RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Fourth and Sixth Amendments prohibit government officials from in any way intruding on the privacy of lawyer/client confidential rights of citizens.

The very fact that this material is seen or read by a government official constitutes a core violation. It would be the same if the government surreptitiously recorded a confession of a penitent to a priest, or a description of symptoms by a patient to a doctor, or a discussion of their sex life between a husband and wife.

The recourses for intrusions on the Fourth and Sixth Amendments are multifold: the victim of the intrusion can sue for damages; he or she can exclude it from use by the government in criminal or civil cases; or the victim can demand the material back. But none of these remedies undo the harm to privacy and confidentiality done to the citizen by the government’s intrusion into his private and confidential affairs.

Many TV pundits are telling viewers not to worry about the government’s intrusion into possible lawyer/client privileged communications between President Trump and his lawyer, since prosecutors will not get to see or use any privileged material. This is because prosecutors and FBI agents create firewalls and taint teams to preclude privileged information from being used against the client in a criminal case. But that analysis completely misses the point and ignores the distinction between the Fifth Amendment on the one hand, and the Fourth and Sixth Amendments on the other.

The Fifth Amendment is an exclusionary rule. By its terms, it prevents material obtained in violation of the privilege of self-incrimination from being used to incriminate a defendant – that is to convict him of a crime. But the Fourth and Sixth Amendments provide far broader protections: they prohibit government officials from in any way intruding on the privacy of lawyer/client confidential rights of citizens. In other words, if the government improperly seizes private or privileged material, the violation has already occurred, even if the government never uses the material from the person from whom it was seized.

There is much speculation as to the significance of the search of the offices and hotel room of President Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen. To obtain a search warrant, prosecutors must demonstrate to a judge that they have probable cause to believe that the premises to be searched contain evidence of crime. They must also specify the area to be searched, the items to be seized and, in searches of computers, the word searches to be used.

At least that’s the constitutional requirement in theory, especially where the Sixth Amendment right to counsel is involved, in addition to the general Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches. Yet, in practice, judges often give the FBI considerable latitude, relying on the “firewalls” and “taint teams” they set up to protect the subject of the search from violation of his or her constitutional rights.

But the firewalls and taint teams are comprised of government agents who themselves may not be entitled to read or review many of the items seized. It is an imperfect protection of important constitutional rights. That’s why Justice Department officials must be careful to limit the searching of lawyers’ offices to compelling cases involving serious crimes. We don’t know at this point what the prosecutors are looking for but, if it relates to payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels, that would not seem to justify so potentially intrusive a search of Cohen’s confidential lawyer-client files.

It’s Equal Pay Day – an opportunity for activists to raise awareness about the perceived pay gap between America’s working men and women. It’s also an opportunity for politicians to attack gender bias in private companies, as they do throughout the year.

In October, we published our OpenTheBooks Oversight Report – Federal and State Government’s Gender Hiring Gap Oversight Report analyzing payrolls from federal agencies, Congress, the White House, and government positions at the state and local levels. We found it’s still a man’s world in government. Across the board, we found that men significantly outnumber women in the top-paid government positions.

However, it’s important to note that we didn’t find any evidence that men and women in the same position were paid differently – that would be illegal. We didn’t find a gender pay gap, but a gender hiring gap, meaning men far outnumber women in highly compensated executive positions.

For example, in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio issues Equal Pay Day proclamations, and, last year, made quite a spectacle hugging the “Fearless Girl” statute that faces the Charging Bull on Wall Street. Yet, 197 out of the 200 top-paid New York City workers are men. In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emmanuel’s controlled payroll has just 12 females out of the top 100 most highly compensated city employees.

Here’s how some members of Congress are doing on their own executive-controlled payrolls:

On October 13th 2016, presidential candidate Donald Trump delivered a speech that defines this moment in our nation’s history. Part of that speech was put to a video. The entire transcript of that speech is below.

Our movement is about replacing a failed and corrupt political establishment with a new government controlled by you, the American People. There is nothing the political establishment will not do, and no lie they will not tell, to hold on to their prestige and power at your expense.

The Washington establishment, and the financial and media corporations that fund it, exists for only one reason: to protect and enrich itself.

The establishment has trillions of dollars at stake in this election. As an example, just one single trade deal they’d like to pass, involves trillions of dollars controlled by many countries, corporations and lobbyists.

For those who control the levers of power in Washington, and for the global special interests they partner with, our campaign represents an existential threat.

This is not simply another 4-year election. This is a crossroads in the history of our civilization that will determine whether or not We The People reclaim control over our government.

The political establishment that is trying everything to stop us, is the same group responsible for our disastrous trade deals, massive illegal immigration, and economic and foreign policies that have bled this country dry. The political establishment has brought about the destruction of our factories and our jobs, as they flee to Mexico, China and other countries throughout the world. Our just-announced jobs numbers are anemic, and our gross domestic product, or GDP, is barely above one percent. Workers in the United States, were making less than they were almost 20 years ago – and yet they are working harder.

It’s a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth, and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.

Just look at what this corrupt establishment has done to our cities like Detroit and Flint, Michigan – and rural towns in Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina and across our country. They have stripped these towns bare, and raided the wealth for themselves and taken away their jobs.

The Clinton Machine is at the center of this power structure. We’ve seen this firsthand in the WikiLeaks documents in which Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers.