General
This is an opinion column.
Something weird is happening in this country. The law isn’t working the way it used to, and sometimes it’s not working at all.
For instance, federal law says a president must give Congress 30 days notice before firing a U.S. inspector general, those in-house watchdogs who police public corruption.
He also must give Congress his reasons for doing so.
The law is clear on both.
But last week, Donald Trump fired 17 inspectors general in the middle of the night with no notice. Nor did he give much reason beyond, well, he wanted to.
The mass firings provoked an outcry from the press, from watchdog groups and others, who all shouted the same thing at the same time.
He can’t do that! It’s … it’s … it’s against the law!
But he did do that. He doesn’t care what the law says. And neither, it seems, does anyone whose job it is to enforce the law, including Congress.
What are they going to do? Impeach Trump? For a third time?
We are living under a new legal system — a system where some laws apply to some people but not to some others, but only some of the time. The phenomenon may be new to America, but in my home state of Alabama, we’ve been under its thumb for quite a while.
Consider the case of John Wahl.
John Wahl is the chairman of the Alabama Republican Party. In Alabama, we have a law that requires voters to show a state-approved photo ID before casting a ballot.
READ: Alabama GOP chair used homemade ID to vote. AG doesn’t seem to care.
But on at least two occasions, Wahl voted with an ID he admitted he made himself, also an ID that Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill said was not a lawful form of voter identification. Both Merrill and his successor, Wes Allen, referred complaints about Wahl’s voting to Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall.
What happened next?
Nothing.
Actually, that’s not quite right. Someone did suffer consequences. The poll worker who complained about Wahl voting with the strange ID? He was told he wasn’t needed as a poll worker anymore.
And Wahl? His party brethren didn’t care. They gave him a promotion, electing him vice-chair of the Republican National Committee.
This is not an isolated thing. Consider also, the case of our AG’s campaign finance scheme.
In 2018, Marshall accepted what’s called a PAC-to-PAC transfer, a form of political money laundering that was banned by his fellow Republicans when they took control of the Alabama Legislature in 2010.
Marshall’s attorney said the law didn’t apply in his case because one of the PACs was out of state, even though the Alabama law says clearly it applies to PACs “whether in-state or out-of-state.”
Marshall’s primary opponent filed a complaint with the Alabama Ethics Commission. What happened next?
Nothing.
A motion to refer the case for prosecution died after a tie vote, with one member abstaining.
Perhaps you’re thinking there was some misunderstanding about the law.
Read: Alabama Dems asked to do same thing AG did. Ethics Commission said no.
Then-Alabama Democratic Party Chairman Chris England wondered that too. He asked the Ethics Commission if he and his party friends could do the same thing Marshall did.
But then the commission said PAC-to-PAC transfers were against the law and he could go to jail if he tried.
Or maybe you’re wondering, if the Alabama system gives the ruling party impunity, how did our House Speaker Mike Hubbard, also a Republican, wind up in prison?
Hubbard was convicted in 2016 of breaking ethics laws he helped pass, laws he joked about in emails with friends and allies while he was scheming to break them.
Assistant Attorney General Matt Hart prosecuted Hubbard for breaking the law, returned a conviction, and then …
Like that poll worker who called out Wahl, Hart lost his job.
During the 2018 campaign, Marshall told reporters that he would keep Hart on to run the office’s special prosecutions unit. Two weeks after election day, Marshall invited Hart to pound dirt.
Under this Alabama system, when people try their best to uphold the law fairly and apply it equally — bad things happen to them.
Read: Timing of Matt Hart’s departure from AG’s office says it all
Just like the bad things happening to career civil servants right now.
It’s not only the inspectors general getting fired, but FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors. And for what?
Policing and prosecuting those behind a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Also, it seems, protecting classified information.
Over the weekend, at USAID, some strange folks showed up, people the employees there didn’t know. According to reports, these new arrivals demanded access to classified documents. When security officials told them they couldn’t see that, two of those security officials were told by the administration that they could go home.
And on Monday, everybody in that agency, which distributes foreign aid throughout the world, was told they could stay home, too. They got the news from a tech billionaire, government contractor and top presidential donor on the social media platform owned/run by said tech billionaire/government contractor/First Buddy.
This is how it works now.
The threat isn’t only political prosecution, but also free license for the politically connected to ignore the law, to openly thwart it, and ultimately render it meaningless.
So how do we fix it?
When the system misfires in Alabama, historically, we’ve appealed to the U.S. Constitution for guidance or pleaded for the federal government to intervene.
Yeah, I’m not sure that’s going to work anymore.
I’m sorry to say, but this may just be how America works now — a place where the powerful make or break laws on a whim. A place where the law does or doesn’t apply to you based, not on the law itself, but on the favor of those in charge.
Welcome to the United States of Alabama.
Kyle Whitmire is the Washington watchdog columnist for AL.com and winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize.
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