Has The Trump Reckoning Finally Begun?

Two Proud Boys leaders have been sentenced to seventeen and fifteen prison terms and two Trump minions and conspirators in the Big Lie of the "stolen" 2020 election (Rudi Giuliani and Peter Navarro) have been hit by federal court rulings that may at last show that the rule of law is finally catching up with Trump and his band of henchmen and co-conspirators.  The main act - Trump suffering one or more criminal convictions - may be a way off, but the two rulings suggest that Trump stonewalling and delaying tactics may soon hit the brick wall of the federal courts. With luck, as the legal noose tightens around Trump's acolytes and accomplices some may decide to t last throw Trump under the bus in acts of self-preservation and the realization that Trump has no intention of having their backs when the going gets tough.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the Giuliani and Navarro's bitch slapping by federal judges who rightly have shown no sympathy for lies and obfuscation. Trump remains a menace to America and the world and the threat will continue until either Trump ceases breathing or behind bars for the remainder of his foul life.  Here are column excerpts:

The Trump reckoning, long in coming, has arrived — and not just in the array of criminal cases against the former president himself. A pair of powerful rulings in civil cases against two top Trump advisers offers another illustration of how the court system can stand up against the sheer lawlessness of such behavior.

For years, the Trump way — ignore lawful subpoenas, assert unfounded exemptions from compliance and generally run out the clock on legal claims — has been distressingly successful. Stonewalling has proved a particularly successful strategy in the face of congressional investigations.

But that approach has its limits, on welcome display this week in D.C. federal court, where two judges rendered powerful rulings against Trump advisers Rudy Giuliani and Peter Navarro that amounted to: Stop this nonsense. It’s not nice to fool with federal judges. They possess the power to rule against you, especially when you push the limits.

This week’s first case in point is U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell, presiding over a lawsuit brought by two Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss, who claim Giuliani defamed them when he accused them of tampering with the election results. Giuliani, through his own obstructionism, managed the feat of losing the case before it went to trial. Howell simply ruled against Giuliani, citing his repeated and flagrant failure to comply with his legal obligations to turn over relevant information to the other side.

Howell’s bottom line: Giuliani gets to go to trial — but only on the question of how much money he owes. “Rather than simply play by the rules designed to promote a discovery process necessary to reach a fair decision on the merits of plaintiffs’ claims, Giuliani has bemoaned plaintiffs’ efforts to secure his compliance as ‘punishment by process,’” Howell wrote. “Donning a cloak of victimization may play well on a public stage to certain audiences, but in a court of law this performance has served only to subvert the normal process of discovery in a straightforward defamation case, with the concomitant necessity of repeated court intervention.”

Facing criminal charges in Georgia and other civil lawsuits, Giuliani might have had strategic reasons for sitting on potential evidence, Howell noted, but that isn’t her concern. “Withholding required discovery in this case has consequences.”

Consequences. How sweet a word. We don’t want judges issuing these default judgments cavalierly, but to read Howell’s 57-page opinion is to understand that this is not a judge acting out of pique or even exasperation — she’s protecting the integrity of the legal process.

As was Judge Amit P. Mehta, Howell’s district court colleague presiding over the criminal case against Navarro for contempt of Congress. A Trump economic adviser who became a player in the effort to overturn the 2020 election results, Navarro was subpoenaed by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Like several other Trump officials, Navarro asserted executive privilege and declined to appear. . . . The House voted to hold him in contempt. The Justice Department agreed to prosecute him; he was indicted on two misdemeanor counts, failing to produce documents and failing to appear for testimony. The trial is set for next week.

Mehta, ruling from the bench on Wednesday, said Navarro couldn’t use the executive privilege claim in defending himself because he hadn’t produced enough evidence — any evidence, really — that Trump had asserted executive privilege or ordered Navarro not to comply with the subpoena.

Executive privilege can be claimed only by the actual executive, not a subordinate asserting it for himself. And many legal experts believe the privilege belongs to the incumbent president and can’t be invoked by a president once out of office.

All this is bad news for Navarro’s ability to defend himself against charges that each carry up to a year in prison. But it is admittedly cold comfort for the Jan. 6 committee, which has been disbanded and won’t be able to obtain Navarro’s testimony; there’s no prospect that the House under current GOP leadership would move to do so now.

But, to echo Howell, consequences matter. If Navarro is convicted of contempt, there will be consequences for him — and an ominous lesson for future Navarros. Reckonings take time, but in a system governed by the rule of law, they eventually arrive.