Psaki dodges on MBS
Skirts sanctions question
White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Sunday wouldn’t directly say whether President Biden would take action to sanction Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman personally for the death of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi — suggesting only that there are “more effective” means.
“We believe there is more effective ways to make sure this doesn’t happen again and to also be able to leave room to work with the Saudis on areas where there is mutual agreement — where there is national interest for the United States,” Psaki said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“That is what diplomacy looks like. That is what complicated global engagement looks like. And we have made no secret and been clear we are going to hold them accountable on the global stage and with direct actions.”
CNN anchor Dana Bash pressed her, saying that Biden slapped sanctions on other Saudi officials but spared bin Salman for the murder of Khashoggi, a US resident and journalist for The Washington Post, in 2018.
“So isn’t punishing them like punishing the hit man and not the mob boss who actually put out the hit?” Bash asked Psaki.
“First, and historically, and even in recent history, Democratic and Republican administrations, there have not been sanctions put in place for the leaders of foreign governments where we have diplomatic relations and even where we don’t have diplomatic relations,” Psaki said.
Facing criticism from bipartisan congressional lawmakers for not taking direct action against bin Salman, Biden told reporters Saturday that more will be coming this week.
“There will be an announcement on Monday as to what we are going to be
doing with Saudi Arabia generally,” Biden said in response to a question from The Post.
The Biden administration released an intelligence report Friday that put the blame for Khashoggi’s death squarely on bin Salman, the de facto ruler of the kingdom.
“We assess that Saudi Arabia’s
Crown Prince approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey, to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi,” the report said.
It cited bin Salman’s control of “decision making” in the oil-rich country and the involvement of a key top adviser and members of his security detail as evidence.
PRESIDENT Biden recently announced the creation of a commission to recommend “reforms” to the judicial system. The commission will likely provide cover for the unpopular, divisive idea of court-packing. In a few months, no doubt, it will churn out a prepackaged recommendation to legitimize court-packing, while laying the groundwork for legislation to overhaul our judicial system.
Regardless of what Biden’s commission recommends, courtpacking is a horrible idea. It destroys judicial independence and transforms judges into political actors.
Biden himself criticized courtpacking last October, saying, “The last thing we need to do is turn the Supreme Court into just a political football, whoever has the most votes gets whatever they want. Presidents come and go. Supreme Court justices stay for generations.”
As our society becomes increasingly polarized along partisan lines, the Supreme Court should be kept free from politics. The independence of the judiciary is too important to jeopardize just so Democrats can achieve their political goals.
Team Biden is considering this proposal in response to serious and sustained pressure from its far-left base. At its heart, this is political symbolism with realworld impacts. Former President Donald Trump nominated justices to fill empty seats, and the Senate confirmed these nominees, following the letter of the Constitution. Past precedent supports the choices made by Republicans, and Democrats are attempting to obscure historical facts for political gain.
Democrats are outraged not because of any unfairness, but because the left wants a Supreme Court that will uphold progressive policies regardless of what the Constitution says. Democrats like Biden weren’t open to the idea of court-packing until they decided it was their golden ticket to winning unchecked power.
Some members of the Democratic Party aren’t willing to bow to these extreme voices. Sen. Joe
Manchin of West Virginia has voiced his strong opposition to court-packing, saying, “When they talk about packing the courts or ending the filibuster, I will not vote to do that.”
Officials in the Biden administration are pretending the commission will discuss other issues, but the focus will inevitably center on courtpacking, a tried and failed favorite of the left.
The administration’s choice of Caroline Fredrickson to join the commission is a telling sign. She is the author of “The AOC Way: The Secrets of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Success” and has expressed sympathy for courtpacking
Liberals’ flirtation with courtpacking dates back to the 1930s, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt became incensed with the Supreme Court because it was holding unconstitutional parts of his New Deal, so he proposed expanding the high court by six seats. Fortunately, this proposal proved to be a political blunder, as even Democrats turned against him, voting down his bill 70-20 in the Senate.
The same concerns about judicial independence that doomed FDR’s efforts apply today. We don’t need the Supreme Court to be turned into a political institution, with its justices acting as politicians in robes, deciding cases based on their politics instead of the words of a statute or the Constitution.
Court-packing rips apart the judicial
impartiality that allows the court to stay above the fray in these challenging times.
Former Sen. Orrin Hatch eloquently articulated the opposition to court-packing, writing, “Historically, opposition to courtpacking has been bipartisan because both parties have recognized the importance of judicial independence to a healthy democracy. Indeed, the lack of judicial independence in the British Empire was one of the reasons that motivated the Founders to sign the Declaration of Independence in the first place.”
Expanding the court to ensure a Democratic majority would change the Supreme Court from an independent juridical body to a rubber stamp for a Democratic agenda.
In 1983, a younger Joe Biden resoundingly rejected courtpacking. “It was a bonehead idea [when FDR tried it],” he said. “It was a terrible, terrible mistake to make. And it put in question, if for an entire decade, the independence of the most-significant body . . . in this country, the Supreme Court of the United States of America.”
President Biden would do well to abandon his flirtations with court-packing. Otherwise, he risks unraveling the integrity and legitimacy of our judicial system — inflicting irreversible damage on our great republic.
ERIC SCHMITT, CHRIS CARR & STEVE MARSHALL
Miranda Devine got it all right in her column on Gov. Cuomo: The time has come for this man to get what he deserves (“Finally, the bully Luv Guv exposed,” Feb. 25).
He is so full of himself that he thinks he can do no wrong, but it finally happened: His mistake was not thinking before sending the elderly to nursing homes filled with COVID-19.
Then-President Donald Trump made sure the East and West coasts received naval ships with beds to be used, and the Javits Center also had empty beds, yet he ignored all that.
Only someone who is callous and unthinking would have done that. Now he will pay for it. Bunny Abraham
Manhattan
I read with amusement the articles on our beleaguered governor, whose behavior shouldn’t shock anyone. I can’t agree more that he should be impeached.
However, with Mayor de Blasio confirming the reports of Cuomo bullying “a lot of people,” isn’t he just as bad for keeping silent for so long?
Both of them should go. Dori Harasek
Staten Island
For those of you hoping Cuomo will be removed from office, you can forget about it.
Despite killing thousands of seniors, somehow he still has a 49 percent approval rating.
As far as the accusations by former aide Lindsey Boylan, history shows nothing will come of it. Remember Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, seen in a picture dressed in blackface back in 2019? There were calls for him to resign, but he weathered the storm and remains in office.
And let’s not forget Tara Reade’s sexual-assault accusations against now-President Biden. Nothing happened there either.
The mainstream media will minimize the damage to Cuomo and most likely discredit Boylan. All you need is a “D” next to your name. I’ve seen this movie before.
Tom Vespo, Bethpage
My mom passed away two years ago. She was in a nursing home for three years, and I saw firsthand how quickly viruses spread in that population. My mom’s death was caused by such spread.
I was appalled when I heard Cuomo ordered that COVID-infected patients be accepted into nursing homes and must’ve known others would die from it.
For him to write a book about how he handled the pandemic before it was even over shows what an ego he has.
I believe that any proceeds he received from writing his self-righteous book on “leadership lessons” should go to the families of those who lost loved ones in nursing homes due to his policy.
Oh, and maybe he will republish his book with a
chapter on how to get a kiss from your deputy secretary?
Nancy Stankiewicz Montville, Conn.
New York deserves so much better than a soulless, arrogant tyrant for a governor.
Why did it take six months and a judicial ruling for his administration to finally release the data on nursing-home deaths?
Blowing off the Freedom of Information requests shows his complete guilt in not reporting the truth to these families who suffered a horrible loss.
Now we “taxed to the moon” New Yorkers get to foot the bill for the lawyers. Cuomo should bear this cost for his utter incompetence.
New York was rapidly declining prior to the virus, and it all circles back to his policies and ineptness. Michael Croce
Ballston Spa
Now Cuomo is facing charges of sexual harassment from a former aide on top of the nursinghome disaster, which he caused.
It just keeps getting worse and worse for this political clown, who continues to act as if he has not done anything wrong at all, and who verbally threatens those who stand up to him.
The best thing for him and for the people of New York state would be for him to voluntarily resign his post as governor. He is a slowly sinking ship, like the Titanic, and there really is nothing that can save him from his arrogance and fecklessness now. John Amato
Fresh Meadows