OPINION: Cheers & Jeers: A ‘bold’ judge writes a castigating column

CHEERS ... to Judge Stephen S. Trott.

A Reagan appointee to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals whose senior chambers have been based in Idaho, Trott distinguished himself earlier this month with a Washington Post column castigating the U.S. Supreme Court.

This issue: The court’s decision granting presidents immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts” while in office.

“Nowhere in the Constitution or the Federalist (Papers) is there any provision, suggestion, or hint that the president can with impunity commit crimes against the state or lawlessly abuse citizens without recourse,” Trott wrote. “But that is what the Supreme Court has left us: a kingdom within our republic.”

As a member of the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office in the 1970s, Trott oversaw prosecution of President Richard Nixon’s so-called “Plumbers” unit, which broke into Beverly Hills psychiatrist Lewis Fielding’s office to dig up dirt on his patient, Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg.

Had the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling been in effect at the time, Trott notes:

-- Nixon and the Plumbers would have been “cloaked with his absolute immunity. The president’s and the Plumbers’ corrupt intent and criminal purpose would have been considered immaterial.”

-- Nixon could have blocked the Justice Department from investigating his coverup of the Watergate burglary. “If Nixon had known he had the unreviewable power to fire the special prosecutors and refuse to investigate and prosecute anyone related to the Watergate scandal, no one would have had to pay the price for their crimes.”

-- The same standard would have stopped any review into Nixon’s attempts to unleash the IRS against those placed on the former president’s “enemies list.”

“The court’s holding that the president has ‘unreviewable and absolute discretion’ over prosecutorial decisions means that if Donald Trump is reelected president, he can and most likely will dismiss all federal charges against himself,” Trott wrote.

The headline on Washington Post newsletter writer and Opinions section editor Drew Goins’ take on Trott’s column summed it up: “It takes a lot to get a federal judge to write a piece this bold.”

JEERS ... to Congressman Russ Fulcher, R-Idaho.

For the second consecutive election, Fulcher is dodging his Democratic opponent, Kaylee Peterson of Eagle.

Likewise, 2nd District Congressman Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, won’t debate his Democratic opponent, David Roth.

With those choices, they have — for the first time in recent memory — canceled the statewide televised debates on Idaho Public Television. However, both Peterson and Roth will appear on an “Idaho Reports” segment tonight at 8 p.m.

Without a debate, who benefits?

Not the voters, who have only limited opportunities to see how incumbents perform when stripped of the advantages that political office and well-tended campaign treasuries provide them.

Instead, Fulcher can avoid some obvious questions:

Why has he voted to shut down the federal government?

Why did he participate in the Jan. 6, 2021, effort to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election?

Where is the Farm Bill or additional resources for FEMA?

Replies Fulcher: “We monitor these things closely and there is no objective metric of a viable (Peterson) campaign. To sign up for a debate would be the single largest contribution they would have and I’m not in the business of campaigning for my opponents.”

If Peterson has no viable campaign, how is she a threat to Fulcher — even on the debate stage? Unless, of course, Fulcher is worried he might pull a Joe Biden.

CHEERS ... to the contributors behind the GoFundMe drive intended to provide Ben Mogen and his wife, Korie Hatrock, with the $15,000 they need to attend portions of the trial of Brian Kohberger.

Kohberger is accused of murdering their daughter, Madison, in a November 2022, incident that also took the lives of fellow University of Idaho students Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin.

The fundraiser follows another GoFundMe drive to provide the Goncalves family with the means to attend the Kohberger trial.

Through no fault of their own, the families must travel to Boise because the judge who previously presided over the Kohberger case, Latah County District Judge John Judge, granted a change of venue. Ada County District Judge Steven Hippler has scheduled the trial to begin Aug. 11, 2025.

The move is intended to ensure Kohberger’s right to a fair trial.

But Idaho’s constitution also enshrines the rights of crime victims. Among those is the right to “be present at all criminal justice proceedings.”

As the Idaho Statesman’s Kevin Fixler noted, the Idaho Crime Victims Compensation Program does not reimburse relatives of crime victims for travel costs.

If the parents of these murder victims are turning to charity to attend this trial, then the rights guaranteed them by the state constitution are just empty words.

JEERS ... to Idaho Gov. Brad Little.

He’s come out in opposition to the Open Primaries Initiative — which does away with the closed GOP primary, replaces it with a top four primary open to voters of any affiliation and ranked choice voting in the general election.

All of which is inexplicable when you consider the hard-core partisan base of the GOP empowered by the closed primary would replace Little tomorrow with Attorney General Raul Labrador. But it’s in keeping with a governor who has pandered to the GOP base on everything from COVID-19 safeguards to preserving the voters’ access to the initiative process and protecting libraries from book banners.

If you’re looking for a silver lining, the governor hasn’t spelled out how he’d respond to GOP lawmakers who plan to repeal OPI regardless of what voters want. Yet. — M.T.