Now that Donald Trump has gone full Lukashenko in his now-violent plot to retain power, we have to ask whether this time, finally, the nation will muster the collective will to hold him responsible for his malfeasance. The future of American democracy may depend on how the question is answered.

Even before Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6 to disrupt the joint session of Congress that had convened to certify Joe Biden's Electoral College victory, Trump had committed a variety of fresh federal and state criminal offenses in his hour-long telephone conversation with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on January 2. In the call, the sitting president of the United States pressured Raffensperger and Ryan Germany, the secretary's general counsel, to "find" him enough votes to overturn Biden's win in the state.

As two recounts and a signature audit have confirmed, Trump lost Georgia by precisely 11,779 ballots. Nonetheless, Trump made it clear toward the latter part of his talk with Raffensperger that he wasn't just asking for an outlandish favor. Rather, he was making a demand, and serving notice in his official capacity that both Raffensperger and Ryan could face federal prosecution if they refused to comply.

Don't accept this interpretation of the conversation from me. Take it from Trump himself. Trump has acknowledged on his Twitter account that he made the call, and the Washington Post, which broke the story, has published a complete transcript of the conversation, in which Trump was joined by White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and several lawyers, including prominent conservative attorney Cleta Mitchell.

The Washington Post has also released the complete audio recording of the conversation and you can listen to Trump's own words:

"That's a criminal offense," Trump can be heard saying, accusing Raffensperger of reporting false election results. "And you can't let that happen. That's a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer.… And you can't let it happen, and you are letting it happen. You know, I mean, I'm notifying you that you're letting it happen. So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state."

Realizing the need for action, two Democratic members of the House of Representatives—Ted Lieu of California and Kathleen Rice of New York—have written FBI Director Christopher Wray, asking for a criminal investigation into Trump's threats. Citing two federal statutes and a Georgia law, Lieu and Rice wrote that they believe Trump has "engaged in solicitation of, or conspiracy to commit, a number of [federal and state] election crimes."

Lieu and Rice might also have added treason and sedition to the list, but they drafted their letter before Trump supporters rioted at the Capitol.

Unfortunately, there is still little chance that Trump actually will be prosecuted for the phone call. Federally, as Biden's inauguration approaches, Trump can be preemptively pardoned for any crimes, either by resigning and permitting Mike Pence, as his successor for the few days remaining in the lame-duck period, to do the honors or by issuing a pardon to himself. And as for Georgia, no one should expect an indictment as long as the levers of state government remain in Republican hands.

There is another way to hold Trump accountable, however—by means of a second impeachment.

The goal of a second impeachment would not be to remove Trump from the White House, unless, of course, he somehow manages to pull off a coup d'état before January 20. The goal would be to disqualify Trump from ever holding federal office again.

Under Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution, judgment in cases of impeachment extends to both sanctions—removal from current office and disqualification from holding future office. Since Trump reportedly has floated the idea of running for president again in 2024, a second impeachment would be designed to deal a death blow to another Trump campaign with hearings in the House and a trial in the Senate focused on the "high crimes and misdemeanors"—the phrase used in Article II of the Constitution to define impeachable offenses, along with treason and bribery—that Trump committed in his first term in office. Impeachable offenses, moreover, are not subject to the pardon power.

A second set of impeachment articles returned against Trump could allege a bundle of serious crimes in addition to the phone call to Raffensperger, ranging from obstruction of justice in connection with former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election to conspiracy to defraud the United States by subverting the entire 2020 election.

Nor would the fact that Trump was no longer president legally bar a second impeachment. In 1876, the Senate conducted an impeachment trial of Secretary of War William Belknap even though he had resigned before the House voted to impeach him for financial corruption. Although the Senate failed to muster the two-thirds majority needed to convict Belknap, a majority of senators found him guilty. His impeachment trial lasted nearly four months and featured more than 40 witnesses.

While Richard Nixon escaped impeachment via resignation, the current House and Senate would not be bound by Nixon's example. Both chambers would be free instead to follow the Belknap precedent in the case of impeaching a former president, as several leading constitutional scholars indicated in interviews with the Washington Post in 2019.

If he were faced with a second impeachment, Trump wouldn't get off as easily as he did the first time around. He would still have to be convicted of an impeachable offense by a two-thirds Senate majority, but as Amherst College professor Austin Surat argued in a USA Today column published January 4, only a simple majority vote would be needed for disqualification. A National Review writer has also called for a second impeachment.

The bottom line is that Donald John Trump, our 45th commander in chief, must be brought to justice by any legitimate means. With the House in Democratic hands and with enough Republicans in the Senate fed up with Trump's sedition, a second impeachment is not only possible—it is a necessity.

Bill Blum is a retired judge and a lawyer in Los Angeles. He is a lecturer at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication. He writes regularly on law and politics and is the author of three widely acclaimed legal thrillers: Prejudicial Error, The Last Appeal, and The Face of Justice.

If you're a fan of TV crime procedurals, you've no doubt seen shows where detectives interrogate two suspects detained in separate and austere holding rooms. The object is to get one of the perps to snitch on his accomplice and "turn state's evidence" in return for leniency.

The dramas may feature different actors and different crimes, but the essential script components are the same: The cops offer immunity, witness protection or some other kind of favorable treatment in exchange for a confession. The arrestees, however, remain defiant, and hang tough. Some sit stone-faced and silent. Others smirk and laugh. Still others hurl back insults, accusing the cops of incompetence and a rush to judgment.

Then, slowly, just before a big commercial break, the fear of doing hard time sets in. One of the suspects reconsiders the possibility that his confederate will cash in on the promise of a deal, leaving him alone to take the rap. The perp's rough exterior cracks. Before you can say "case closed," Miranda rights are waived, and the truth emerges.

In real life, the drill rarely concludes as quickly. And while some suspects invoke the Fifth Amendment and never agree to talk, others do. Just ask Rick Gates why he decided to testify against his former business partner Paul Manafort. Faced with the prospect of a lengthy prison term, Gates opted to save his own skin.

As Donald Trump's desperate plot to subvert the election fails and the end of his presidency approaches, Ivanka Trump could face her own "state's evidence" moment as a result of her role in her father's sketchy business enterprises in New York.

According to the New York Times, both state attorney general Letitia James and Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. are investigating income-tax-avoidance schemes undertaken by the Trump Organization that involve questionable deductions claimed for "consulting fees" paid to Ivanka and other individuals and businesses.

Vance's investigation is criminal in nature, while James' inquiry is civil. The probes, per the New York Times, are being conducted independently, but they overlap. New subpoenas have been issued in each, seeking information about the consulting payments.

The subpoenas come on the heels of a blockbuster story published by the New York Times in late September that revealed Trump paid a mere $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency, and that he paid no income taxes in 10 of the 15 years prior to that.

Documents obtained by the New York Times also indicate that between 2010 and 2018, Trump wrote off "$26 million in unexplained 'consulting fees'" as business expenses on his tax returns. The $26 million included $747,622 paid to an unidentified individual. That amount, it turns out, exactly matches income Ivanka listed as consulting fees on the 2017 financial disclosure forms she filed when she joined the White House staff.

As former New York City prosecutor Elura Nanos wrote in a recent column for the Law & Crime website, "This could be a problem, as Ms. Trump was an executive officer both of the company making the payment and the company doing the consulting. When a key person is on both sides of such a transaction, tax deductions could be illegal if the payments were inflated."

CNN legal analyst Elie Honig, who worked for eight years as an assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting white-collar crimes, described Ivanka's predicament more bluntly in a November 20 on-air interview, remarking:

"I used to do Mafia cases. This is exactly what they would do. If they wanted to take money out of a company and put it in the pocket of an individual, they would say, 'We'll just call it a consulting fee.' That does not make it okay on its own. The question… is did Ivanka Trump actually give consulting services worth $747,000? I mean, think about that."

Ivanka reacted to news of the consulting-fee subpoenas in true Trump fashion, rage-tweeting:

"This is harassment pure and simple. This 'inquiry' by NYC democrats is 100% motivated by politics, publicity and rage. They know very well that there's nothing here and that there was no tax benefit whatsoever. These politicians are simply ruthless."

It's rarely a good idea, whether on television or in the actual world, for a potential suspect to directly attack the investigators. The better course is to let your lawyers do the talking.

Ivanka, of all people, should know this. In 2012, she and Donald Trump Jr. reportedly avoided a felony fraud indictment for misleading prospective buyers of units in the Trump SoHo, a hotel and condo development in lower Manhattan. The siblings narrowly escaped prosecution, but only after high-powered attorney Marc Kasowitz, a longtime Trump family consigliere and a Vance campaign donor, allegedly leaned on the DA behind the scenes to drop the case.

Vance is showing no signs of backing down this time. To the contrary, he is leading a grand jury probe that extends well beyond the possible misuse of consulting fees to determine if any of the president's past business practices violated state fraud and income tax laws. He is also looking into whether the Trump Organization falsified corporate records in connection with the hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal during the 2016 presidential campaign.

In July, Vance scored a historic legal victory when the Supreme Court denied the president's request to halt Vance's inquiry, rejecting Trump's claims of "absolute immunity" from state criminal prosecutions.

Trump cannot be pardoned for state crimes, and absent a federal pardon, once he leaves office, he will lose the immunity he now enjoys as a sitting president from prosecution for any federal offenses he may have committed. And while Trump's attorneys currently are back before the Supreme Court, asking the panel to narrow the scope of Vance's subpoenas, that effort would appear similarly doomed once Trump departs the White House.

What this means for Ivanka remains to be seen. She has not yet been formally accused of committing a crime, or officially been named as a target of any investigation. Moreover, even if she is eventually indicted, everyone—even a Trump—is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Still, as the clock ticks down on the Trump presidency, the first daughter may well be advised to ponder whether her legal interests and those of her father have diverged to the point where it would be better to cooperate with the authorities, fess up, and ultimately turn state's evidence.

Stay tuned. This story is just beginning.

Bill Blum is a retired judge and a lawyer in Los Angeles. He is a lecturer at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication. He writes regularly on law and politics and is the author of three widely acclaimed legal thrillers: Prejudicial Error, The Last Appeal, and The Face of Justice.

This article was produced by the Independent Media Institute.

Donald Trump is becoming more fearful and anxious by the day. Above everything else, he desperately wants to save his own skin and avoid spending his remaining days outfitted in an orange prison jumpsuit. This is why, as the legal challenges to his humiliating defeat at the polls fail one by one, he will eventually shed his phony tough-guy facade and seek refuge in a presidential pardon for the myriad of federal felonies he may have committed.

The question is not whether Trump will pursue the pardon remedy, but precisely when and how he will do so. Even though a presidential pardon would apply only to federal offenses and leave him exposed to charges under New York law arising from the ongoing probe conducted by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, he has no other viable choice.

One of the few things Trump understands about the Constitution is the plenary nature of the pardon power granted to presidents. The pardon power is the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card. To date, Trump has used his authority to pardon or commute the sentences of 44 individuals convicted of federal crimes. The recipients of his beneficence include such darlings of the unhinged radical right as Joe Arpaio, the notoriously racist former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona; and Dinesh D'Souza, the prominent author, documentary filmmaker and conspiracy theorist.

Trump also understands that with the loss of the presidency, he will lose the immunity he currently enjoys from federal prosecution. I have written before and often of the federal charges Trump could face once he leaves office. They include:

• Obstruction of justice and perjury in connection with the investigation conducted by former special counsel Robert Mueller into suspected Russian interference in the 2016 election.
• Obstruction of Congress, extortion and bribery in connection with his efforts to pressure Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to dig up political dirt on Joe and Hunter Biden in exchange for the release of U.S. military aid previously approved by Congress.
• Income tax and financial fraud for underreporting the revenue earned from his real estate ventures, and misrepresenting the value of his assets on loan applications.
• Involuntary manslaughter for his grossly negligent handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in thousands of avoidable deaths.
• Violation of campaign finance laws for conspiring with his former lawyer Michael Cohen to pay hush money to pornographic film star Stephanie Clifford, aka "Stormy Daniels," and former Playboy model Karen McDougal in the summer and fall of 2016.

All of the above crimes fall within the general five-year federal statute of limitations.

When the decision hour arrives, Trump will have two basic options: he could resign and accept a pardon from Mike Pence, who would become acting president during the lame-duck interregnum before Joe Biden's inauguration; or he could decide to pardon himself.

Both sorts of pardons would be prospective, or preemptive, in nature, as they would be issued prior to the filing of any federal indictments.

A prospective pardon from Pence would mirror the one conferred on Richard Nixon by Gerald Ford in 1974, which gave Nixon "a full, free, and absolute pardon… for all offenses against the United States" that Nixon had or "may have committed" during his time in office. Given the Nixon precedent and the broad nature of the pardon power, a Pence pardon would be all but impossible to overturn in court.

It remains to be seen whether Pence, who likely has ambitions to run for president in 2024, would want to risk tarnishing whatever remains of his public brand with a pardon of the most corrupt chief executive in American history. On the other hand, Pence may come to view a pardon for Trump as a gesture of fealty that would forever endear him to Trump's strong and loyal electoral base.

A self-pardon, however, would be more in keeping with Trump's image as a rogue and trendsetting norm-breaker, and would allow him to avoid any indebtedness to Pence. In 2018, in the midst of the Mueller investigation, Trump tweeted, "I have the absolute right to PARDON myself."

Although Nixon reportedly toyed with the idea of pardoning himself, no president has ever attempted the feat. It's also by no means clear that a self-pardon would be upheld should the issue ever reach the Supreme Court. In a memorandum drafted four days before Nixon's resignation, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel advised that a self-pardon would be illegal "Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case."

Whatever path Trump chooses, a pardon would be seen by many as a moral, if not legal, admission of guilt. Worse still, a federal pardon might only incentivize Cyrus Vance to go for the maximum punishment in his investigation of Trump for tax and business fraud under New York law.

Clearly, Trump is in survival mode. He has no escape route, and he is running out of time. He is caught in what the ancient Greeks called a "dilemma," a predicament with no good alternatives.

With the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, the radical right has completed its long and painstaking project to seize control of the Supreme Court, and to reshape constitutional law for generations to come. Barrett's elevation will give conservatives a 6-3 majority on the court and usher in a crisis of legitimacy for the third branch of government not seen since the 1930s.

The right's triumph has prompted anger and soul-searching among Democrats and progressives, sparking calls to expand the number of Supreme Court justices, echoing Franklin D. Roosevelt's unsuccessful effort to add additional seats to the high tribunal in the midst of the Great Depression.

Enlarging the Supreme Court is entirely within the power of Congress, as the number of justices is not set by the Constitution. The court's composition has, in fact, varied over time, ranging from six justices when the Constitution was ratified to 10 in 1863. The panel was reduced to nine by an act of Congress in 1867 and has remained there since then by statute.

While Democrats should definitely demand court expansion if they retake the White House and the Senate and hold the House, there is at least one additional step they should take to address the court's legitimacy crisis—the impeachment of its most corrupt member—Clarence Thomas.

Thomas should be impeached on charges of perjury for allegedly lying in his annual financial disclosure statements for over a decade and, more fundamentally, for lying in his 1991 confirmation hearing about his disgusting history of sexual harassment.

Although federal judges are appointed for life, their terms are subject to "good behavior." Like all civil officers of the United States, they can be removed, under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution, "on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."

The impeachment process, as we were reminded by the experience of President Trump, consists of two basic steps: First, members of the House of Representatives impeach an official by adopting, on a simple majority vote, one or more articles of impeachment, which read very much like a criminal complaint or a grand jury indictment. Step two proceeds with a trial in the Senate, which has the power to convict on a two-thirds ballot. Ouster from office follows conviction automatically, and cannot be appealed.

Only three presidents—Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Trump—have been impeached in our history, and all were exonerated in their Senate trials. A fourth, Richard Nixon, resigned in the face of near-certain impeachment and removal for his role in the Watergate scandal.

The impeachment of federal judges, by contrast, has been far more common. To date, 15 federal judges have been impeached, and eight have been convicted by the Senate. Indeed, the only Senate impeachment trials resulting in convictions have involved judges.

Since 1988, three federal judges have been impeached and removed on charges involving perjury. The last judge to be impeached was G. Thomas Porteous Jr. of the Eastern District of Louisiana, a Clinton appointee who was convicted by the Senate and ejected from office in December 2010 for accepting bribes and, among other derelictions, signing false financial declarations under penalty of perjury.

Thomas, if targeted, would become just the second Supreme Court Justice to be impeached. In 1804, the House charged Associate Justice Samuel Chase with eight articles of impeachment for engaging in arbitrary and oppressive conduct and expressing political bias while serving as a trial judge in certain Sedition Act cases during an era when Supreme Court justices also conducted trials. An outspoken Federalist and supporter of John Adams, Chase incurred the ire of Thomas Jefferson and his Republican allies. Chase was acquitted the following year in a Senate trial presided over by Vice President Aaron Burr. (The chief justice of the Supreme Court presides only in presidential impeachment trials.)

As the Senate's website instructs, Chase's exoneration has since been construed to insulate the "judiciary from… congressional attacks based on disapproval of judges' opinions." Guided by the Chase example, an impeachment proceeding against Thomas could not be initiated because of policy differences Democrats may have with him, even though Thomas has demonstrated a flagrant disregard for the constitutional rights of minorities, women and criminal defendants during his tenure on the Supreme Court.

Like Porteous, however, Thomas is vulnerable to perjury allegations.

Under the 1978 Ethics in Government Act, all high-ranking federal officials are required to file yearly financial disclosure statements for themselves and their spouses to safeguard against conflicts of interest. But for 13 years, Thomas failed to report his wife Virginia's earnings on the mandatory annual financial disclosure forms that he signed under penalty of perjury, indicating that his spouse had no non-investment income when in fact she was steadily employed in high-level jobs as a policy analyst and an outspoken conservative activist.

According to Common Cause, Virginia—who is also a lawyer and a one-time aide to former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey—received more than $686,000 between 2003 and 2007, working for the Heritage Foundation. In 2011, claiming incredulously that he had misunderstood his reporting responsibilities, Thomas amended his financial disclosures, which can now be examined on the OpenSecrets.org website.

As University of Colorado law professor Paul Campos pointed out in a 2011 Daily Beast article, "The relevant question on the disclosure form isn't complicated: Even if Justice Thomas wasn't a lawyer, he shouldn't have needed to hire one to explain to him that the box marked NONE next to the phrase 'Spouse's Non-Investment Income' should only be checked if his spouse had no non-investment income." In Campos' view, Thomas' omissions were "criminal."

Thomas' alleged perjury in his testimony before Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991 was of a far greater magnitude, centering on his denial under oath that he harassed Anita Hill and other female colleagues while he served as the chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

The clash between Hill and Thomas was televised and made for riveting viewing, even more so than the rancorous battle over the 2018 confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh. Thomas was treated with kid gloves by the all-male members of the Judiciary Committee, who sat largely in silence as he denied ever engaging in inappropriate behavior and claimed that he was being "subjected to a 'high-tech lynching.'"

Hill, who is now a professor of social policy and law at Brandeis University, was treated with scorn and contempt by the Judiciary Committee. Some members called her "delusional," suggested she was mentally "unstable" and was a "scorned woman" out for revenge against Thomas for rebuffing her romantic advances.

In addition to assassinating Hill's character, the committee, under the chairmanship of Joe Biden, then the senior Democratic senator from Delaware, declined to call three other female Thomas accusers to testify at the hearing. One of those accusers, writer Angela Wright, remains an outspoken critic of Thomas, and has publicly called for his impeachment. Anita Hill, too, has never wavered, insisting she told the truth.

Unlike criminal trials, impeachment proceedings are not governed by statutes of limitations. In any event, it is never too late to do justice and provide Hill and Thomas' other accusers with the fair hearing they never received.

Even assuming Thomas would avoid conviction in the Senate, his impeachment trial would be nothing like the farce of Trump's proceeding. With Democrats holding a majority in the Senate and Kamala Harris presiding as vice president, documents would be subpoenaed and witnesses, including Thomas, would be called to testify.

The impeachment of Thomas would also offer Biden a full and final opportunity to make amends for the past. Above all, combined with a move to expand the number of seats on the Supreme Court, impeaching Thomas would restore the legitimacy of the judiciary as a bulwark of constitutional rights, and send a message that the nation has had enough of Republican efforts to return the country to the dark days before the New Deal and the civil rights movement.

Before any of that happens, of course, Donald Trump and his GOP enablers must be defeated at the polls.

Bill Blum is a retired judge and a lawyer in Los Angeles. He is a lecturer at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication. He writes regularly on law and politics and is the author of three widely acclaimed legal thrillers: Prejudicial Error, The Last Appeal, and The Face of Justice.

This article was produced by the Independent Media Institute.

The deed is done. President Donald John Trump has nominated 48-year-old 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Amy Coney Barrett to succeed the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the United States Supreme Court. Barring a miracle, Senate Republicans, now reduced to little more than a personality cult ever faithful to their führer, will confirm the nomination.

The consequences of Ginsburg's passing and Barrett's elevation will be horrendous, and felt for generations. Here are five grim observations to help explain the scope of the anticipated nightmare.

1. Barrett Will Drive the Court Sharply to the Right

Every new Supreme Court justice alters the ideological orientation of the institution. Trump's first two appointees to the high tribunal—Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh—made the panel more conservative, and transformed Chief Justice John Roberts into the court's most important and frequent swing voter.

Barrett's confirmation will create a solid 6-3 conservative majority. And while Roberts will remain in the political center, the center itself will move decisively to the right.

Barrett was appointed to the federal bench by Trump in 2017. In her brief judicial tenure, she has authored about 100 opinions. In addition, as a professor at Notre Dame Law School, where she taught constitutional law and statutory interpretation until her 7th Circuit appointment, she wrote several influential academic articles and delivered a number of public speeches, creating an extraordinarily large paper trail.

Taken as a whole, Barrett's body of work has been hostile to gun control, critical of Obamacare, antagonistic to employment and sex discrimination claims, and skeptical of consumer rights and economic regulation generally.

In criminal law, she has questioned the constitutionality of the "Miranda rule," which requires arrestees subject to custodial interrogation to be advised of their right to remain silent.

In immigration law, earlier this year, she dissented from a 7th Circuit ruling that struck down the Trump administration's "public charge" policy, which bars noncitizens from receiving a green card if federal authorities believe they are likely to apply for public assistance. (The policy has since been reinstated as a result of a decision issued by a different federal circuit court.)

Most distressing of all is Barrett's outlook on abortion and the continuing viability of Roe v. Wade. While stopping short of declaring that Roe should be overturned, she has expressed support for state laws that impose strict requirements on the operation of abortion clinics, placing her at odds with recent Supreme Court rulings. And in two dissenting votes cast in 2018 and 2019, she endorsed an Indiana law that required fetal remains to be buried or cremated after an abortion.

If you're looking for a historical parallel to measure the potential impact that a Barrett for Ginsburg swap could have, don't look to Gorsuch, who succeeded Antonin Scalia, or Kavanaugh, who replaced Anthony Kennedy. Look instead to Clarence Thomas, who filled the vacancy left by the retirement of the liberal legend Thurgood Marshall in 1991.

Like Thomas, Barrett is a staunch and inflexible proponent of "originalism," the jurisprudential philosophy popularized by Scalia, for whom Barrett clerked from 1998 to 1999 after graduating from Notre Dame Law School, where she ranked first in her class.

In its current iteration, originalism asserts that core legal terms and concepts like "freedom of speech," "due process" and "equal protection" should be interpreted by judges today according to the "original public meaning" they had when they were first inserted in the Constitution or added by subsequent amendments.

Also like Thomas, Barrett has questioned the importance of adhering to past Supreme Court precedent decisions, writing in a 2013 article for the University of Texas Law Review: "I tend to agree with those who say that a justice's duty is to the Constitution and that it is thus more legitimate for her to enforce her best understanding of the Constitution rather than a precedent she thinks clearly in conflict with it." She voiced a similar position in a 2016 article she coauthored for the University of Pennsylvania's Journal of Constitutional Law, acknowledging that adherence to precedent presents "a notoriously difficult problem for originalists."

Even more so than Thomas, Barrett is a religious zealot. She and her husband Jesse, a former federal prosecutor, are reportedly members of People of Praise, a small, tightly knit, patriarchal charismatic Christian sect based in South Bend, Indiana, that professes admiration for "the first Christians who were led by the Holy Spirit to form a community."

In a 2006 law school commencement speech at Notre Dame, Barrett urged graduates to become a "different kind of lawyer," who sees that a "legal career is but a means to an end, and… that end is building the kingdom of God… [I]f you can keep in mind that your fundamental purpose in life is not to be a lawyer, but to know, love, and serve God, you truly will be a different kind of lawyer."

According to the Washington Post, Barrett "was a paid speaker five times, starting in 2011, at the Blackstone Legal Fellowship, a summer program established to inspire a 'distinctly Christian worldview in every area of law'… to show students 'how God can use them as judges, law professors and practicing attorneys to help keep the door open for the spread of the Gospel in America.'"

In 2015, Barrett signed a letter "from Catholic Women" to the Synod of Bishops, an advisory body to the Pope, that committed the signatories to act "in service to the Church's evangelizing mission."

Trump initially added Barrett to his list of possible Supreme Court nominees in November 2017. She was subsequently passed over, but, according to Axios, the president has been ghoulishly "saving" her to replace Ginsburg. Given Barrett's extreme views, it's easy to understand why her moment has arrived.

2. Barrett's Nomination Is the Culmination of a Decades-Long Republican Push to Remake the Judiciary

Beginning in the early 1970s in reaction to the liberal—and historically atypical—work of the Supreme Court under the leadership of Chief Justice Earl Warren, the right has lobbied to place conservative ideologues on the federal bench.

Within the counterrevolution, no group has been more influential than the Federalist Society. From its founding in 1982 by three law students at Yale and the University of Chicago, the society has grown to include more than 200 chapters at law schools across the United States. From its base in Washington, D.C., today, the society also operates a "lawyers division" with more than 70,000 attorneys enrolled in chapters and "practice groups" in 90 cities.

Barrett is a former Federalist Society member. The other Republican-appointed justices on the court (Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Thomas, Alito and Chief Justice Roberts) are also either current or former members.

Once confirmed, Barrett will be Trump's third Supreme Court appointment. In the past 50 years, only Richard Nixon, who added four justices, has exceeded that total.

Trump has also been highly successful in placing Federalist Society members on the lower courts. Thus far, the Republican-controlled Senate has confirmed 53 Trump judges to the federal appellate courts, and 161 to the federal district trial courts.

3. Trump Is Banking on Barrett to Support Him in the Event of a Disputed Election

Trump is a man of dubious intellectual rigor. He may or may not fully comprehend—or personally care about—the long-term impact his judicial nominees will have on American law and society.

One thing he does understand, however, is self-interest. As I have argued before, Trump desperately wants to be returned to power after the November election, not only to gratify his bloated ego, but, quite literally, to avoid possible prosecution for an array of federal offenses committed before and after he became president. He knows full well that under Department of Justice policy, sitting presidents cannot be indicted and prosecuted for federal crimes. Remaining in the Oval Office while the statute of limitations on his misdeeds expires is his stay-out-of-jail ticket.

Trump has been working feverishly to undermine public confidence in the election because he is trailing Joe Biden in most polls. Unable to restrain himself, he disclosed on September 23 that he expected the election to "end up in the Supreme Court" in a replay of Bush v. Gore, the infamous judicial coup d'état that handed the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush. A ninth justice, Trump insists, will be needed to break any 4-4 ties in order to determine the winner of the election should disputes over state voting results reach the Supreme Court.

Enter Barrett, Trump's choice to deliver him a second term by judicial fiat.

4. The Democrats Must Support Structural Reforms to Take Back the Courts

The time has long since expired for the Democrats to meet the Republican judicial counterrevolution with equal resolve. It no longer suffices for Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and their ilk to appeal to the nonexistent decency of Republicans to adhere to constitutional norms and practices. Trump and the Republicans are interested only in retaining and wielding power.

Structural reforms are essential to respond to Republican tyranny. These include, at a minimum, ending the filibuster rule in the Senate; expanding the number of Supreme Court justices as well as the number of lower-court federal judges; and promoting statehood for Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

All of these changes can be implemented legislatively if the Democrats regain a Senate majority and repeal the filibuster. None requires a constitutional amendment.

As the veteran legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin explained in a recent New Yorker column:

"The number of Justices is not fixed in the Constitution but, rather, established by statute… [T]he Democrats could simply pass a law that creates two or three more seats on the Supreme Court. To do so would be to play hardball in a way that is foreign to the current Senate Democrats. But maybe, in light of all that's happened, that's a game they should learn to play."

5. The Slide to Minority Rule Continues

The United States has entered an unmistakable era of minority rule. Because of the Electoral College, we have a president who lost the 2016 popular vote by nearly 2.9 million ballots. Because of the constitutional design of the Senate, which allocates two senators to each state regardless of population, we have a Republican Senate majority, even though Democratic candidates for the Senate in 2018 received more than 58 percent of the aggregate popular vote for the upper chamber.

The confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court will be yet another inflection point in the slide to minority rule. In a real democracy, it would be unthinkable for an outlier like Barrett to receive a lifetime appointment to the most powerful judicial body in the land.

Yet here we are. And here we will remain unless and until enough ordinary Americans, not just the operatives who run the Democratic Party, rise up and say that they have had enough.

Bill Blum is a retired judge and a lawyer in Los Angeles. He is a lecturer at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication. He writes regularly on law and politics and is the author of three widely acclaimed legal thrillers: Prejudicial Error, The Last Appeal, and The Face of Justice.Source: Independent Media InstituteCredit Line: This article was produced by the Independent Media Institute.