An unusual tweet caught my eye last week.
It was from Josh Gerstein, Politico’s senior legal affairs reporter, and it said this: “NEW: Trump admin takes rare step to quell controversy over prosecutorial misconduct in dropped criminal case against Chicago-area anti-ICE protesters. Feds won’t fight defense demand to pay bill for activists’ legal fees.”
Here’s why it’s so notable. In our legal system, prosecutors rarely pay a criminal defendant’s legal fees, even when the government loses its case. Defendants tend to be reimbursed only when they can prove serious prosecutorial misconduct. It’s even rarer for prosecutors to agree to pay those fees. Experienced lawyers will read that tweet and know a single, simple truth.
Something very bad went down in Illinois.
Why, you might wonder, would I write about a criminal case in Chicagoland when the world is convulsed by so many seismic events? Last week alone, Trump capitulated to Iran, the United States cut some of its defense commitments to Europe, and Ukraine hit Moscow with what appears to be its largest drone attack of the war.
We’re living in a moment when every week seems to bring a new development of global importance.
But the Chicago case is indicative of the fight for justice in the Trump administration. For every high-profile case that goes to the Supreme Court, there are dozens of other, smaller cases in federal courts across the country in which the Trump administration lies, bends the rules, slanders innocent citizens and otherwise abuses the legal system to persecute its political opponents.
Read the rest here.
It seems highly probable that Britain is about to get its seventh prime minister in the last 10 years.
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