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Item one: How the law warps and harms our democracy

Judge Scott McAfee has ruled that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis can stay on the case against Donald Trump in that jurisdiction, provided that Nathan Wade, the prosecutor on the case with whom she had a relationship, withdraws. I guess we count that a win, although to be honest, Willis has so damaged herself by her colossally terrible judgment that it probably would have been better if she were out of the picture.

The other problem with Willis’s scandal is how it slowed the case down, giving Trump’s lawyers a chance to make this not about the defendant but about her—and another chance to delay, delay, delay.

Meanwhile, Thursday, down in Florida, we saw Trumpy Judge Aileen Cannon issue yet another ruling in the classified documents case that helps Trump. She didn’t support Trump’s lawyers’ motion to dismiss the case, but she kicked the can down the road in a way that’s very helpful to Trump. MSNBC analyst Andrew Weissmann even called it the "worst possible outcome" for the government. "If the judge had simply said, ‘I agree with Donald Trump, and I find that this is vague, and I’m dismissing it,’ the government could have appealed it to the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, as they have done twice before and won twice before," Weissmann said. "But she also did not want to rule in favor of the government. So what she did is said, ‘Why don’t you bring this up later? I think there’s some real issues here.’"

Also this week, in the Stormy Daniels hush-money case against Trump, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg shocked us all by asking for a 30-day delay in the trial, which was scheduled to start March 25. Trump’s lawyers had requested a 90-day delay. Bragg conceded that some delay was appropriate.

Why? It looks like it’s the fault of federal prosecutors. Bragg’s office requested certain documents a while ago from the Southern District of New York, and it shared them with Trump’s lawyers during the discovery process. Trump’s lawyers suspected there was more, especially relating to Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, so they subpoenaed the SDNY. That happened in January. It was only earlier this month that the Southern District turned over all the documents.

Bragg’s filing to the court on Thursday included this fascinating sentence, a clear swipe at the SDNY (in this sentence, "the People" equals Bragg’s office): "Based on our initial review of yesterday's production, those records appear to contain materials related to the subject matter of this case, including materials that the People requested from the USAO more than a year ago and that the USAO previously declined to provide."

Wait. What?

It’s more than fair to ask: Why did the Southern District take so long to produce these documents? And we must also ask this: Did Merrick Garland know his prosecutors were taking so long to hand over documents and thus playing into Trump’s hands? And if he knew, did he do anything about it?

Finally, let’s recall the status of the fourth criminal case against Trump, the biggest one, at least to my mind—the January 6 insurrection case. On that one, we’re basically waiting on the Supreme Court, which announced on February 28 that it would hear arguments in Trump’s claim of complete immunity but set the argument date for April 25. The high court could easily take another month—or even two—to hand down its decision after that, meaning that this crucial trial, about whether a sitting president initiated an insurrection against the government of the United States, may not happen before Election Day.

How in the world did all this happen? A few weeks ago, it looked like the wheels of justice were finally turning, catching up on a man who has flouted and broken laws not only during his presidency but for his entire adult life, going back to when he and his father wouldn’t rent apartments to Black people in Queens. There was the judgment in the E. Jean Carroll case. And then the whopping penalty in the New York attorney general’s case against the Trump Organization.

But this week, it looks like everything is falling apart. 

When we talk about what’s wrong with our democracy, we talk about our political structures and processes. We talk about the Senate. We talk about the Electoral College. We talk about gerrymandering. And of course all these problems are real.

We don’t talk about our legal system. We should. The American legal system doesn’t uphold the values of democratic rule like equality. It far more often corrupts and perverts them. Rich people like Trump twist the system into a pretzel and win delay after delay after delay. Corporations pay fines, usually not that large when considered against their bottom line, and they admit no wrongdoing, even after their practices have killed people. Poor people, meanwhile, get pushed around by the system constantly. 

There is no such thing in this country as equality before the law, and everyone knows it. And I would argue that this legal inequality does more damage to democracy than all the political inequities for the simple reason that they’re more visible. And they’ve never been more visible than they are now with Trump. If he is able to push all these cases back past November, or at least three of them (the Bragg case should proceed this summer), and then especially if he wins the White House and pardons himself, that will constitute the biggest failure of the rule of law in the history of the country.

The lesson? We can’t count on the legal system to stop Trump. We have to stop him ourselves. One conviction would be nice; two would probably be quite helpful. But we can’t count on the broken legal system to do a job that we ourselves have to do at the polls.

Item two: Schumer’s speech and Bibi’s future

I have known Chuck Schumer for a long time, and it’s safe to say that I’ve never heard him talk about Israel remotely like he did Thursday, when the Senate majority leader lambasted Bibi Netanyahu and called for elections in Israel. Coming from him, that was a cannon shot.

The question people are debating now is what impact it will have in Israel. People who largely defend what Israel is doing in Gaza are saying it will have no impact whatsoever. In fact, I see some people saying that it may even help Netanyahu, and I suppose it’s inevitable that some wagons will circle around him.

Schumer’s statement won’t change anything immediately, and it certainly won’t make Israel have an election next week. Schumer surely knows that’s not the case. However, I think it will hurt Netanyahu in this respect. It’s a major signal that Netanyahu is losing the United States. Biden’s tougher rhetoric is not yet accompanied by consequential policy moves, like attaching conditions to aid. But matters are headed in that direction. Biden’s rhetoric is a warning. There’s good reason to think he’ll be taking a tougher line by the time of the Democratic convention in late August in Chicago—he does not want a replay of 1968. Schumer’s words are a warning too. If you end up doing to Rafah what you did to Gaza City and Khan Younis, we are (finally) going to demand a cease-fire, and you’re going to lose the backing of the country that stands between you and God knows what.

Schumer’s break makes it likely that, at some point, Israelis will have to choose between Netanyahu on the one hand—and everything he stands for, meaning more war and no negotiations toward a Palestinian state, ever—and the United States on the other, including negotiations over statehood and at least an attempt at a broader regional peace. I think they’ll choose the latter. I think.

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Quiz time!

Last week’s quiz: March Madness: Yes, sports fans, it’s that time of year again. This is the week of the conference tournaments; Selection Sunday comes next week. This quiz about college basketball is, uh, quirky.

1. There is some debate about what constitutes the first-ever college basketball game, but in 1896, the University of Chicago played the University of Iowa in the first game with modern five-player lineups. What was the final score?

A. 9-3

B. 15-12

C. 23-23 (tie)

D. 27-9

Answer: B, Chicago 15, Iowa 12. The story of the game is here. I liked the tie option.

2. What’s the most common nickname among teams in Division 1 sports?

A. Wildcats

B. Eagles

C. Bears

D. Tigers

Answer: D, Tigers. Some places say Bulldogs, but this site says Tigers first, Bulldogs second. I’d have thought Wildcats meself. 

3. On the other hand, there are some rather unusual nicknames among the 362 teams of Division 1 college basketball. Match the school to the name.

Answer: Austin Peay Governors, Saint Louis Billikens, UC-Irvine Anteaters, Furman Paladins. What’s a Billiken? Find out here.

4. College basketball exploded as a national sport in the 1950s and 1960s, with the first generation of really great players who became the NBA’s first crop of superstars. Match the player to his alma mater.

Answer: Bill Russell, San Francisco; Wilt, Kansas; The Big O, Cincinnati; Jerry West, West Virginia. I sure hope you knew that one!

5. What’s the most common uniform color scheme in Division 1 college basketball?

A. Blue and white

B. Blue and gold/yellow

C. Red and white

D. Red and black

Answer: A, blue and white, according to this blog. That’s 36 teams. Red and white is 35, blue and gold/yellow 33, and red and black just 15.

6. What does Athlon Sports list as the biggest upset of all time in a championship game?

A. North Carolina State over Houston, 1983

B. Holy Cross over Oklahoma, 1947

C. Baylor over Gonzaga, 2021

D. Villanova over Georgetown, 1985

Answer: D, Nova/G’town. It’s not the biggest tournament upset of all time, but it is the biggest upset in the finals. As I said last week, I was there. It was insane. Georgetown must have been 20-point favorites. That was Patrick Ewing and Reggie Williams and all kinds of players. You just kept waiting for them to bust out and go on a run, and they never did.

This week’s quiz: Cometh the Ides. It’s March 15, so this quiz is about the Ides of March, Julius Caesar, and related ephemera.

1. Why is the Ides of March called the Ides of March, anyway?

A. It’s a corruption of the Latin phrase id est, which means "that is," which we use in common writing today whenever we use the abbreviation i.e.

B. An "Ides" was a day of celebration when ships were scheduled to return from war.

C. The "Ides" was a specified day on the Roman calendar, which did not number every day; the Ides was one of three days each month by which the Romans kept track of the passage of time.

D. Shakespeare made it up as a winking tribute to Lady Ides of Aylesbury, with whom he was sleeping at the time.

2. If you’ve traveled to Rome, you have perhaps tripped across the very spot where they say Caesar was assassinated in 44 BCE. Then, it was the Curia of Pompey, a large meeting hall. Today, the spot is a sunken garden with ruins and dozens of cats prowling around and goes by what name?

A. Largo di Torre Argentina

B. Piazza Grazioli

C. Giardini di Montecavallo

D. Il Palatino

3. What is the last line spoken in Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Julius Caesar before Caesar’s famous last words, "Et tu, Brute"?

A. "Doth not Brutus bootless kneel?"

B. "Wilt thou lift up Olympus?"

C. "He is addressed. Press near and second him."

D. "Speak, hands, for me!"

4. Marc Antony’s famous funeral oration of course begins, "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!" But how does it end? 

A. "You all did love him once, not without cause/What cause withholds you, then to mourn for him?"

B."The evil that men do lives after them/The good is oft interrèd with their bones."

C. "My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar/And I must pause till it come back to me."

D. "I should do Brutus wrong and Cassius wrong/Who, you all know, are honorable men." 

5. The Ides of March was the title of a 2011 political thriller that starred and was directed by whom?

A. Warren Beatty

B. George Clooney

C. Angelina Jolie

D. Ben Affleck

6. The Ides of March was the name of an early 1970s one-hit-wonder band. What was the name of their hit, which still gets some airplay on classic rock stations?

A. "Black Is Black"

B. "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)"

C. "Ride Captain Ride"

D. "Vehicle"

I of course know all the artists in number 6 and think you should too. All of them great pop songs. Answers next week. Feedback to fightingwords@tnr.com.

—Michael Tomasky, editor 

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