?

Giuliani isn’t a member of the Executive Branch. It’s also increasingly unlikely that the people with those guns in the exec will obey any illegal orders to use them.

But yes - Congress should lock them up if they don’t respond to subpoenas or obstruct. It’s their duty to insure checks and balances continue. It’s also in their self interest that Congress retains its powers.

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The op-ed I posted is about the Sergeant at Arms arresting Giuliani, not Trump, so Trump’s claim of always carrying firearm* is not really relevant, unless Trump uncharacteristically decides to become Rudy’s bodyguard for some reason.

Rudy probably owns a gun too, but I doubt he would be willing to start a shootout with the Capitol Police over an arrest for contempt.

* I don’t doubt Trump owns guns, but I believe this particular claim of always carrying a gun, and that he would have attempted to stop the Bataclan shooters, is just another one of his many narcissistic lies that plays well among his base.

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I hit reply early, I was going to say that if they’ve violated so many norms it worries me - does it literally have to be just the sgt? What if Giuliani gets some guys to resist arrest with him?

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I guess we’ll only find out if it happens.

Anyway, thanks to your reply, I can’t stop imagining Trump and Rudy trying to go down in a blaze of glory, like the end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

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It seems to be saying your grandfather was born in 1695? 1695 is like 12 generations ago.

Ah. No, I’m not a vampire. 7th great grandmother/grandfather

Plus everyone seems to have 8 or nine kids, and they all reuse the same names.

The John Curtis who married Elizabeth Hutchins is the common ancestor who should not be… (or might have been the perfectly reasonable choice, given the size of the community).

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Congress actually does have a few guns (the Capitol Police), and they do have the power to arrest people for contempt. It’s an actual power, just very rarely used. The last time they did it was in 1935, but that doesn’t mean they can’t do it now with Giuliani.

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I don’t think that’s neccisarily the risk. There were brief armed standoffs between ICE/CBP and US Marshals during the intial Muslim ban shit show. And there have been repeated tense confrontations, also including state and local police, over CBP’s attempts to detain people in court houses or in police precincts without permission.

Pretty sure if the Capital Police march up on Trump’s peeps. CBP will march up on Congress. There is a massive bit of escalation involved in going that route.

As someone noted the Sgt At Arms is in charge of the Capitol Police. And specific to Inherent Contempt Congress can deputize a bunch of people as was typically done back when IC was actually used.

There’s also the US Marshals, who answer to the courts. And is a much larger force. The house is currently attempting to enforce these things through the courts.

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You may know this, but since the 1960s, the US Marshals Service is actually part of the Department of Justice. They’re under the authority of…Attorney General William Barr.

But they’re also bound by statute “to obey, execute, and enforce all orders” of federal courts. Some of the potential problems have been discussed over the years, e.g., this 1982 GAO Report entitled “U.S. Marshals’ Dilemma: Serving Two Branches of Government” (unfortunately, not as interesting as this thread’s discussions about armed standoffs against other agencies).

Generally, I would predict that there’s almost no chance of an armed standoff between the Capitol Police and the Marshals, or the Secret Service, or whoever else, regarding the Trump impeachment inquiry. But what happens if the courts order the Marshals to do something, but the AG orders them to do the opposite? Then the system is just broken. Nobody knows what happens. I guess we’ll just make something up, the same way we always have. (Edit: The “right” answer is surely to follow the court’s order, but Trump seems determined to delegitimize and defy any authority he disagrees with).

May you live in interesting times…

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Then they follow the courts. Because the DOJ doesn’t really have the authority to tell them otherwise. The Marshals are nested in the DOJ largely for practical reasons of funding, and access to info and cooperation/coordination with other federal police forces. They don’t take orders from Burr, or act on behalf/authority of the executive.

That is precisely the root of the disputes between the Marshals and CBP, on the DOJs orders CBP has ignored court orders not to do shit like deport people who’s visas were cancelled in transit when the Muslim ban went into effect. The executive ordered law enforcement to ignore those court orders. And the Marshals not only didn’t. But moved to enforce those court orders by preventing CBP from doing so. Cause CBP was the only department to take the executive up on that particular order. And they straight up drew guns on Marshals and local police. People seem to have forgotten those incidents, and shit like that is still going down regularly.

I know some Marshals, very little of their chain of command is tied to the DOJ the way something like the FBI’s is. And they do not have authority or jurisdiction over shit outside the context of the judicial branch or without its backing.

We don’t really need to wonder what happens in that circumstance because its come up repeatedly the last couple of years. Mostly in mild, norm smooshing format. But the Marshals sided with their duty to the court, automatically, as they should and as the law says they do.

But scary fact is so far CBP/Ice is kinda the only law enforcement or paramilitary organization in the executive who have been active and enthusiastic about following Trump into illegal town. Their fucking Union president swore loyalty to Trump during the campaign.

People keep assuming the FBI, Intelligence, Military and what have are just going to automatically back Trump if things go that far off the rails. But every indication is all those groups hate the guy. And Trump’s spent 3 years openly attacking them all on national TV and generally fucking with their shit. All of these people are legally bound to refuse illegal orders to boot.

CBP on the other hand is already violating the law at his request. And its leadership has already made threats on his behalf. So if you want to scary tin foil hat, that’s where you should be looking.

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I’d he always carried a gun, he’d have shot his dick off by now.

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Which begs the question, can you kill a mushroom with a bullet?

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Not disagreeing with you, but I don’t remember CPB drawing guns on U.S. Marshals. Is there somewhere I can read about that?

They do, though. Their major (but not exclusive) role is with the courts, but they have full law enforcement authority & their jurisdiction is the entire country.

Not to get too philosophical, but that’s the heart of the issue I’m thinking about. Our system is not designed for any law enforcement agency (edit: or any government agency) to work without the backing of, or in defiance of, the courts. It’s the Andrew Jackson problem. It’s the Trump problem.

You’re gonna have to dig through the coverage of the initial Muslim ban chaos. Always possible I’m misremembering.

Jurisdiction isn’t just about geography. And full law enforcement authority just means they can investigate arrest and what have, not what sorts of things they’re empowered do with that.

For a simpler example, and the one that’s often been used to explain this to me, you can look at the Secret Service. As a law enforcement agency they have national jurisdiction. But in terms of their law enforcement role they only have authority to Police crimes involving the Treasury, currency, and specific financial activities. When an investigation involves something else, they need to task force up with an agency with jurisdiction over those activities. They can’t just start doing traffic stops and writing tickets, or running an investigation into bribery.

For simplicities sake we’re ignoring their other roll as a security/intelligence force. Which is sort of a separate apparatus. Though weirdly they use the same personnel for both, which hampers their law enforcement role.

That’s a bit different. Yes our justice system isn’t meant to function without the courts as a component. Yes law enforcement are bound by formal court order just like everyone else is. But with the Marshals its about where the duty is drawn from. They don’t as an example get a report of a crime, investigate it and level charges. They get a warrant issued by a judge for some one who jumped bail. They don’t patrol the streets, they provide security at federal courts properties. The DOJ does not tell or request the Marshals do anything directly. They request a court do something, and the court uses the Marshals to do that something if neccisary. Their ability to act outside of Federal court buildings is really limited without specific court actions driving that action. The whole apparatus is still nested in the Judicial branch.

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I googled a bit regarding an armed standoff or drawn weapons, and that sort of thing. No dice, but I didn’t search in depth.

It can, though, and it has. I’m not trying to be overly pedantic, and we mostly agree here, but in February of 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered the U.S. Marshals to provide security for Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. There was no court order. The AG cited his authority under 28 United States Code 561(b), which states:

The Director of the United States Marshals Service (hereafter in this chapter referred to as the “Director”) shall, in addition to the powers and duties set forth in this chapter, exercise such other functions as may be delegated by the Attorney General.

Again, I don’t disagree about their primary role with the courts, but their chain of command expressly goes straight to the Attorney General, and the AG can, and has, exercised that authority to assign duties unrelated to court orders.

eroded by the normalization of “government shutdowns” where things keep going with no budget

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