Jim Acosta Deserves Due Process

Due Process of Law is a bedrock principle of the US Constitution. No one can be deprived of life, liberty or property without Due Process of Law. It is a principle that applies to the Federal Government through the Fifth Amendment, and to the State Governments through the Fourteenth Amendment. 

The concept of Due Process is actually fairly simple at its core. If the Government wants to take away a person’s right, whether it be property or a federal benefit, the Government must give notice of its intent to do so. The notice must sufficiently disclose the Government’s reasons. The person must be given a meaningful opportunity to defending his or her right. The Government must give the person a fair hearing. 

Due Process is messy. It’s inefficient. Due Process causes delay. That is by design. That is because a democracy is not supposed to do the most expedient thing; it is supposed to do the right thing. Thus, while it may be expedient to trample on the rights of a minority class for the benefit of the majority, Due Process prevents that from happening unless the Government has a darn good reason. To put simply, minority rights are protected against pure majority rule. 

And this is what frustrates President Trump time and time again in the manner that he runs the Federal Government. Trump wants things done his way, right away, no questions asked. To tell him he can’t do things his way is a mark of personal disloyalty, not a mark of true patriotism that values the rule of law above all else. 

Coming from the business world, Due Process is not the way Trump operates. He is used to demanding personal loyalty of his employees. He is used to winning negotiations through leverage and strength, not legal virtue. 

It should therefore come as no surprise when Trump expresses disdain for Due Process. We can’t have undocumented aliens come in the country and be given a hearing with the Immigration Courts. That will take too long. We can’t have recounts in the State of Florida. That’s just delay. We should just recognize who the winner is now and move on. 

One of the most egregious examples of Trump’s disdain for Due Process is his treatment of CNN Reporter Jim Acosta. It’s no secret that Acosta’s relentless questioning irritates Trump. He has routinely called Acosta rude and tried to evade Acosta’s questions. Last week, Trump revoked Acosta’s press pass. 

Ostensibly, the White House revoked Acosta’s press pass on the allegation that Acosta assaulted a young woman intern attempting to retrieve the microphone from Acosta. Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders even tweeted a video to back up her claim. 

The problem is that the White House acted without giving Acosta notice of its intent to revoke his credentials or an opportunity to defend himself. In short, the White House denied Acosta Due Process. 

The denial of Due Process is particularly egregious in this case. Many claim that the video Huckabee Sanders released, which happened to originate from Alex Jones’ Infowars, was doctored. Governments should never be permitted to take away a person’s right through trumped up evidence. Thus, the evidence must be tested and Acosta must be given an opportunity to attack its reliability. Jim Acosta must be given Due Process. 

Acosta and CNN have filed a lawsuit over Acosta’s press credentials. One of the allegations is the denial of Due Process in violation of the Fifth Amendment. It is a decision that the court must decide properly in order to reign in Trump’s resistance to Due Process and temper his more dangerous authoritarian tendencies. 

By: William J. Kovatch, Jr. 

Remember, the Reason for Kneeling During the National Anthem is to Call Attention to a Lack of Equality

In the United States over the weekend, we spent much of the time debating the merits of kneeling for the National Anthem.  Spurred by a tweet by the President, the debate focused on whether athletes should be permitted to kneel during the National Anthem as a form of protest.  Why President Trump decided to make this the time to disparage athletes who choose to express themselves by kneeling is something of a mystery, since Colin Kaepernick first kneeled for the National Anthem over a year ago and this is the third week of the NFL season. 

Nonetheless, his use of social media once again sparked both outrage and support from the American public.  There was also a large group of people who resented having the public attention focused in such a way, citing what they considered real problems, such as the devastation to Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria or the increasing tensions between the United States and North Korea.

But the problem both with the tone of the debate this weekend, as well as those who bemoaned that we were having this debate at all, is that attention was focused on the whether athletes should be permitted to kneel during the National Anthem, and not on why they were choosing to do so.

Let's face it.  It's not as if Colin Kaepernick woke up one day and thought about what behavior he could do that would anger the most football fans.  Kaepernick took a knee to protest.  In particular, he protested racial inequality in this country; an inequality that was highlighted by the spread of online videos showing police officers engaging in what many thought was unnecessarily violent behavior against African Americans.

This is a debate that makes many white Americans uncomfortable.  It forces Americans to consider that they have been receiving special treatment due to nothing more than the reason that they were born white.  This has been labeled as "white privilege."  And to many Americans, they don't want to think of themselves as privileged.  A good number are hard working, and view their position in life as a result of that hard work and the choice to do things "the right way."

But as I pointed out to my daughter last night, white privilege is alive and well in this country.  Just consider Walmart's state of the art security system: the elderly man at the exit choosing which customers to ask to see their receipt.  Plenty of times, I choose not to bag my purchases at Walmart, mostly because they are big items like cases of water or big bags of dog food.  Still, the fact that I choose not to bag my items should be seen as a security threat.  Yet, I have only once been stopped by the kindly elderly gentleman to see my receipt.  And that was because he stopped an African American family in front of me, who raised a ruckus over why he wasn't stopping me.  The fact is, whenever I have seen that man stopping a customer, it has always been a person of color.

Added to that discomfort is that fact that the National Anthem and the flag serve as powerful symbols of patriotism.  To disrespect the flag is to disrespect the soldiers who died selflessly protecting this nation.

That only raises the question, however, as to why our soldiers have gone to war and died protecting this nation.  Are we simply venerating national symbols because they happen to remind us of the geographic location in which we live?  Or is patriotism something more?

During debates like this, I like to think of my grandfather, who served in the First Army with General Patton, and who fought in the Battle of the Bulge.  Sure, he had a lot of stories about how he cut off Hitler's ear which were entertaining to me as a young boy.  But, as the long-time commander of the local American Legion post, who made speeches at the annual Memorial Day parade, he taught me a lot about patriotism and love for the United States.

When I think of patriotism, I return to a phrase that he repeated often in those speeches.  We took the time to march on Memorial Day because he were honoring those who gave their lives so that we may walk free.  The emphasis I took away was the last part of his phrase, that we may walk free.

What it comes down to is that I am immensely proud to be an American because of our freedom, because of our emphasis on the rule of law; in short because of the principles embodied in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.  Chief among the self-evident truths our founding fathers proclaimed was that all men are created equal.

To me, therefore, the debate over taking a knee during the National Anthem is important because it calls attention to those principles that make our nation great.  We believe in the right of the people to engage in peaceful protest and to call attention to those issues which are important to them.  In this case, the issue is inequality.  To dismiss the reason behind the protests, no matter how uncomfortable we may feel both over the form of the protest, fails to pay respect to the principles which the United States is supposed to embody.

William J. Kovatch, Jr.