RUTHFULLY YOURS

New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman is advocating a change to the state’s double-jeopardy laws that would allow him and other local prosecutors to bring charges against individuals pardoned by President Donald Trump, according to a letter he sent to the governor and state legislators Wednesday.

The letter, obtained by the New York Times, makes the case that the double-jeopardy law, which holds that an individual can’t be charged with the same crime twice, should be modified so that Trump aides who escape federal prosecution via a presidential pardon can be charged with the same crime in state court.

The proposal, if approved by state lawmakers and Governor Andrew Cuomo, would cement Schneiderman’s office — which is currently suing the Trump administration in connection with issues ranging from tech policy to environment regulations — as a bulwark of the so-called resistance.

“We are disturbed by reports that the president is considering pardons of individuals who may have committed serious federal financial, tax, and other crimes — acts that may also violate New York law,” Mr. Schneiderman said in a statement provided by his office.

Schneiderman and Trump share a contentious history. Schniederman oversaw the investigation into Trump University, which resulted in a $25 million fine, and Trump responded in characteristic fashion, calling Schneiderman “dopey,” a “lightweight,” and a “loser.”

The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution only prohibits multiple prosecutions at the federal level, but roughly half of the states, including New York, have additional double-jeopardy protections that prohibit state prosecutors from charging a person with the same crime they were exonerated for in federal court.

“New York’s statutory protections could result in the unintended and unjust consequence of insulating someone pardoned for serious federal crimes from subsequent prosecution for state crimes,” Schneiderman writes in his letter, “even if that person was never tried or convicted in federal court, and never served a single day in federal prison.”

Trump, who recently pardoned Scooter Libby — a former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice, and lying to the FBI in connection with the “outing” of CIA agent Valerie Plame — has yet to comment on the move.

In yesterday’s column, I contended that it was outrageous for federal district judge Kimba Wood to direct that talk-radio and Fox News host Sean Hannity be publicly identified as Michael Cohen’s third client. Cohen, whose law practice is, shall we say, less than thriving, is under criminal investigation by the FBI and federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York (SDNY). He claims only three clients. The other two, President Trump and GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy, acknowledge retaining Cohen. Hannity denies ever having had a formal attorney-client relationship with him.

The court’s order that Hannity’s name be disclosed in open court violated longstanding, judicially endorsed standards against identifying uncharged persons in legal proceedings attendant to criminal investigations.

Forget about evidence of wrongdoing. There is not even a suggestion that Hannity is involved in any crimes. He is a longtime friend of Cohen’s. He says they’ve had some informal legal discussions about such matters as real estate — and as any lawyer will tell you, informal discussions with non-lawyer friends are common. Hannity insists, however, that he has never retained Cohen to represent him in any legal matter, and has never paid him or received an invoice from him. There is no public evidence to contradict this, and no suggestion that Cohen has previously represented himself as Hannity’s attorney.

There has been no intimation that Hannity has any pertinent information about the activities for which Cohen is under investigation. His only relevance to the probe involves the question of whether there is a factual basis for Cohen to claim that an attorney-client (A-C) relationship with Hannity should prevent investigators from perusing some materials seized by the FBI from Cohen’s office and residences. And since Hannity is not suspected of wrongdoing, even that question appears to be of little importance.

Someone at the Internal Revenue Service seems to have kicked a plug out of the wall on Tuesday: The agency’s computer system tanked on, of all days, tax filing deadline day. Thus arrived an irresistible metaphor for government incompetence, albeit with the perennial calls for more funding.

Many taxpayers arrived at the IRS website on Tuesday prepared to sign away significant portions of their income. According to news stories, a message greeted them that the IRS website had a “planned outage” from April 17, 2018 to “December 31, 9999.” Should we check back in the morning or afternoon?

The agency said it “encountered system issues” and extended the filing deadline by a day, which is nice. But collecting revenue is the purpose of this bureaucracy. This debacle is like having an aircraft carrier that can’t move off the docks when a war starts.

On cue came the armada blaming budget cuts. Former IRS Commissioner John Koskinen lectured that he knew a system failure was coming without more money. It seems lost on Mr. Koskinen that this failure is an indictment of his leadership. The IRS budget has decreased by about 9% in nominal terms since 2010. But the IRS has $11 billion to play with in 2018, which is presumably enough to keep the computers working on the most important day of the year.

But the agency hasn’t addressed some of its own manifold problems, and the House has held hearings detailing the dysfunction. One problem, surprise, has been updating information technology.

A Treasury Department Inspector General last fall told Congress: “The IRS’s reliance on legacy (i.e., older) systems, aged hardware, and outdated programming languages pose significant risks to the IRS’s ability to deliver its mission. Modernizing the IRS’s computer systems has been a persistent challenge for several decades and will likely remain a challenge for the foreseeable future.”

While Donald Trump’s allies hope he won’t fire special counsel Robert Mueller and his opponents pray he will, each side recognizes it would jeopardize his Presidency. But Congress would compound the damage if it passes legislation aimed at curtailing Mr. Trump’s right as head of the executive branch to do so.

Last week a bipartisan group of Senators including Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), Thom Tillis (R., N.C.), Christopher Coons (D., Del.) and Cory Booker (D., N.J.) introduced the Special Counsel Independence and Integrity Act. The bill would codify that the special counsel can be fired only by a senior Justice Department official for cause. If Mr. Mueller were fired, he would have 10 days to appeal to a panel of three judges.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday he won’t bring the bill up for a vote, and Democrats are howling. But the bill is bad government and unconstitutional. As the late Justice Antonin Scalia noted in his famous dissent in Morrison v. Olson, giving another branch a say in a decision about what is properly an executive branch power threatens the separation of powers that is at the heart of American liberty.

Scalia was writing about the independent counsel law, which Congress has since let expire. The special counsel provisions that took its place are more modest and technically under Justice Department supervision. But to the degree he is insulated from accountability to the leader of the executive branch, a special counsel still often leads to mischief and excess.

Senate Democrats have stalled nearly every Trump nominee in government, but their growing opposition to Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State suggests they don’t want the President to have even his top national security officials. Their new standard seems to be that any nominee who agrees with the elected President is disqualified.

“I don’t want a Secretary of State who is going to exacerbate the [sic] President Trump’s tendencies to oppose diplomacy,” Democratic Senator Tim Kaine (D., Va.) told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday. He cited Mr. Pompeo’s opposition to Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Tehran and his support for “regime change,” although moderator Margaret Brennan didn’t let him finish that thought.

Mr. Kaine may recall that Donald Trump campaigned and won while opposing the Iran nuclear deal, and if Mr. Kaine is still sore about the outcome he should have told his running mate to campaign in Wisconsin. As for regime change, that isn’t Mr. Trump’s policy as far as we can tell, though does Mr. Kaine think the world is better with a regime in Iran that spreads terror around the world?

California Democrat Dianne Feinstein attributes her come-lately opposition to Mr. Pompeo’s allegedly undiplomatic statements about “Muslims and the LGBT community.” She doesn’t like that Mr. Pompeo supports traditional marriage. This has nothing to do with rallying allies to support a containment strategy for Iran, though it might relate to her Senate primary challenge from the left this year.

Sens. Feinstein and Kaine and 12 other Democrats voted to confirm Mr. Pompeo as CIA director—he was confirmed 66-32—perhaps because he’s so well qualified. Mr. Pompeo is a West Point and Harvard Law graduate who served three terms in Congress, and along with fellow Republican Tom Cotton unearthed the Obama Administration’s secret side deals with Tehran. He has invigorated the CIA clandestine service, tried to give Mr. Trump options on North Korea, and has gained the President’s trust. With Rex Tillerson out at State, Mr. Trump said Wednesday he had already dispatched Mr. Pompeo to conduct diplomacy with Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang.