A Critique of Lucian Truscott Newsletter article: The convictions of Lt. Calley, dead at 80, by Lucian K. Truscott IV, 31 July 2024

This is a critique of an article that just appeared in a Newsletter published by Lucian Truscott IV that was prompted by the recent discovery that Lieutenant Calley of My Lai Massacre fame had passed away this past April. Lucian IV, a disgraced West Point Grad cashiered out of the Army “Under Other Than Honorable Conditions” had been a reporter covering Calley’s Court Martial so used this opportunity to rehash his grievances against those superiors that found him unfit to serve as well as disparage ALL Vietnam era Army Officer Candidate School (OCS) produced officers.  During Vietnam almost half of all junior officers came out of OCS and the vast majority of them were exemplary.  Calley was an anomaly that slipped through.  Here is a link to Lucian IV’s website if you want to waste your time reading his garbage or you can just read my critique and see why he is full of shit!  As full disclosure, I was a Draftee that graduated from OCS and went to Vietnam as a Second Lieutenant, extended to come how a decorated Captain with a Combat Infantryman Badge (CIB) and remained in the Army to retire a Colonel.

https://luciantruscott.substack.com/p/the-convictions-of-lt-calley-dead?triedRedirect=true

Lucian K. Truscott IV was born in 1947 in Japan into a distinguished US Army family of West Point graduates.  His father was Army Colonel Lucian K. Truscott III and his grandfather was Lucian Jr., a US Army general during World War II who commanded the 3rd Infantry Division and later the Fifth Army in Italy. His father Lucian III served in Korea and Vietnam and young Lucian IV attended the United States Military Academy, graduating in 1969.  In that most of his West Point classmates and young Lucian IV were destined to do a tour in Vietnam, after completing only thirteen months of his four year commitment pay back for his free education and still a second lieutenant, he was found to be unfit for Military service and was cashiered out of the Army “Under Other Than Honorable Conditions." Truth be told, his “unfit act” was probably his way of avoiding the dangers of combat because he was a COWARD!

Without going into all the details, suffice to say First Lieutenant William “Rusty” Calley was the only soldier tried and convicted of the 1968 infamous My Lai Massacre.  He was found guilty of personally killing not fewer than 20 civilians and was sentenced to life in prison on 29 March 1971. Two days later, President Richard Nixon ordered him removed from the Stockade and placed under house arrest.  He eventually served three and a half years of house arrest before being paroled by Nixon in 1974.

Young Lucian IV having been drummed out of the Army Under Other than Honorable Conditions, the Village Voice deemed he was the ideal person for the hatchet job they wanted done on the Army, especially the officer corps, so they employed him and sent him to Fort Benning to cover the Calley trial that began in November 1970.  Needless to say young Lucian IV did not disappoint which brings us up to the present.

The death of former Lieutenant Calley had just became public on 30 July 2024 when it was discovered in a public record. He had died in a hospice at age 80 in Gainesville, Florida on 28 April 2024.  Now the not-so-young 77 year old Lucian IV decided to use this as an opportunity to ostensibly rehash the Calley story but actually it appears his real intention was to vilify the Vietnam era Army Officer Corps and especially Officers commissioned out of Officers Candidate School (OCS), as well as other senior officers he felt had “done him wrong.” This Officer Corps he obviously despised was the same one that found him unfit to serve in and booted him out of “Under Other Than Honorable Conditions.” It seems this article was just another one of his efforts to “get even” with others that had recognized his unfitness to serve.

Without going into all the misstatements and outright lies contained in Lucian IV’s article, I’ll provide these few directly quoted passages to illustrate how ignorant he really is and especially ignorant about OCS produced officers:

“He (Calley) had been drafted into the Army as part of Project 100,000, a program initiated by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara that lowered IQ standards and removed the requirement for enlistees to have a high school diploma.  It came out at dinner that when he was drafted, Calley had a high school diploma and one year at a junior college.  What we were not told was that he had flunked out.  When he was drafted, Calley was one of the better recruits in 1967, when opposition to the war had created a system of dodging the draft that was being employed by college students who dropped out or reached the end of their studies and became draft eligible.

The Army’s standards to become an officer had demanded a college education, but under Project 100,000, that went away, and a year of junior college was deemed sufficient, apparently even if you had flunked out.  Calley was sent to Officer Candidate School (OCS), a program at Fort Benning that lasted 90 days after soldiers graduated from Basic Training.  Calley, with only two months of Basic and three months of OCS, popped out a second lieutenant…”

First off, Calley was NOT drafted and he certainly was NOT part of McNamara's Project 100,000, a controversial Department of Defense (DoD) program to draft soldiers who would previously have been below military mental Category IV or medical standards. Project 100,000 was initiated by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in October 1966 and was ended in December 1971. Calley voluntarily enlisted in July 1966. Seems Lucian IV was also under the delusion that “The Army’s standards to become an officer had demanded a college education, but under Project 100,000, that went away.” In fact, a College degree was NOT required for an Army commission until the mid-1980’s and even today as an exception under the “Early Commissioning Program” graduates of the four Military Junior Colleges can be commissioned as second lieutenants with just two years of college.

During Vietnam about half the junior commissioned officers came from OCS with many being “College Ops” who were college graduates that enlisted with a guarantee of attending OCS but not necessarily graduating. Except for a very few NCOs that applied for OCS, the vast majority were voluntary enlistees and draftees that were identified during initial Reception Station testing as officer material. At the Reception Station new inductees were administered a series of tests called the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) (the predecessor of todays Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery [ASVAB]) to match aptitude with the needs of the Army. Inductees that scored high on the GT Test (the IQ Test) were given a series of other tests such as the Officer’s Leadership Inventory (OLI) to qualify to apply to attend OCS. Most of this latter group were not college graduates and Calley’s scores including his GT/IQ Test were high enough to qualify for OCS.

Seems Lucian IV was under the mistaken impression that “Officer Candidate School (OCS) was a program at Fort Benning that lasted 90 days after soldiers had graduated from just 8 weeks of Basic Training.”  In fact, OCS Lieutenants had attended 8 weeks of Basic Training, 8+ Weeks of Advanced Individual Training (AIT) and 23 weeks of OCS “Hell” (with an attrition rate >50%). In fact, by 1968 there were three six month OCS courses, Infantry at Fort Benning, GA; Artillery at Fort Sill, OK; and Engineer at Fort Belovir, VA.  OCS was designed to put a candidate under the constant stress they would experience under combat conditions and provide the knowledge to keep a new lieutenant alive in Vietnam.  As a result, OCS Officers were the most sought after by commanders for Platoon Leader positions.

If Lucian IV was interested in finding out what he obviously didn’t know about Vietnam era OCS, I would recommend he read “Not a Gentleman’s War” by Ron Milan, a Professor of Military History at Texas Tech and a Vietnam Vet OCS Officer.

In 1967, Army Chief of Staff GEN Harold K. Johnson placed LTG Ralph E. Haines Jr. in charge of The Haines Board, an eleven member review board comprised of a 3-Star LTG, a 2-Star MG, two 1-Star BGs, and seven COLs and LTCs that examined the training of newly commissioned officers from all three of the major commissioning sources: the United States Military Academy (USMA) West Point graduates, Reserve Officers Training Course (ROTC) from colleges officer training programs, and Officer Candidate School (OCS) graduates comprised of  both college graduates guaranteed attendance but not graduation and Regular Army Soldiers and Draftees normally identified during Induction Stations testing as having officer potential.

The Haines Board Final Report contained the following “Analysis of Current Army System of Officer Schools” and especially OCS:

Ø  “The Board did reserve its highest praise in terms of providing officers ready to assume troop command and to this source of commissioning it could not have been more complimentary…. The OCS program produces well trained and well motivated second lieutenants … and probably the best prepared of all newly commissioned officers for immediate duty assignment are OCS graduates.”

Ø  “… it should be noted that of the graduates of the three major sources of commissioning it is the OCS graduate who is considered by senior commanders as the best trained for platoon-level troop duty, in the initial duty assignment …. The concentrated six-month program of training that comprises the current OCS schedule is able to focus instruction at the platoon leader level. As a result, the average OCS graduate is a technically trained leader, well qualified to assume an appropriate company level assignment.”

During the Vietnam War the Army contracted with George Washington University to conduct numerous studies of its activities under the umbrella name Human Resources Research Office or HUMRRO Contract and one of the studies was “An Analysis of U.S. Army Officer Candidate Schools.” The results of that study confirmed the findings of the Haines Board.

Finally, to get a comparison of proficiency of new second Lieutenants from the three sources, the Army Infantry School Analysis & Review Branch of the Director of Instruction at Fort Benning tested 1200 newly Branch Qualified Infantry Officers using the “Basic Officer Course Military Stakes Examination” and the results were shocking.  USMA Graduates scored 57.1% on the test while ROTC College Graduates scored 48.1% but OCS Graduates scored 70.3%.

Bottom line and to put it mildly, Lucian K. Truscott IV is full of shit!  Not only does he not have a clue about the quality of Officership in the US Army during the Vietnam War, he doesn’t even know how long OCS was during Vietnam or how potential officers were selected to attend it.  As a disgraced former officer cashiered out under “Other Than Honorable Condition” as unfit to serve, he has a lot of gall criticizing anyone that actually had the qualifications and guts to serve.  Lucian IV was simply an unfit COWARD and I suspect his father and grandfather were ashamed of him in 1970 and looking down from Heaven are still ashamed of him today.

The District of Columbia recorded more homicides in 2023 than in any year since 1997 -- Giving DC the fifth-highest murder rate among this Country’s biggest cities.

It’s another year in our Nation’s Capital and it’s time for the Old Colonel to once again analyze the 2023 homicide statistics for DC and the immediately adjacent suburbs. At the beginning of every new year the Washington Post (WaPo) publishes the homicide statistics for Washington, DC but no longer compile stats for the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs. Hence, the Old Colonel cannot publish his analysis until much later in the year when the local police departments finally release their homicide statistics around June. Using the WaPo data, local police statistics and the Census Bureau’s latest estimated population numbers, the Old Colonel calculates the homicide rates for DC and the adjacent Maryland and Virginia jurisdictions and does a quick analysis of his own. This table displays the 2023 results:

To their credit, this year the WaPo did a very comprehensive report and analysis of homicides and you can read it at:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/interactive/2024/dc-crime-homicide-victims-shooting-violence/

The WaPo reported there were 274 confirmed 2023 homicide victims ranging from infants to octogenarians giving DC the fifth highest murder rate among the nations biggest cities and more than 90 percent of the killings were by gunfire.  To illustrate the human dimension of the violence, The WaPo compiled a comprehensive list of the casualties — a month-by-month tally of who the victims were, how they died and where — while also examining the broader trends of the city’s 2023 homicide crisis. With a rate of 40 homicides per 100,000 residents, the District was deadlier than 55 of the country’s 60 most populous cities, behind only New Orleans, Cleveland, Baltimore and Memphis. The entire WaPo article is at the above link and is eye opening so well worth reading.

Again this year, any WaPo reader so naïve as to believes the myth that onerous gun laws yield safer communities need look no further than these stats to be disabused of that fantasy. This above graphic clearly shows the breathtaking disparity in homicide rates among DC where guns are almost completely banned and the adjacent Virginia suburbs where criminals run the risk of being confronted by a law abiding citizen who just might have a gun of their own.

The FACT is a DC resident, where firearms are virtually impossible to own, is almost 28 times more likely to be a homicide victim then one of us “Gun Tottin” Virginians fortunate enough to live in a state where gun ownership for self-protection is almost unrestricted. Even a Marylander with their very restrictive gun laws is 5.5 times less likely to be a homicide victim than a DC resident. Much better than DC but a Marylander is still over 5 times more likely to be a homicide victim than one of us Virginia Gun Totters!

Contributing to the DC problem is their model for “punishing” criminals as embodied in the DC Youth Rehabilitation Act which routinely puts youthful murderers back on the street in record time. The act treats street thugs up to age 25 as “misunderstood” kids that didn’t really mean to commit murder with a firearm so they should be released on their own recognizance until they have killed at least three people. Then, in the unlikely event they are even caught or ever prosecuted, they should be “rehabilitated” for a couple of years in a group home and then released back into the general population to put into practice what they learned in “rehab.”  See the below article “District of Crime”

Another recent WaPo article noted that only about half of the DC homicides are even solved and that 60% of DC homicide offenders caught had a previous gun arrest and were either out on “no cash” bail or on probation for a gun offense. Also, the vast majority of homicide victims are Black males.

Obviously, DC officials don’t care much about a bunch of street thugs killing each other but what’s intolerable is they should care about the number of innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire. This is obviously a marksmanship training problem so they should amend the law so instead of the present DC “catch and release” policy for perpetrators of gun violence, they should be required to complete a shooting course to improve their marksmanship during “rehab” so they only hit the other thugs they are aiming at. 

In conclusion, the statistics clearly demonstrate that contrary to liberal rhetoric, it is an “inconvenient truth” that “guns actually do make us safer.” Ask any citizen who has been directed to “shelter in place” because a crazed killer was loose in their neighborhood how they feel about owning a gun and I’ll bet the overwhelming majority wished they had one. Could it be that homicidal maniacs would much rather commit their crimes in jurisdictions like DC and Maryland and are not so anxious to attack law-abiding Virginia citizens as they might just be "packing some heat" of their won.  Seems that’s what the Homicide Numbers tell us!

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“District of Crime”: Shocking Case Characteristic of DC’s “Woke” Approach to Violence

When a reasonable person finds it impossible to take anti-gun big city politicians and their professed “need” for more gun control seriously, maybe it’s stories like this one from Washington, D.C. that play a role. On 8 May 2024, District of Columbia CBS affiliate WUSA published a story with the astounding headline “Prosecutors say he emptied an AR-15 rifle into a public DC street. A judge granted him pre-trial release.”

According to the item, prosecutors allege that on 22 April 2024 an 18-year-old went into the middle of a public street in Southeast D.C. with an AR-15 and fired 26 shots at a moving motor vehicle. The article pointed out that the young adult has been “charged with assault with a dangerous weapon and possession of a gun during a violent crime. Both are felonies.”

Despite the alleged outrageous conduct, the accused was granted pre-trial release. The article explained, “After [the accused] was initially detained, Judge Lloyd Nolan granted a public defender’s motion for pre-trial release, placing [the accused] on home detention in Maryland with GPS monitoring and a stay-away order from the other people in the car.”

Lest anyone think that a lack of sufficient evidence may have played a role, the incident was reportedly caught on video by no less than three cameras. WUSA obtained two of the videos, and readers are encouraged to watch the shocking footage here.

Summing up the situation, one neighborhood resident told the media outlet, “There is no accountability. We are living in the District of Crime.”

Setting aside the present incident, law-abiding gun owners get understandably frustrated when the same jurisdictions braying for more gun control take a soft touch with those who misuse firearms to harm others. The situation is even more galling when that jurisdiction is Washington, D.C. The federal enclave’s local government operates at the pleasure of the federal government. When the federal government uses its vast powers to target innocuous gun owners throughout the nation while refusing to adequately confront actual violent crime in their own enclave, people have a right to be upset and a right to question the motives of those pushing ever greater gun control.

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WaPo Homicide Tracker temporarily unavailable as we work on an updated version - for over 3 yrs

For many years the WaPo had a website that tracked on a map all the homicides in DC and the surrounding jurisdictions in any given year at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/local/homicides/

This was the description of the website;

“Tracking D.C.-area homicides

An updated map of homicides in the District and its suburbs, including Montgomery County, Prince George's County, Fairfax County, Prince William County, Loudoun County and jurisdictions within these counties,”

In mid 2020 the WaPo suspended posting the website with this explanation:

“This page is temporarily unavailable as we work on an updated version.”

“Temporarily” for the WaPo means 3+ years.

Before the WaPo dropped the whole database, they dropped the race and age of the victims but continued to map the locations of the homicides, and listed the weapons used. Each year in early January the Old Colonel would do an analysis of the statistics comparing jurisdictions and each year the Stats showed that the stricter the gun laws the more the homicides. Apparently, that didn’t fit the WaPo narrative so I’m guessing that’s why the WaPo took the website down.

Washington Post FACT CHECKER Finally Acknowledges Biden Lied About Inflation Being 9% When He Took Office (Really 1.4%) and Then the WaPo Censors Suspended The Old Colonel From Commenting for Calling Them Out for Being “A Day Late and a Dollar Short”

When this Washington Post article was finally published on 15 May 2024, the Old Colonel had the audacity to point out that many other reputable news sources had been reporting about it for over a month and even The Old Colonel had posted an in depth article about it on 15 April on his Blog at: https://old-soldier-colonel.blogspot.com/2024/04/president-geriatric-joe-biden-once.html So, once again, the WaPo was “a day late and a dollar short” but guess, “Better late than never.” So what did the WaPo Censors do to retaliate for the Old Colonel having the temerity to call them out for their lack of interest in anything negative about their "Favorite Son" President Biden, they suspended his ability to comment for a time.

FACT CHECKER

Biden’s false claim that inflation was 9 percent when he took office

In recent weeks, the president has misled about a key election issue.

Analysis by Glenn Kessler, The Fact Checker, 15 May 2024 at 0600/6:00 a.m. EDT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/15/bidens-false-claim-that-inflation-was-9-percent-when-he-took-office/?commentID=2c8f4060-ff40-402e-adb3-bffa39f5b388

 

Here is the Comment the WaPo Censors: “Removed by moderator for violating our community standards”.. and here the Old Colonel was unaware the WaPo had any standards!

REMOVED COMMENT

Notice the WaPo finally acknowledged today that “Inflation peaked at an annual rate of 9.1 percent in 2022” but Biden repeatedly lied for over a month saying it was at 9% when he took office. In fact, when Trump left office on 20 January 2021 he handed over to President Biden an inflation rate of 1.4% that month. It didn’t reach 9.1% until June 2022 or 17 months into his presidency.  Many other reputable news sources have been reporting about this for over a month and even I posted an in depth article about it on 15 April on my Blog at: https://old-soldier-colonel.blogspot.com/2024/04/president-geriatric-joe-biden-once.html

Again, the WaPo was “a day late and a dollar short” but I guess, “Better late than never.” I’m not surprised that this Biden gaffe was not mentioned in the WaPo until now and was probably only mentioned now because most of the reputable news sources are now mentioning it.  There are “lies of omission” where a story is misleading because of what is left out and “lies of commission” where a story knowingly contains falsehoods Seems the WaPo is an expert in both types. Hence, their new tag line: Democracy Dies in Darkness and the WaPo is Turning Out the Lights.

The Punishment Meted Out by the WaPo Censors:

Once again, the WaPo censors were quick to silence me with a suspension from commenting. 

In recent years I have been frequent WaPo commenters gleefully pointing out and correcting their numerous errors but have noticed fewer and fewer comments from Conservative readers have been showing up.  I had assumed that this lack of Conservative comments was attributable to fewer and fewer Conservative WaPo subscribers as the paper kept drifting further and further to the Left and losing readership but over time I have realized otherwise.  It seems the WaPo just censors, deletes and ultimately bans Conservative commenters to avoid WaPo embarrassment from having their errors and biased coverage exposed.  I know this because that is what has happened to me on several occasions. To support my accusation, just peruse this blog for several articles posting innocuous honest and totally accurate comments that obviously offended the sensitivities of the WaPo Censors so they arbitrarily and capriciously removed without justification.

The Downside of Purchasing an Electric Vehicle (EV) - Why it Could be the Worst Investment Decision You Would Ever Make in Your Life

You can now get a $7,500 upfront discount for buying an EV

Washington Post Article By Nicolás Rivero,  April 27, 2024 at 8:00 a.m. EDT

For nearly 90,000 car buyers, one small change in U.S. tax policy meant thousands of dollars off the sticker price of their new EVs.

As of Jan. 1, Americans who buy certain electric cars can request the federal electric vehicle tax credit as an upfront discount. The government created the tax credit in 2022, but before this year, car buyers had to wait until tax season to get their money. Now they can just pay up to $7,500 less for certain new EVs, or $4,000 less for used EVs, at dealerships that have signed up to offer the discount.

The article goes on for another 16 paragraphs singing the praises of EVs without mentioning a single one of the FACTS I have included below that explains why purchasing an EV may be one of the worst decisions or “investments” you could ever make in your entire life.  To read the entire WaPo article for yourself to verify what I’m saying, follow this link:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/04/27/ev-tax-credit-discount/?commentID=a419d491-b2e5-455e-9cbf-5371ee2ba471

Once again the WaPo omits key negative information in a story in an effort to support the Biden agenda of getting everyone riding around in an EV.  NBC News with Lester Holt on 26 April had a segment about EVs losing 32% of their value driving off the dealer’s lot compared to 3% for gas powered vehicles.

https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/study-finds-electric-vehicles-lose-value-more-quickly-than-gasoline-powered-cars-209800261735

Despite the EV losing value almost 10 times more than gas powered vehicles, that’s not the main negative buyers say about EVs; it’s battery life. Also, that depreciation is accelerating as EV used car prices plummet. Presently only 7.3% of new car sales are EVs and that number is falling too as new EVs have been overbuilt so are stacking up on dealer lots.

According to data from Cox Automotive, parent of Kelley Blue Book, the average transaction price for electric cars was $53,469 in July 2023, vs. gas-powered vehicles at $48,334.

https://www.kbb.com/car-advice/how-much-electric-car-cost/

That means the average EV loses $17,110 in value driving off the dealer’s lot while the average gas powered vehicle only loses $1,450. When the average EV buyer is losing $15,660 more than if they had bought a gas car, the $7,500 Biden Government subsidy doesn’t begin to cover the loss. Also, Only 22 of the more than 110 EV models on sale in the United States are even eligible for the credit this year.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/05/03/electric-vehicle-tax-credits-china/

These are some Facts you’ll never see in the WaPo thus validating their tag line: Democracy Dies in Darkness and the WaPo is Turning Out the Lights! There are “lies of omission” where a story is misleading because of what is left out and “lies of commission” where a story knowingly contains false information. Seems the WaPo is an expert at both types.

To Be Historically Accurate, We Should Be Celebrating the Final Freeing of ALL Slaves in the United States on 6 December and NOT Juneteenth/19 June

 

The Washington Post recently ran this below article about Juneteenth becoming an Alabama State Holiday along with Jefferson Davis’ Birthday which is already a State holiday but only allowing state employees to have one day off so they have to choose which holiday they wish to celebrate.  The WaPo accurately describes the issue but fails to ask the underlying question: “Why is Juneteenth even a holiday?” Historically, 19 June or Juneteenth has no significance; see below after the WaPo extract for why.

 

NATIONAL

Juneteenth or Jefferson Davis? Ala. state workers may have to choose.

 

By Rachel Hatzipanagos  April 22, 2024 at 10:33 a.m. EDT

Alabama state Rep. Juandalynn Givan and other Black lawmakers have lobbied for years to have the state recognize the Juneteenth holiday.

“It’s an acknowledgment that history happened, and I think we need to do whatever we can to make sure our history is not lost,” Givan (D) said.

This year, lawmakers may have reached a compromise.

Under the bill H.B. 4, Juneteenth, celebrated on June 19, would become a state holiday. But state employees would be able to choose between recognizing Juneteenth or the birthday of the president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, on June 3 which is already a State holiday.

Complete WaPo article at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/04/22/juneteenth-jefferson-davis-holiday-alabama/?commentID=70807525-2fd5-42db-b196-f2a72ac6b8e9

The Insignificance of Juneteenth

Why is Juneteenth celebrated or 19 June a Federal Holiday when Slavery was not ended in all of the United States until the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified on 6 December 1865? Hence, shouldn’t the Federal Holiday celebrating the end of Slavery be 6 December?

Ironically, two months before the end of the Civil War, on 8 February 1865, President Biden’s home state of Delaware voted to reject the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution and so voted to continue slavery beyond the Civil War. Hence, Slavery was still legal in Delaware (and Kentucky) until enough other states ratified the amendment thereby ended slavery in Delaware on 6 December 1865, almost six months after Juneteenth. In a symbolic move, Delaware belatedly ratified the amendment on 12 February 1901, 35 years after national ratification and 38 years after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation which, by the way, did NOT free Slaves in any Slave State that did not secede. Just to be consistent, Delaware also rejected the 14th Amendment during the Reconstruction Era.

Southern States in rebellion like Alabama and Texas were covered by the Emancipation Proclamation so Slaves there were freed on 1 January 1863. The Proclamation reads:

“That on the first day of January in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

Why EXPERT Legal Mind Jed Shugerman Believes New York Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Is Making an Historic Mistake Prosecuting Trump

OPINION

 

GUEST ESSAY

I Thought the Bragg Case Against Trump Was a Legal Embarrassment. Now I Think It’s a Historic Mistake.

April 23, 2024

By Jed Handelsman Shugerman a law professor at Boston University.

About a year ago, when Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, indicted former President Donald Trump, I was critical of the case and called it an embarrassment. I thought an array of legal problems would and should lead to long delays in federal courts.

After listening to Monday’s opening statement by prosecutors, I still think the Manhattan D.A. has made a historic mistake. Their vague allegation about “a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election” has me more concerned than ever about their unprecedented use of state law and their persistent avoidance of specifying an election crime or a valid theory of fraud.

To recap: Mr. Trump is accused in the case of falsifying business records. Those are misdemeanor charges. To elevate it to a criminal case, Mr. Bragg and his team have pointed to potential violations of federal election law and state tax fraud. They also cite state election law, but state statutory definitions of “public office” seem to limit those statutes to state and local races.

Both the misdemeanor and felony charges require that the defendant made the false record with “intent to defraud.” A year ago, I wondered how entirely internal business records (the daily ledger, pay stubs and invoices) could be the basis of any fraud if they are not shared with anyone outside the business. I suggested that the real fraud was Mr. Trump’s filing an (allegedly) false report to the Federal Election Commission, and only federal prosecutors had jurisdiction over that filing.

A recent conversation with Jeffrey Cohen, a friend, Boston College law professor and former prosecutor, made me think that the case could turn out to be more legitimate than I had originally thought. The reason has to do with those allegedly falsified business records: Most of them were entered in early 2017, generally before Mr. Trump filed his Federal Election Commission report that summer. Mr. Trump may have foreseen an investigation into his campaign, leading to its financial records. Mr. Trump may have falsely recorded these internal records before the F.E.C. filing as consciously part of the same fraud: to create a consistent paper trail and to hide intent to violate federal election laws, or defraud the F.E.C.

In short: It’s not the crime; it’s the cover-up.

Looking at the case in this way might address concerns about state jurisdiction. In this scenario, Mr. Trump arguably intended to deceive state investigators, too. State investigators could find these inconsistencies and alert federal agencies. Prosecutors could argue that New York State agencies have an interest in detecting conspiracies to defraud federal entities; they might also have a plausible answer to significant questions about whether New York State has jurisdiction or whether this stretch of a state business filing law is pre-empted by federal law.

However, this explanation is a novel interpretation with many significant legal problems. And none of the Manhattan D.A.’s filings or today’s opening statement even hint at this approach.

Instead of a theory of defrauding state regulators, Mr. Bragg has adopted a weak theory of “election interference,” and Justice Juan Merchan described the case, in his summary of it during jury selection, as an allegation of falsifying business records “to conceal an agreement with others to unlawfully influence the 2016 election.”

As a reality check, it is legal for a candidate to pay for a nondisclosure agreement. Hush money is unseemly, but it is legal. The election law scholar Richard Hasen rightly observed, “Calling it election interference actually cheapens the term and undermines the deadly serious charges in the real election interference cases.”

In Monday’s opening argument, the prosecutor Matthew Colangelo still evaded specifics about what was illegal about influencing an election, but then he claimed, “It was election fraud, pure and simple.” None of the relevant state or federal statutes refer to filing violations as fraud. Calling it “election fraud” is a legal and strategic mistake, exaggerating the case and setting up the jury with high expectations that the prosecutors cannot meet.

The most accurate description of this criminal case is a federal campaign finance filing violation. Without a federal violation (which the state election statute is tethered to), Mr. Bragg cannot upgrade the misdemeanor counts into felonies. Moreover, it is unclear how this case would even fulfill the misdemeanor requirement of “intent to defraud” without the federal crime.

In stretching jurisdiction and trying a federal crime in state court, the Manhattan D.A. is now pushing untested legal interpretations and applications. I see three red flags raising concerns about selective prosecution upon appeal.

First, I could find no previous case of any state prosecutor relying on the Federal Election Campaign Act either as a direct crime or a predicate crime. Whether state prosecutors have avoided doing so as a matter of law, norms or lack of expertise, this novel attempt is a sign of overreach.

Second, Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued that the New York statute requires that the predicate (underlying) crime must also be a New York crime, not a crime in another jurisdiction. The Manhattan D.A. responded with judicial precedents only about other criminal statutes, not the statute in this case. In the end, they could not cite a single judicial interpretation of this particular statute supporting their use of the statute (a plea deal and a single jury instruction do not count).

Third, no New York precedent has allowed an interpretation of defrauding the general public. Legal experts have noted that such a broad “election interference” theory is unprecedented, and a conviction based on it may not survive a state appeal.

Mr. Trump’s legal team also undercut itself for its decisions in the past year: His lawyers essentially put all of their eggs in the meritless basket of seeking to move the trial to federal court, instead of seeking a federal injunction to stop the trial entirely. If they had raised the issues of selective or vindictive prosecution and a mix of jurisdictional, pre-emption and constitutional claims, they could have delayed the trial past Election Day, even if they lost at each federal stage.

Another reason a federal crime has wound up in state court is that President Biden’s Justice Department bent over backward not to reopen this valid case or appoint a special counsel. Mr. Trump has tried to blame Mr. Biden for this prosecution as the real “election interference.” The Biden administration’s extra restraint belies this allegation and deserves more credit.

Eight years after the alleged crime itself, it is reasonable to ask if this is more about Manhattan politics than New York law. This case should serve as a cautionary tale about broader prosecutorial abuses in America — and promote bipartisan reforms of our partisan prosecutorial system.

Nevertheless, prosecutors should have some latitude to develop their case during trial, and maybe they will be more careful and precise about the underlying crime, fraud and the jurisdictional questions. Mr. Trump has received sufficient notice of the charges, and he can raise his arguments on appeal. One important principle of “our Federalism,” in the Supreme Court’s terms, is abstention, that federal courts should generally allow state trials to proceed first and wait to hear challenges later.

This case is still an embarrassment of prosecutorial ethics and apparent selective prosecution. Nevertheless, each side should have its day in court. If convicted, Mr. Trump can fight many other days — and perhaps win — in appellate courts. But if Monday’s opening is a preview of exaggerated allegations, imprecise legal theories and persistently unaddressed problems, the prosecutors might not win a conviction at all.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/opinion/bragg-trump-trial.html

Why Are Ostensibly “Loyal” Americans Serving in Foreign Militaries While US Military Recruiting Woes Are a National Security Crisis and “Their own Country” Desperately Needs Them

I am 100% behind US material support for Israel and even having a US Carrier Battle Group blocking Iran and Syria from intervening but not for any US Military boots on the ground. What I don’t understand is why so many ostensibly loyal American citizens are serving in the IDF when their own country’s Military needs them so desperately to protect the homeland. 

From Fox News - 20 April 2024 Headline:

Navy expects to miss recruiting goal by more than 6,000 amid worldwide threats from China, Russia

The Navy is expected to fall short of its 40,600 recruitment goal by approximately 6700 individuals…. ADM Lisa Franchetti, chief of naval operations, told Congress last week that the U.S. requires an additional 18,000 sailors for operations at sea, while an additional 4,000 are needed for roles on land.… The U.S. Navy is as crucial as ever internationally as tensions continue to escalate in regions such as the Pacific Ocean and the Middle East.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/navy-expects-miss-recruiting-goal-more-6000-worldwide-threats-china-russia

WaPo 4 July 2023 Headline:

US Military’s Recruiting Woes Are a National-Security Crisis

America’s armed services are failing to meet their recruiting goals, with the Army in particular suffering the worst shortfalls in five decades.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/07/04/us-military-recruiting-crisis-is-a-national-security-emergency/858a8ff6-1a64-11ee-be41-a036f4b098ec_story.html

the Washington Post reported: “we can confirm the deaths of 23 American citizens — 21 who have served in the IDF, one who served in the Israeli National Police.”  Historically, about 1,200 Americans serve in the IDF at a given time but seems many more are serving now. 

The question is why would any loyal American serve in a foreign nation’s Military when their own country’s “Military’s Recruiting Woes Are a National-Security Crisis.”

The question for FOX News is why would they praise and glorify on air Daniella Symonds for serving in the IDF when she was born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and purports to be a loyal American yet can’t be bothered to serve in the Military of what is ostensibly her own Country and who desperately needs her services?

FOX News 19 Apr 2024

Daniella Symonds, who previously served in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), joined "Fox & Friends" 

https://www.foxnews.com/media/columbia-student-deeply-disturbed-anti-israel-protests-scared-americas-future-leaders