Senator Mike Gravel and the Pentagon Papers

[Gregory Matthews]

In the 1970's, Senator MIke Gravel of Alaska played a role in the publicaiton of the so-called Pentagon Papers.

 

What was that role?

 

Why was that important?

 

How is it that Senator Gravel was not charged with a crime?

[Gregory Matthews]

Clue:  See my post, Section 6 of the Constitution.

[Tom Wetmore]

My guess is that politics overrode any thought or attempt to go after him. And maybe it was a matter of timing that his role did not become known until after all the dust settled and life moved on. Not every crime gets prosecuted. And not everyone who commits a crime is viewed as a bad guy.

[Gregory Matthews]

O.K.  Let us look at the role that Senator Gravel played:

 

1) In a public speech in the Senate Chamber he revealed classified material from the Pentagon Papers.

 

2)  Following his speech, using the "revise and amend"  granted him he introduced the entire classified Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record.

 

NOTE:  It was quite public when he did it and the publication in the Congressional Record was clearly public.  So, in my thinking, it cannot be a matter of what he did not becoming known until after the dust had settled.

 

3)  Following this, the New Your Post published the classified material which they took from the Congressional Record.

 

So, here we have it in actual operation.  Yes, it is true, that not every crime is prosecuted, and for various reasons. 

[joeb]

O.K.  Let us look at the role that Senator Gravel played:

 

1) In a public speech in the Senate Chamber he revealed classified material from the Pentagon Papers.

 

2)  Following his speech, using the "revise and amend"  granted him he introduced the entire classified Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record.

 

NOTE:  It was quite public when he did it and the publication in the Congressional Record was clearly public.  So, in my thinking, it cannot be a matter of what he did not becoming known until after the dust had settled.

 

3)  Following this, the New Your Post published the classified material which they took from the Congressional Record.

 

So, here we have it in actual operation.  Yes, it is true, that not every crime is prosecuted, and for various reasons. 

Yeah, Obama has not been prosecuted for his lawbreaking as yet.  The Presidency is the part of the government the Consitution say is the law enforcement part of the government.  Obama refusing to enforce the laws he doesn't like is lawlessness at the very head of our nation.  If he goes ahead with his stated intent of basically writing immijgration legislation he will once again be breaking the law and defying the Constitution for only the Congress has the authority to write legislation.

[Gregory Matthews]

And the sole remedy for what you say, from the practical standpoint, is to impeach him.  So, do you think that will happen?

 

Yes, Congress has the authority to write legislation.  But, it does not have the sole authority.  The Constitution gives the voting citizens of the United States the authority to directly write legislation--read the Constitution if you do not remember it.

 

While the President does not have the direct authority to write legislation, the Constitution does give the President to authority to enforce the law, as you said.  The authority to enforce the statute always includes the power to chose the means by which the law is enforced which includes that authority not to prosecute.  Prosecution is only one means of enforcing the law.

 

This stuff is just basic Constitution 101.

[joeb]

Well, you just failed "basic Constitution 101". 

 

There is no such "right" given to the people to write laws at the federal level.  Yes, some states allow the people to write and vote on propositions and initiatives, but that is at the state level only.  Congress is the only body granted the right to write laws at the federal level.

 

When a law is written and it includes the terms of the punishments for breaking that law enforcing that law requires enforcing the punishments.  It's all part and parcel of the law.  Refusing to enforce the punishments is re-writing the law and the Presidency was never granted that power.   If the president doesn't like a law his only recourse is to veto the law when it comes up for his signature.  Even that can be overturned, so the presidency is very limited in the creation-of-law department.

 

Our form of government is that of a Constitutional Republic, not a democracy.  It seems most people are either ignorant of that fact or choose to ignore it.  The founders of our country explicity chose that form over having a democracy. 

[Gregory Matthews]

Actually, I stated poorly what I intended to say.  The result is that my statement contains error.  In my memory and without checking, I had forgotten an important part of the Section that I was thinking about.  I did have a  specific section in mind, but I had forgotten a clause in that section.

 

Thank you for the correction.

 

However, as to your statement that Congress in the only body that can  write laws at the Federal level: 

1) The  Constitution establishes law in one sense.

2) A Constitutional Convention can be called to amend the Constitution.

3) When passed by a specified percentage of state Legislators, that proposed amendment to the Constitution becomes fact.

4) As fact, it becomes law, even if Congress enacts legislation which relates to the amended
Constitution.

[Gregory Matthews]

Laws are divided into a number of groups, which include:

 

1) Statute law:   The statute is simply another word for a law passed by a body  authorized to enact a law, such as Congress.

 

2) Case law:  That term  references a decision made by a court that is asked to decide on the application of a statute.

 

3) Deleted.

 

4) Civil law:  an example would be a law that stated that in a retirement action a spouse would be entitled to 25% of retirement pay.

  

5) Criminal law: an example would be a law that defined theft and  the penalty for such.

 

6) Administrative law:  an example would be a decision that under FICA (Social security in the U.S.) a person would be entitled to a payment.

 

7) Maritime law:  an example would be a decision that a fishing boat had a right to fish X number of miles off of a coastline of a nation.

 

8) Space law:  an example would be a decision that a nation had a right to photograph an area of the Earth from space.  NOTE:  There is a Canadian University that has a program in space law and I once worked with a chaplain who was married to graduate from that University program in space law. 

 

9) International law:  I probably do not need to give an example.

 

I will stop at this point.  But, I have not exhausted the groups into which the various laws are divided.  The deeper one goes into these groups the more complex the situation gets.

 

I had a friend  who was a trained lawyer and licensed as an attorney.  She developed an expertise as a litigator in an administrative law court.  She gave up her license to practice law, but she continued to make her living litigating cases  in that  administrative court.  Law firms who had prepared the cases hired her due to her success rate, to litigate cases for them.  Under the statutes, she  could not be charged, after she gave up her license to practice law, with the illegal practice of law.  Her litigation of the cases did not violate the statute.   

 

I have never attended any training conducted by a law school.  I am not an attorney and I have never been licensed as an attorney.  But, I have attended training by administrative law judges, for people like me who represented clients in their courts.  And, I have represented clients in such courts.  I always did it pro bono as part of my public service work.  But, I did not have to do it that way.  In the metro Denver area where I live the standard charge for someone trained like me for such representation was $5,000, for a typical case.   But, I had a job.  If I turned such a case over to a licensed attorney, that attorney would likely get a fee for taking the case in excess of $60,00 (I am personally aware in such cases of the attorney getting over $70,000 before expenses.).   

 

Some of the interesting aspects of my public service work:  As I worked pro bono (My clients were not charged a fee.), my training and expenses were provided at no expense to me.  Further, while I worked independently of supervision by a licensed attorney, due to the fact that I could refer a case to an attorney, I was able to obtain legal advice totally free of charge.  I once telephoned a local law firm, was immediately connected to the senior attorney in that law firm and I told him that I wanted him to talk directly to a person who was in my office asking me for legal advice.  He immediately agreed and did talk to her.  That was highly unusual and beyond what was ever done.  But, because I requested such, he did it. 

 

All in all, I find the law to be very interesting.  I once had a close relationship with a multi-millionaire real-estate attorney who was transitioning from the practice of real-estate law to that of a clergy person.   If I wanted to Shepard a case and did not want to do it myself, as it was outside of my area of practice, he would always ask a member of his law firm to do it for me.  He once told me that no attorney would ever think that I had been to law school and briefs that I wrote were not written in the style of a law school graduate.  As I practiced pro bono my fees for access to legal data bases, in the area of administrative law that I worked,  were paid by an organization.

[Gregory Matthews]

Let me expand on my posts above a bit:  Some years back  Congress passed a statute commonly called the FLRA.  The FLRA established a system of courts and judges that would adjudicate provisions of the statute.  The FLRB and MSPB are two examples of courts and judges that are bound either in whole or in part by the provisions of the FLRA.  I call these Administrative Law Courts and judges to distinguish them from courts that are authorized to try civil and criminal law cases, which the FLRA and MSPB cannot do. 

 

I could give example of other types of what I call  Administrative Law Courts and judges.   The former attorney who continued to litigate FICA cases is simply one example.  She traveled over a multi-state area.  Typically she would be given   five cases to litigate when she arrived and would spend the week in that city litigating those five cases.   In her situation, she did not do any of the development of the case.  Licensed attorney's  had developed it and simply gave her the files, when she would then review and argue before the judge.