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> The vulnerability comes from one bad faith party flooding the system with bad faith cases and appeals No, this is literally a "both sides" issue. Lawfare is

by hiatus 1y ago

> The vulnerability comes from one bad faith party flooding the system with bad faith cases and appeals No, this is literally a "both sides" issue. Lawfare is not new. See the continuous legal battles over the second amendment in states like NY, NJ, and CA.

dudefeliciano 1y ago
i was not aware of Biden or Democrat presidents filing personal lawsuits against journalists and politcal opponents...
- rayiner 1y ago
  Just last week a New York intermediate appellate court overturned the $500 million fraud judgment against Trump: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/21/new-york-civil-fraud-judgment-trump-ruling-00517727 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/21/new-york-civil-frau.... Yes, it wasn't brought by Biden--but it was brought by an elected Democrat Attorney General who campaigned on "going after Trump." Note that, out of the five judge panel, three would have overturned the underlying conviction, while two would have granted a new trial, and one would have thrown the case out entirely: > Two other judges, John Higgitt and Llinét Rosado, said James had the authority to bring the case but argued for giving Trump a new trial. And the fifth judge, Justice David Friedman, argued to throw out the case, saying James lacked the authority to bring it.
  - pstuart 1y ago
    The case was based on Trump's former attorney mentioning criminal acts his client had done -- it was an attempt to hold Trump accountable for those crimes. The reason a democrat would be involved in such prosecution is because every GOP member has effectively sworn fealty to Trump and they will fiercely protect him from any accountability. Biden was many things, but not corrupt in the sense that Trump is. Yes, his son did business trading on his relationship but that was legal (albeit distasteful). Most dem voters dislike corruption, even if it's one of their team; I don't see that on the other side of the aisle. Disclaimer: I am not a dem.
    - rayiner 1y ago
      The link above is about the New York civil case. If you're talking about the criminal case, it's even worse, as CNN's chief legal correspondent explained: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-was-convicted-but-prosecutors-contorted-the-law.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-was-convicted-... ("Most importantly, the DA's charges against Trump push the outer boundaries of the law and due process."). Or, as an MSNBC legal columnist explained: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-guilty-hush-money-trial-verdict-alvin-bragg-rcna153628 https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-guilty-hus... ("Most DAs wouldn’t have pursued this case against Trump. Alvin Bragg got lucky. Let’s be honest with each other. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump was convoluted."). You could write an entire Harvard law review issue about the novel legal issues raised by the Trump criminal case: Can a state crime be predicted on an uncharged federal campaign finance violation? can someone violate campaign finance law--which is focused on preventing candidates from misusing donated funds--by using their own money to pay off a porn star? Can you bootstrap a misdemeanor into a felony through a triple-bank-shot involving an uncharged secondary crime and a choice of three possible tertiary crimes? When you prosecute someone for a business records misdemeanor, but almost all the allegedly bad conduct relates to unspecified secondary and tertiary crimes, how do you instruct the jury? When you give the jury three different options of uncharged tertiary crimes to support the uncharged secondary crime, which in turn supports the charged primary crime, on what points must the jury reach a unanimous decision? Google's and Apple's "Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich" was a more straightforward legal theory than the Trump criminal case.
      - pstuart 1y ago
        In the interest of avoiding partisan squabbling on HN, I'm going to state the following and let you walk away feeling like you "won" this debate: 1. Trump is the epitome of a corrupt pol and has pretty much gotten away with everything his entire life. 2. Prosecuting him was not in the form of of attacking a rival, it was addressing issue #1 3. If the roles were reversed and this was Biden we were talking about, most dem voters would still be for prosecution of blatant corruption. The magic of Trump is that his supporters (which apparently you are one of) are fine with him doing anything he wants, up to and including shooting someone on Fifth Ave So congratulations! You are right and I am wrong and I'm so sorry to bother you with my clearly not-Trump-loving observations.
  - dudefeliciano 1y ago
    > Yes, it wasn't brought by Biden Isn't that the crux of the matter? You have a (crypto)billionaire president using his presidential powers and personal wealth to start frivolous lawsuit to shut down his opponents. If that doesn't worry you I really don't know what to tell you.
    - rayiner 1y ago
      It was brought by the elected Attorney General of New York, in furtherance of a promise to voters to pursue unspecified legal actions against the leader of the other party. I don't like lawfare, but I've come to the conclusion that the only proper response to norm violations is a 10x counter-response.
      - BrenBarn 1y ago
        > I've come to the conclusion that the only proper response to norm violations is a 10x counter-response. That may be true --- or even a 100x response. But the thing is that a 100x (and probably even a 10x) response to many of these norm violations would take us well beyond the entire realm of lawfare. A 10x response would be at least "ignore everything the entire federal court system says because it's irredeemably corrupted", if not actual armed resistance. Even going back well before Trump, norm violations like McConnell holding Scalia's seat open already made it clear that the Supreme Court was no longer a meaningful institution (if it ever had been). I don't mean I didn't like some of their decisions. I mean the entire thing is a meaningless charade, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year and 366 in leap years. And that is just one example. The level of "counter-response" required to recover from the norm violations we've had over the last 10-20 years requires an overhaul to the very foundations of our system of government.
        jacquesm 1y ago
        > The level of "counter-response" required to recover from the norm violations we've had over the last 10-20 years requires an overhaul to the very foundations of our system of government. You might just get it. If the country survives as an entity. Otherwise you might get several new systems of government.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]

by hiatus 1y ago

dudefeliciano 1y ago

i was not aware of Biden or Democrat presidents filing personal lawsuits against journalists and politcal opponents...

rayiner 1y ago
Just last week a New York intermediate appellate court overturned the $500 million fraud judgment against Trump: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/21/new-york-civil-fraud-judgment-trump-ruling-00517727 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/21/new-york-civil-frau.... Yes, it wasn't brought by Biden--but it was brought by an elected Democrat Attorney General who campaigned on "going after Trump." Note that, out of the five judge panel, three would have overturned the underlying conviction, while two would have granted a new trial, and one would have thrown the case out entirely: > Two other judges, John Higgitt and Llinét Rosado, said James had the authority to bring the case but argued for giving Trump a new trial. And the fifth judge, Justice David Friedman, argued to throw out the case, saying James lacked the authority to bring it.
- pstuart 1y ago
  The case was based on Trump's former attorney mentioning criminal acts his client had done -- it was an attempt to hold Trump accountable for those crimes. The reason a democrat would be involved in such prosecution is because every GOP member has effectively sworn fealty to Trump and they will fiercely protect him from any accountability. Biden was many things, but not corrupt in the sense that Trump is. Yes, his son did business trading on his relationship but that was legal (albeit distasteful). Most dem voters dislike corruption, even if it's one of their team; I don't see that on the other side of the aisle. Disclaimer: I am not a dem.
  - rayiner 1y ago
    The link above is about the New York civil case. If you're talking about the criminal case, it's even worse, as CNN's chief legal correspondent explained: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-was-convicted-but-prosecutors-contorted-the-law.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-was-convicted-... ("Most importantly, the DA's charges against Trump push the outer boundaries of the law and due process."). Or, as an MSNBC legal columnist explained: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-guilty-hush-money-trial-verdict-alvin-bragg-rcna153628 https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-guilty-hus... ("Most DAs wouldn’t have pursued this case against Trump. Alvin Bragg got lucky. Let’s be honest with each other. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump was convoluted."). You could write an entire Harvard law review issue about the novel legal issues raised by the Trump criminal case: Can a state crime be predicted on an uncharged federal campaign finance violation? can someone violate campaign finance law--which is focused on preventing candidates from misusing donated funds--by using their own money to pay off a porn star? Can you bootstrap a misdemeanor into a felony through a triple-bank-shot involving an uncharged secondary crime and a choice of three possible tertiary crimes? When you prosecute someone for a business records misdemeanor, but almost all the allegedly bad conduct relates to unspecified secondary and tertiary crimes, how do you instruct the jury? When you give the jury three different options of uncharged tertiary crimes to support the uncharged secondary crime, which in turn supports the charged primary crime, on what points must the jury reach a unanimous decision? Google's and Apple's "Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich" was a more straightforward legal theory than the Trump criminal case.
    - pstuart 1y ago
      In the interest of avoiding partisan squabbling on HN, I'm going to state the following and let you walk away feeling like you "won" this debate: 1. Trump is the epitome of a corrupt pol and has pretty much gotten away with everything his entire life. 2. Prosecuting him was not in the form of of attacking a rival, it was addressing issue #1 3. If the roles were reversed and this was Biden we were talking about, most dem voters would still be for prosecution of blatant corruption. The magic of Trump is that his supporters (which apparently you are one of) are fine with him doing anything he wants, up to and including shooting someone on Fifth Ave So congratulations! You are right and I am wrong and I'm so sorry to bother you with my clearly not-Trump-loving observations.
- dudefeliciano 1y ago
  > Yes, it wasn't brought by Biden Isn't that the crux of the matter? You have a (crypto)billionaire president using his presidential powers and personal wealth to start frivolous lawsuit to shut down his opponents. If that doesn't worry you I really don't know what to tell you.
  - rayiner 1y ago
    It was brought by the elected Attorney General of New York, in furtherance of a promise to voters to pursue unspecified legal actions against the leader of the other party. I don't like lawfare, but I've come to the conclusion that the only proper response to norm violations is a 10x counter-response.
    - BrenBarn 1y ago
      > I've come to the conclusion that the only proper response to norm violations is a 10x counter-response. That may be true --- or even a 100x response. But the thing is that a 100x (and probably even a 10x) response to many of these norm violations would take us well beyond the entire realm of lawfare. A 10x response would be at least "ignore everything the entire federal court system says because it's irredeemably corrupted", if not actual armed resistance. Even going back well before Trump, norm violations like McConnell holding Scalia's seat open already made it clear that the Supreme Court was no longer a meaningful institution (if it ever had been). I don't mean I didn't like some of their decisions. I mean the entire thing is a meaningless charade, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year and 366 in leap years. And that is just one example. The level of "counter-response" required to recover from the norm violations we've had over the last 10-20 years requires an overhaul to the very foundations of our system of government.
      - jacquesm 1y ago
        > The level of "counter-response" required to recover from the norm violations we've had over the last 10-20 years requires an overhaul to the very foundations of our system of government. You might just get it. If the country survives as an entity. Otherwise you might get several new systems of government.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]