[guest post by Dana]

Interesting observations regarding last year’s Supreme Court immunity ruling:

In her first public remarks since President Trump took office about two weeks ago, Sotomayor said she worried that the Supreme Court has departed too far from public sentiment, when asked about dwindling public confidence in the court.

“If we as a court go so much further ahead of people, our legitimacy is going to be questioned,” Sotomayor told an audience in Kentucky Wednesday evening.

“I think the immunity case is one of those situations,” she continued. “I don’t think that Americans have accepted that anyone should be above the law in America. Our equality as people was the foundation of our society and of our constitution. I think my court would probably gather more public support if it went a little more slowly in undoing precedent,” she said.

“Our constitution itself has provisions not exempting the president from criminal activity after an impeachment,” Sotomayor said. “So, I had a hard time with the immunity case. And if we continue going in directions that the public is going to find hard to understand, we’re placing the court at risk.”

Sotomayor said Wednesday she worried that frequent court reversals of long-established legal precedent “creates instability” and contributes to the public questioning “of whether we’re doing things because of legal analysis or because of partisan views.”

—Dana

[guest post by Dana]

This, which is now being reported, will make Russia very happy:

The champagne corks are popping in penthouses from Moscow to Caracas tonight. Oligarchs maybe can finally get their yachts back, and kleptocrats worldwide are updating their Zillow searches for Miami beachfront property.

Why? Our sources say that just after 7:30 p.m. in Washington, D.C., yesterday, Trump’s newly appointed Attorney General Pam Bondi sent out an email announcing the immediate closure of the Department of Justice’s Kleptocracy Initiative and its associated task force – the very unit responsible for making life difficult for the world’s most creative accountants and their politically-connected clients.

Below the radar, however, is an even more alarming development. Sources say one of the key objectives behind this sudden move is to gain control of what’s believed to be a multi-billion dollar forfeiture fund under DOJ control. This fund, historically used to return stolen assets to victim countries, will now reportedly be redirected to what Bondi’s memo cryptically describes as “other” law enforcement purposes.

Multiple sources familiar with the matter say this is code for funding new detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay and Texas. Nothing says “America First” quite like using money recovered from foreign corruption to build domestic detention centers.

Anne Applebaum responds to the news:

And there it is: doors are open for kleptocracy in America.

Russia will be very, very please with President Trump. And isn’t that what it’s all about.

—Dana