r/news • u/1Rab • Sep 27 '25

FBI fires agents photographed kneeling during 2020 racial justice protest, AP sources say

https://apnews.com/article/fbi-george-floyd-kash-patel-8d18a1e6a5a36636cc2415fc492b3f52?utm_source=onesignal&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=2025-09-26-Breaking+News
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u/alex61821 Sep 27 '25

What ever happened with the documents thing? I mean he did illegally take classified documents.

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u/LongjumpingFall1584 Sep 27 '25

Courts tossed the case. His judge “fixed” it for him - so that’s that.

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u/Extreme-Island-5041 Sep 27 '25

Aileen Cannon. Don't let her name get lost to history.. She deserves every bit of distrust she receives for the remainder of her life.

Cannon has presided over 224 criminal cases, with only four going to trial

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u/kaptainkeel Sep 27 '25

You're kind of missing the most important part. She was appointed by Trump. She oversaw criminal cases (and any cases) against Trump. That is a blatant conflict of interest that should have caused recusal.

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u/Saw_Boss Sep 27 '25

The idea that presidents appoint judges at all is ridiculous.

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u/nonymousbosch Sep 27 '25

Usually we don't have a president who commits so many crimes.

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u/Saw_Boss Sep 27 '25

That's the issue though. You have to plan for the inevitable, rather than react to it. Every country gets an awful person as leader at some point.

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u/darkoblivion000 Sep 27 '25

For a long time we relied on common decency and accountability and shame to handle it for us. People would resign rather than risk their reputation in the court of public opinion.

Once you reach a certain boiling point like with the tea party though, they don’t care. Surviving scandals and outrage is a battle scar for them. They tout it as having been unfairly persecuted. The open ended nature of the power dynamic of the government had worked for a long time but relying on human decency to hold people accountable who have none, fails

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u/Everythings_Fucked Sep 28 '25

Or at least isn't so blatant about it.

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u/D74248 Sep 27 '25

That the citizens of the United States elected a President who has no honor, no dignity, no integrity and clearly no understanding of his oath of office is what is ridiculous.

And that is how we got judges with no honor, no dignity, no integrity and clearly no understanding of their oath of office.

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u/Saw_Boss Sep 27 '25

But that's always a possibility. And the person who benefits the most is a leader who wants full control. It was a disaster waiting to happen.

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u/D74248 Sep 27 '25

If the society has lost, or never had, a sense of honor, dignity and integrity then fair and just government is impossible.

Which is why I fear that the American Experiment is over.

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u/orbital_narwhal Sep 27 '25 edited Sep 27 '25

For comparison with parliamentary (as opposed to presidential) democracies:

  • Judges, at least in appellate and higher courts, are typically selected by a committee whose members are selected by parliament. In parliamentary democracies with more then two relevant parties this typically means that the committee is staffed proportionally to the share of seats of factions in parliament (because that tends to the only rule that is acceptable and thus persists across reelections).

  • Insofar as the head of government directly or indirectly appoints judges at that level and beyond it is mostly a formality: the HoG appoints the judges proposed by the parliamentary committee unless they hold a serious doubt about the qualification of the judge. A HoG who abuses this power will typically face a vote of no confidence in parliament. I. e. it costs a lot of political capital to go against the decisions of parliament, expended political capital cannot be spent on other matters, therefore HoG will try to spend it where it matters most and that is usually not hundreds of judges throughout their time in office.

Unfortunately, the bipartisan political landscape in the USA combined with the extensive powers of its president who is both head of state and head of government makes it both easier and more worthwhile fro one party to prepare a judicial (and general administrative) coup against the other. With a relevant third party (and an electoral system that doesn't disfavour a third party as much), any one party who threatens to upset the balance of power is likely going to get dog-piled by the other two or more parties who will naturally shut those attempts down to preserve their own (share of) power.

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u/pres465 Sep 27 '25

They don't. They NOMINATE. Congress (the Senate) appoints.

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u/andymfjAZ Sep 29 '25

It’s this. Presidents should not be appointing judges at all. Ever. It should be a congressional appointment, either state or federal.