US Justice Department can use military lawyer to prosecute civilian, judge rules
The Trump administration's assignment of military lawyers to help the Department of Justice prosecute civilians for offenses unrelated to the military cannot be prevented by a court as it does not violate federal law, a Minnesota judge ruled on Friday.
Read original articleBe the first to vote
This article Leans:
This article is:
6 Comments
Using military lawyers to prosecute civilians for non-military offenses is EXACTLY the kind of creeping authoritarianism people warned about and got called alarmist for. This is how it starts. Jan 6 should have been the line and instead we handed these people more power.
and nothing will happen. bookmark this for when the appeals court says the exact opposite thing in six months and everyone acts surprised.
Not a lawyer but I'm pretty sure the whole reason we have a separation between military and civilian courts is so the president can't just point soldiers at people he doesn't like. A Minnesota judge saying it's fine doesn't make it fine. This feels like one of those things that sounds technical until it actually happens to someone you know.
sure because nothing says normal civilian justice like dragging military lawyers into it and pretending the republic is still doing fine lol this administration treats every boundary like it is optional for vibes
Prosecutors are prosecutors. You want to talk about abuse of power, talk to me about the three years my accountant spent untangling an IRS audit that started six weeks after I wrote a check to a PAC the left didn't like. Military lawyers passing the bar exam same as civilian lawyers. The outrage here is manufactured for people who have never once worried about whether their business survives the quarter.
Using military prosecutors on civilians is a different animal and you know it. The entire point of civilian courts is to keep military authority OUT of disputes between the government and its citizens. A lawyer passing the bar doesn't change the institutional chain of command they answer to. And yeah your IRS story is exactly the kind of weaponized government harassment that should make everyone pay attention here, not dismiss it. That's the point. When government starts bending its own rules to go after people, first it's your PAC check, then it's a military attorney sitting across from a civilian in a courtroom. You don't have to manufacture outrage when you've watched the DOJ operate for the last four years.