#violated oath of office

[raywest]

Bring back public hanging for all Politicians who violate their oath of office to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. America is under attack from illegals crossing the border. Crime stats are at an all time high. Members of Congress are all becoming millionaires, while citizens struggle to pay bills and put food on their tables.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Drew Sheneman, The Star-Ledger

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

AUG 20, 2023

Various constitutional lawyers have been weighing in lately on whether former president Donald Trump and others who participated in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election are disqualified from holding office under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The third section of that amendment, ratified in 1868, reads: 

“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

On August 14 an article forthcoming from the University of Pennsylvania Law Review by William Baude of the University of Chicago Law School and Michael S. Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas School of Law became available as a preprint. It argued that the third section of the Fourteenth Amendment is still in effect (countering arguments that it applied only to the Civil War era secessionists), that it is self-executing (meaning the disqualification of certain people is automatic, much as age limits or residency requirements are), and that Trump and others who participated in trying to steal the 2020 presidential election are disqualified from holding office.

This paper was a big deal because while liberal thinkers have been making this argument for a while now, Baude and Paulsen are associated with the legal doctrine of originalism, an approach to the law that insists the Constitution should be understood as those who wrote its different parts understood them. That theory gained traction on the right in the 1980s as a way to push back against what its adherents called “judicial activism,” by which they meant the Supreme Court’s use of the law, especially the Fourteenth Amendment, to expand the rights of minorities and women. One of the key institutions engaged in this pushback was the Federalist Society, and both Baude and Paulson are associated with it. 

Now the two have made a 126-page originalist case that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits Trump from running for president. Their interpretation is undoubtedly correct. But that interpretation has even larger implications than they claim.

Moderate Republicans—not “Radical Republicans,” by the way, which was a slur pinned on the Civil War era party by southern-sympathizing Democrats—wrote the text of the Fourteenth Amendment at a specific time for a specific reason that speaks directly to our own era. 

When John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in April 1865, Congress was not in session. It had adjourned on the morning of Lincoln’s second inauguration in early March, after beavering away all night to finish up the session’s business, and congressmen had begun their long journeys home where they would stay until the new session began in December. 

Lincoln’s death handed control of the country for more than seven months to his vice president, Andrew Johnson, a former Democrat who wanted to restore the nation to what it had been before the war, minus the institution of slavery that he believed concentrated wealth and power among a small elite. Johnson refused to call Congress back into session while he worked alone to restore the prewar system, dominated by Democrats, as quickly as he could. 

In May, Johnson announced that all former Confederates except for high-ranking political or military officers or anyone worth more than $20,000 (about $400,000 today) would be given amnesty as soon as they took an oath of loyalty to the United States. He pardoned all but about 1,500 of that elite excluded group by December 1865.

Johnson required that southern states change their state constitutions by ratifying the Thirteenth Amendment prohibiting enslavement except as punishment for a crime, nullifying the ordinances of secession, and repudiating the Confederate war debts. Delegates did so, grudgingly and with some wiggling, and then went on to pass the Black Codes, laws designed to keep Black Americans subservient to their white neighbors. 

Under those new state constitutions and racist legal codes, southern states elected new senators and representatives to Congress. Voters put back into national office the very same men who had driven the rebellion, including its vice president, Alexander Stephens, whom the Georgia legislature reelected to the U.S. Senate. When Congress reconvened in December 1865, Johnson cheerily told them he had reconstructed the country without their help.

It looked as if the country was right back to where it had been in 1860, with legal slavery ended but a racial system that looked much like it already reestablished in the South. And since the 1870 census would count Black Americans as whole people for the first time, southern congressmen would have more power than before. 

But when the southern state delegations elected under Johnson’s plan arrived in Washington, D.C., to be seated, Republicans turned them away. They rejected the idea that after four years, 600,000 casualties, and more than $5 billion, the country should be ruled by men like Stephens, who insisted that American democracy meant that power resided not in the federal government but in the states, where a small, wealthy minority could insulate itself from the majority rule that controlled Congress. 

In state government a minority could control who could vote and the information to which those voters had access, removing concerns that voters would challenge their wealth or power. White southerners embraced the idea of “popular sovereignty” and “states’ rights,” arguing that any attempt of Congress to enforce majority rule was an attack on democracy.

But President LIncoln and the Republicans reestablished the idea of majority rule, using the federal government to enforce the principle of human equality outlined by the Declaration of Independence. 

And that’s where the Fourteenth Amendment came in. When Johnson tried to restore the former Confederates to power after the Civil War, Americans wrote into the Constitution that anyone born or naturalized in the U.S. was a citizen, and then they established that states must treat all citizens equally before the law, thus taking away the legal basis for the Black Codes and giving the federal government power to enforce equality in the states. They also made sure that anyone who rebels against the federal government can’t make or enforce the nation’s laws. 

Republicans in the 1860s would certainly have believed the Fourteenth Amendment covered Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of a presidential election. More, though, that amendment sought to establish, once and for all, the supremacy of the federal government over those who wanted to solidify their power in the states, where they could impose the will of a minority. That concept speaks directly to today’s Republicans.

In The Atlantic today, two prominent legal scholars from opposite sides of the political spectrum, former federal judge J. Michael Luttig and emeritus professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School Laurence H. Tribe, applauded the Baude-Paulsen article and suggested that the American people should support the “faithful application and enforcement of their Constitution.” 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[gusty-wind]

CONGRESS IS PROTECTING UKRAINE'S BORDER NOT THE US BORDER. THE OATH OF OFFICE HAS BEEN VIOLATED. IT'S TREASON!!!!

[reasonsforhope]

Donald Trump charged in Georgia for efforts to overturn the 2020 election

Link here, because WaPo's security measures stop Tumblr previews. Non-paywall link here.

"Former president Donald Trump and 18 others were criminally charged in Georgia on Monday in connection with efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state, according to an indictment made public late Monday night [on August 14, 2023].

Trump was charged with 13 counts, including violating the state’s racketeering act, soliciting a public officer to violate their oath, conspiring to impersonate a public officer, conspiring to commit forgery in the first degree and conspiring to file false documents.

The Recap

The historic indictment, the fourth to implicate the former president, follows a 2½-year investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D). The probe was launched after audio leaked from a January 2021 phone call during which Trump urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) to question the validity of thousands of ballots, especially in the heavily Democratic Atlanta area, and said he wanted to “find” the votes to erase his 2020 loss in the state.

Willis’s investigation quickly expanded to other alleged efforts by Trumpor his supporters, including trying to thwart the electoral college process, harassing election workers, spreading false information about the voting process in Georgia and compromising election equipment in a rural county. Trump has long decried the Georgia investigation as a “political witch hunt,” defending his calls to Raffensperger and others as “perfect.”

The Details

“Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump,” the indictment states.

A total of 41 charges are brought against 19 defendants in the 98-page indictment. Not all face the same counts, but all have been charged with violating the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Willis said she has given those charged until Aug. 25 to surrender.

Among those charged are Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who served as Trump’s personal attorney after the election; Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows; and several Trump advisers, including attorneys John Eastman, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro...

Prosecutors brought charges around five subject areas: false statements by Trump allies, including Giuliani, to the Georgia legislature; the breach of voting data in Coffee County; calls Trump made to state officials, including Raffensperger, seeking to overturn Biden’s victory; the harassment of election workers; and the creation of a slate of alternate electors to undermine the legitimate vote. Those charged in the case were implicated in certain parts of what prosecutors presented as a larger enterprise to undermine the election."

-via The Washington Post, August 14, 2023

[senatortedcruz]

Me if Racketeering, Solicitation of violation of oath by public officer, and Conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree were illegal

[satansapostle6]

I Left The Light On And The Back Door Open For You | Robert Chase

From the moment he first saw Margot Lange from legal, Dr. Robert Chase knew he was in for a wild ride that he never wanted to end.

Warnings: Mature themes/language. Sexual content.

Chapter One: Office Tiger

Dr. Robert Chase was annoyed, to say the least. His employer, the cantankerous and sometimes chaotic evil Dr. House, had sent him all the way down to the first floor for something that didn’t exist, just for his entertainment during the work day. Intending on confronting him, Dr. Chase returned to the fourth floor of the hospital when he realized that the department of diagnostic medicine had a visitor, who was currently speaking with House. He had never seen this woman before.

Dr. Chase realized that the woman speaking with House was another Princeton-Plainsboro employee, most likely not one of the doctors, based on her attire. Lisa Cuddy was, in some cases, a very lenient employer, focusing more so on an employee’s skills and results as opposed to superficial factors, such as behavior or approach toward less important rules. This had been demonstrated on many occasions through her hiring and continued employment of Dr. House.

Chase was beginning to understand that this was also her approach toward the woman House was speaking with, based on her attire that normally would be somewhat frowned upon in a typical work environment. While the woman’s attire wasn’t exactly inappropriate in nature, Chase couldn’t help but find it somewhat distracting to him, even if he knew that that was more so his own problem than the woman’s. Chase couldn’t help but be distracted by the tall hospital employee, whether it was because of her pretty face, long dark hair, or full-bodied characteristics.

“Miss Lange, I seriously don’t have time for this.”

“And I ‘seriously’ don’t have time to go to court for ten malpractice cases in a week, but then again, here we are,” the woman, addressed as ‘Miss Lange’, retaliated firmly.

Her voice had a rather bright, airy quality to it that was oddly inspiring. Inspiring of what, Chase had no idea. He noticed that it was almost like she was speaking in a way that was oddly retro, to the effect of being almost transatlantic. She was a rather interesting and unique type of attractive, but this didn’t stop Chase from being attracted to her at all. She was unlike many of the women he’d been with before, and also unlike many of the women he’d seen before.

She was slender and tall, especially in high heels. In heels, Chase estimated that she had to be almost six feet. She was taller than him in her stylish black Louboutins, but he hardly minded. This was one of the most remarkably beautiful women he’d ever seen, with her long black hair, blunt bangs, and dark hazel eyes. Her skin looked like pale silk, and he was mesmerized.

“Did you know the legal department has employees, like myself, specifically designated as ‘House damage control’?” the lawyer questioned Dr. House.

“I’m flattered,” the man smiled sarcastically.

Chase then realized that the woman was part of Princeton-Plainsboro’s legal staff, and patiently stood with his arms crossed by the door to try and see how her argument with House would pan out. Most people who dared to go toe to toe with House either lost, or lost their minds in the process, but usually it was both. However, this woman didn’t seem to be budging.

“I’m telling you, House, the legal department doesn’t have the time or energy to deal with this. As much as I appreciate you almost single-handedly getting me that SLK I wanted, I’m gonna have to ask that you not violate the Hippocratic Oath every Tuesday, or at least wait until I’ve had my morning espresso.”

“Honey, if your arguments are as solid as your ass, I think you’ll be just fine,” he promised her.

“They are,” she stated, as Chase raised an eyebrow, looking around the room completely flabbergasted.

Dr. Foreman and Dr. Cameron, who were sitting around waiting, both seemed relatively used to this behavior between the two of them.

“I’ll tell you what. You cut down my case load by three a week, I’ll let you bounce a quarter off of it,” the attorney incentivized.

Robert Chase did everything in his power not to let his jaw physically drop to the floor.

“Oh, challenge accepted, toots,” the older doctor said immediately.

The woman, affectionately referred to as ‘Miss Lange’, who couldn’t have been older than thirty-two, turned as she left the room, stopping in front of Chase on the way out.

“Do you happen to have a lighter on you?” she said after a moment of thought.

“Erm, no, sorry,” he shook his head, snapping himself out of his trance as she walked by.

“Shame. Anyways. You gonna be at the casino thing tonight?”

“Yeah,” Chase smirked, glad there was a work event that night.

“Alright. Cool,” was all she had to say to him.

He looked out into the hall as she walked off, shamelessly fixed on the way she moved, her hips moving lightly from side to side as she walked.

“Who is that?” he asked excitedly.

“Hey. Don’t make me spray you with the hose,” House sarcastically interrupted his depraved train of thought. “She’s mine. Back off.”

“What?” Chase snapped back to reality.

Eric Foreman and Alison Cameron both shook their heads at him.

“That’s Margot Lange. I’m only gonna say this once: do not hit that,” House warned.

“What?” Chase questioned, shocked. “Why?” he complained.

“Because. She’ll eat you alive, like some sort of office tiger,” the man informed him, leaning on his cane.

“What does that even mean?” Chase stared at him.

House sighed at his hopeless employee. “You know how you can compare a woman to a shot of espresso?”

Robert Chase had no idea how to answer this particular question.

“I guess…?”

“Well, that woman is a double shot of warm Everclear,” House told him.

But Chase just stood there, staring at him with a clear lack of understand. House made a show of rolling his eyes impatiently, trying to reiterate his warning.

“Do not engage. No man who’s ever tried to pursue a relationship with that woman has ever succeeded,” Gregory House ignored him. “Or come out unscathed.”

“Who said anything about a relationship?” Chase scoffed, a slight insecurity to his response.

“Nice try,” Dr. House commended him, “But even if you don’t want a relationship with her, after a few nights, you will. Trust me. And then, that’ll go south really fast, and you’ll quit, and then I’ll have to find someone to take your place. So just, don’t.”

“Why, are you speaking from experience?” the thirty year-old doctor stared.

“Yes, but not mine. Dr. Wilson’s. ‘Nuff said.”

Chase thought about Wilson for a moment, fully aware of the man’s addictive ‘falling in love’ tendency.

“Yes, but that’s also Dr. Wilson,” he reasoned in his distinctive Australian accent, “He’d fall in love with a blowup doll.”

“Well, what about Dr. Michaels? And Dr. Bettencourt? And Dr. Gonzalez? And Dr. Yu?”

“How can someone even have that much free time?” Dr. Cameron murmured, as Foreman just shrugged.

“Who’s Dr. Yu?” Chase didn’t recognize the name.

“Exactly,” House frowned.

“What if I only get with her once?” Dr. Chase tried to bargain.

“Buddy. She’ll eat you alive.”

“But… What if that’s what I want?” Chase asked cheekily, only to be met with disgust.

“Ugh!” Allison Cameron practically gagged.

“I promise you, you’ll somehow end up with your heart on the floor.”

“Seriously?” Chase asked. “She’s that bad?” he said in disbelief.

“Yes, now can we move on? I’m getting bored, we’ve been on the same topic for a whole two minutes!”

That particular day working for Dr. House wasn’t necessarily the worst that Dr. Chase had ever experienced. They had all left the hospital at a fairly reasonable hour, in time for him to head home and get changed for the office outing to a casino that night. Chase had been fairly excited to get out and head to the casino, mostly because he hadn’t had much of a social life in the past month or so. He was hoping he’d meet someone, or at least have a fairly pleasant evening of socializing with his colleagues, preferably not involving Dr. House.

The casino seemed to be decently populated that Thursday night. Motivated to get the night going, Chase approached the bar, ordering himself a decent scotch. He sat down for a moment, finishing the drink so he could start to feel a light buzz. He looked at the seat beside him, pleasantly surprised to find it was already occupied by a woman. And not just any woman.

“Hey, blondie,” the woman teased him, downing an entire martini right before his eyes.

“It’s you. From earlier,” he realized, almost having forgotten she’d asked him if he was coming.

“What’s your name?” she asked, nodding as the bartender took her glass and offered a refill.

“Robert. Robert Chase,” he told her. “What’s yours?” he decided it best to pretend he hadn’t been told.

“Margot Lange,” she introduced herself confidently.

Robert had to admit he found her confidence attractive, to say the least. The more he drank, the more he couldn’t deny that she was a generally very attractive woman, with her wide, alluring eyes and her chic stature. Robert had to admit he was certainly not opposed to being with a tall woman, especially if that woman was Margot. She wore her height well, embracing it with high heels that had to have made her around six feet tall.

Unlike most men, Robert Chase didn’t feel emasculated by a beautiful, tall woman. If anything, he found her height to be rather attractive, in the way she carried herself as if she were something to be chased. Chase did love himself a tall woman.

“Nice to meet you, Margot,” he smiled charmingly. “Can I buy your next drink?”

“Sure,” she smiled, a seductive purr to her voice.

“So, what do you like to do in your free time?” he asked in turn.

“I’m a lawyer, and I deal with malpractice at the same hospital House works at, do you think I have any free time?” she crossed one leg over the other as she turned to face him.

“Good point,” Chase offered a good-humored smile. “So, what would you like to do in your free time?”

“Honestly, at this point, I’m lucky if I get to make cosmopolitans and watch TV or read a book for a whole day,” she explained. “I’d like to do that.”

“That does sound very relaxing,” he nodded in agreement. “My days off pretty much work the same way. I don’t get too much time to myself, so when I do, I tend to spend it on pretty simple things.”

“Do you like clubbing?” Margot asked.

“Er, I used to, sort of, when I was a little younger,” the young doctor thought. “I never went a whole lot, but when I did go out, that’s the kind of thing I would do.”

“What about raves? You ever go to one?”

“No,” Chase considered, “Not really. Honestly, I’m pretty vanilla.”

“I can see that,” she smirked, prompting him to reconsider the exact wording of that statement, looking embarrassed.

“You seem like you’ve really lived,” he chuckled nervously, feeling his own social life paled in comparison to hers.

“Wanna play a drinking game?” she asked, trying to put him at ease.

“Depends on what the game is,” he looked at her curiously, folding his hands in thought.

“‘Never Have I Ever’. If it’s your turn, you say something you've never done before, and if the other person’s done it, they take a sip of their drink. We take turns,” she concluded.

“Wouldn’t you end up way more drunk than me?” he wondered.

“Not if you guess right,” she sipped on her martini.

“Alright. Consider me game,” he smiled.

“I’ll go first,” she offered, thinking hard about her first turn. “Never have I ever… peed myself in public,” she watched him for a reaction.

“What—” Chase stared at her in disbelief, reluctantly sipping on his glass of scotch. “That’s what you went with?”

“I was curious,” she grinned at the humor of the situation. “Besides, you peed yourself in public, I don’t think you get to judge.”

“I was seven!” he complained defensively.

“Okay, okay, fine,” she agreed mockingly. “Your turn, then.”

“Okay. Never have I ever…” it took him a moment to come up with something he felt could be successful. “Done heroin,” he threw out satirically.

Margot smirked at him, pointedly dragging out her actions as she picked up her martini glass and dramatically held it out to him before taking a small sip. Robert Chase was in shambles as he tried to decide whether to cry out incredulously or simply apologize profusely.

“It’s alright. You don’t have to feel bad,” she promised him, “I’m still here. And a lawyer.”

Chase laughed as the two of them enjoyed the moment, continuing with the childish game as they drank together, both having a surprisingly good time. Robert knew that he’d have a good time with Margot. He knew that House had to have been exaggerating. Right?

“Never have I ever shoplifted,” she suggested eagerly.

“I’ve never done that before, actually,” he told her as she took a tiny sip of her drink.

“Really?” Margot asked nonchalantly, “It’s fun.”

Robert stared. “Why do I almost feel like you’ve done it more recently than, like, high school?”

She just smiled, not giving away her secrets. At least, not all of them.

“Never have I ever… been… in an orgy?” Chase said slowly.

“Define ‘orgy’.”

“Sex with at least three other people?” he decided.

Margot laughed. “That’s the only thing you could think of that you don’t think I’ve done?”

“Sorry,” he apologized quickly, feeling awkward.

But she still seem amused. “No, it’s fine.”

He watched, gulping as she took a sip of her drink. Soon enough, the two of them were out, and Robert ordered them another round. Although they both occasionally ran out of alcohol, he found that the one thing that didn’t seem to be running out, luckily, was conversation. Both of them seemed to lose track of time sitting alone together at the bar.

“Never have I ever… posed nude,” Robert baited, definitely feeling the scotch getting to his head.

Margot rolled her eyes at the basic question, as both of them took a drink. She seemed satisfied by this outcome.

”Never have I ever been leaked,” she stated.

Once again, both of them took a drink. Robert stopped for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts as he looked curiously at the woman across from him.

“How is it that you’ve lived such a life?” Chase wondered.

“That’s not the game,” Margot reminded him.

He just nodded, disappointed as he tried to think of something good. “Never have I ever… done it in public.”

Both of them scoffed and drank.

Margot grinned mischievously. “Never have I ever kissed someone of the same sex.”

“Well… there was one time,” he braced himself, earning a pointed eyebrow raise, “I didn’t actually do it, but there was a dare, at a party, and… I guess I kind of wanted to,”

“I just want to point out that that was definitely a lie, by the way. More so than anything else we’ve said. I have. Plenty of times. I just really wanted to know the answer,” she remarked.

“Never have I ever slept with a coworker,” Chase lied, as she took another sip of her drink.

He felt pretty confident, until her next quip. She looked him right in the eyes as she said it, and he could’ve sworn his knees buckled.

“Never have I ever done someone in an alley behind a casino.”

The subsequent taxi ride to Margot’s place felt unnecessarily long, but as soon as he’d front door closed, the clothes came off. They were both stripped down to their undergarments before even reaching her bedroom upstairs. Margot broke the sloppy kiss, much to Robert’s disappointment, sitting promptly on the bed as he looked down at her in confusion.

“Why’d you stop?” he almost whined, unable to take the way she looked up at him.

“I think… I wanna see you take over for a minute,” she told him, slowly leaning back as she spread her legs for him to see. “I wanna see how you fuck.”

Her words were so deliciously lewd they seemed to have their own unique resonance to them, and he was entranced.

“Alright,” he agreed quickly, tilting her face upward with his index finger.

He kissed her so softly, Margot thought, it was more like kissing a girl. She allowed herself to be entertained by him as he moved his hands, from just above her knees to her hips, the pads of his fingers gently digging into her soft flesh. She felt him passionately slipping his tongue into her mouth, smiling as she toyed with his hair for both amusement and support. He got up on the bed and rested his knees on either side of her, gradually leaning forward so that her body would move backward.

Eventually, she laid on her back looking up at him, eyes full of this feigned innocence. He thought for a moment about how truly good she looked.

“Take this off for me, love?” he asked politely, thumbs circling around the cups of her bra.

She wouldn’t have admitted it, but Margot felt herself growing desperate at the simple act. She then lifted her torso so that he could reach his hands underneath her to unclip her bra, gently putting it aside. She let a tiny, but still present moan escape as he leaned over her, hands holding her breasts as his thumbs tweaked her nipples. Margot pulled him closer to her as he kissed all over the side of her neck, suckling gently despite her gestures and signals for more.

Robert Chase smiled to himself, quickly reassured that he could keep up with a woman like Margot. After all, he’d had his own fair share of amorous exploits. His spike in confidence definitely enhanced his performance, noticeably. Margot smirked to herself triumphantly, realizing she’d chosen well for her midnight snack. Her subsequent responses were overwhelmingly enthusiastic for Chase as she pulled his body over hers on the excitingly large bed. Chase allowed his own animal instincts to take over, crawling on top of her as he kissed her almost harshly, guiding his knee toward her wet center.

“Take these off,” he huffed, slipping off her panties.

Margot chuckled happily as she slid them off, pulling Chase closer to her by the collar of his shirt. He let out a quiet groan as he helped her unbutton and throw off his shirt, thinking he felt more aroused than he ever had in his life. He couldn’t undress fast enough. It wasn’t long before he was stripped down to his underwear, gasping euphorically as he felt Margot’s bright red almond nails digging into the taut flesh on his back. He let out a soft gasp as she rose up from underneath him, flipping him over as he panted softly.

Chase looked up at her with widened blue eyes, heart racing as Margot grinned as she pinned him down. Chase could tell she took pleasure in seeing him helplessly defenseless, which seemed to only excite him more.

“Gotcha,” Margot taunted.

“You got me,” Robert agreed, not sounding particularly broken up about it.

Margot smiled at his eagerness as she slid his briefs down. He gasped as she sank down on top of him, gasping ecstatically. Margot all but pounced on him as she planted harsh kisses on his neck, forcing relieved moans out of him as he thrusted up into her, swearing he’d died and gone to heaven. His hands moved from her ass to her hips, massaging her as she bounced up and down so fast he could hardly think. He could hardly see as he felt himself getting hot.

“Fuck!” Margot sighed, tossing her head back.

Chase grinned, more than satisfied with himself as he watched her. She really was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen, let alone slept with. She was confident, and sharp, and fiery. It made for some of the best sex he’d ever had, as ridiculous as it sounded. He even made sure to force himself to last even longer than usual as she clenched tightly around him, just to indulge in the unbelievably intense sensation for longer. He had no idea how long it had really been, but he knew they went at it for at least a solid ten minutes.

Chase suddenly felt the need to switch things up, to add an additional element of spontaneity. So, he took a page out of Margot’s book and pushed her off of his lap. She landed on her lap in the middle of the bed, looking up at him with an animalistic sense of fear in her eyes. She looked up at him with disappointment, pouting seductively as he stood over her on his knees.

“No happy ending?” she teased.

“Not yet, sorry darling,” Chase panted.

Before she knew what was happening, Chase pulled a Margot, flipping her over on her stomach as she let out a squeal of excitement. Margot chuckled as she arched her back. Chase sighed as he slid into her, groaning at the warm feeling. He felt himself twitch at the sound of her loud moans, her pleasure giving him more gratification than anything else.

“Oh, fuck!” he hissed, no longer able to contain his arousal.

“Shit!” Margot whispered, her walls tightening around him.

Chase grinned, feeling himself about to climax as she leaned down, kissing him hungrily as they both clung to one another passionately.

-

Chapter Two

[maklodes]

I feel like I barely have the right to get into “Star Wars would be so good if it were good” posting given that I haven’t actually watched VII-IX, but I keep thinking about the myriad plots and subplots that could follow VI, after the fireworks stop, all without slamming the reset button.

Like, as of Episode VI’s end, Emperor Palpatine, Darth Vader, and Grand Moff Tarkin are all dead, but much of the rest of the Imperial bureaucracy and military are still intact. Maybe there’s a legal chain of succession that establishes who’s next, but probably it’s pretty weak, because tyrants generally don’t like saying “you know who would benefit greatly if I were to ‘accidentally’ drink poisoned blue milk and die? That guy!” So there’s a likelihood of power struggles, different factions emerging among moffs and admirals. How would the Alliance respond to two moffs waging a brutal war against each other, extorting civilians to death for supplies, bombarding civilian population centers that are not logistically accessible enough for their side to extort but that they think the other side will, etc? Can the Alliance afford to intervene to help the innocents suffering in this conflict, or is it best to just let their enemies weaken themselves and clean up afterwards?

Meanwhile, some moffs and governors see the writing on the wall, and are approaching the Alliance and saying “Yes, I was a high official in the Empire, but I was one of the good ones, working within the system to make it as humane and decent as possible. Now I am preparing to join the New Republic, and preparing to hold free elections on my planet(s) (supervised, of course, by the erstwhile-Imperial bureaucracy under my control – who else is around that could competently manage such an affair?) Yes, there are a few incidents during my reign that can be classified as atrocities, but I can assure you that if anyone else in the empire had been in charge, they would have been more numerous and severe (anyone harsher than me would’ve been worse, and anyone gentler would’ve been force-choked to death by Darth Vader and replaced), so let’s just leave those in the past and work together toward a better future.” Can the Alliance accept such a defector on those terms? Can the Alliance afford not to?

At the same time, former members of the senate – dissolved at the beginning of IV – are saying “Alright! With that tyrannical emperor gone, we are ready to get back into the action and help rebuild the Republic,” while more radical members of the Alliance are like “no, FUCK those old senators. Those were the guys who elected Palpatine chancellor. Then they kept giving him more and more emergency powers. Then they voted to make him emperor. Then they stuck around as a rubber stamp Imperial Senate for like fifteen years legitimizing the Empire, before the emperor finally dissolved the senate. A few of them may be okay, but they are all on probationary status in the politics of the New Republic at best, and many of them should be charged with corruption/oath violation/etc and barred from politics and maybe incarcerated/executed.”

Some people might even question the whole idea of One Galaxy Government going forward. Sure, there are advantages to having a singular Republic/Empire coordinating things, but there are risks. Maybe local control – with the risk of the occasional local dictator, or local border war – is safer than putting all eggs into one basket? Coordinating the resources of a galaxy has proven useful in destructive massive scale projects like planet-killer battle stations. Is there a more productive use case for that much broad scale coordination? 

As more systems democratize and lift censorship and restrictions on holonet, you get paranoia and rumors going around that this or that office-seeking politician is the Next Palpatine. When a planet’s leading candidate for senator faces rumors of being a Dark Sider, the runner-up currently polling at 48% clears her throat and says “The threat of the Dark Side is too serious to be turned into a political issue, and unfounded rumors and partisan smears do nothing to help us re-establish our still-fragile democratic norms. At the same time, any credible allegations of Dark Side influence merit a thorough and independent investigation. After all, recent experience has shown just how destructive the Dark Side can be: whole inhabited planets got destroyed! Once we establish a transparent, impartial process to examine these claims, we can move beyond all this baseless speculation about my opponent (and the baseless speculation that the first anonymous rumors were traced to a holonet account belonging to my campaign’s chief of staff).” You could have HUAC / McCarthy hearings type shit.

You could have some genuine (aspiring) Dark Side guys – no one who knows the true Sith teachings, but maybe some force sensitives who see the force as a Will To Power thing. (The Jedi haven’t been abducting children who show force potential for decades, and the Sith had no room beyond two, so I guess force sensitives have mostly sorta been figuring out what they could of this stuff themselves for a few decades? Most of them are probably pretty weaksauce compared to trained Sith/Jedi like Yoda or Palpatine, but maybe they can influence weak minds and shit) You could have any combination of actual Dark Side influence and rumors: have some people correctly accuse real Dark Side guys, have Dark Side guys spreading false rumors that their innocent opponents are on the Dark Side, have two different candidates both being Dark force sensitives, spreading rumors about each other (or one spreading rumors, being a down and dirty political fighter, and the other refusing to stoop to that and going for the Stately Above the Fray vibe, but secretly being comparably ruthless), or (perhaps most common) rumors of Dark Side influence being spread in politics when no one involved is actually even Force sensitive let alone in touch with the Dark Side.

You could go a little deeper: some people in the aftermath of the Empire might think  that the Force – both the Dark and Light sides – has held the galaxy kind of kind of technical and moral cul-de-sac, accounting for the ways in which the whole setting combines backwardness and advancement:

Why is it that in spite of having overcome the light barrier many millennia ago and being able to build small planet-sized battle stations, they seem to have made negligible progress against senescence and death generally? Because the Force provides a frame in which you either embrace the Dark Side, in which case triumph over mortality is a personal achievement to be hoarded and lorded over your inferiors, or you adhere to the Light Side, in which case you reject the “unnatural abilities” of Dark immortality. Progress against mortality at a collective, civilizational level doesn’t make sense from either of those perspectives.

Why is it that in spite of apparently being fully sentient in many cases, droids are still treated as chattel property without rights? Why is it that they still seem to have widespread animal agriculture? Maybe because the Force doesn’t notice forms of sentience that have no or negligible midichlorian counts or force sensitivity or whatever. Obi-Wan could probably walk past a droid refurbishing facility where droids are getting reset to factory settings, or a slaughterhouse, and not feel any “disturbance in the force, voices crying out in terror and suddenly being silenced” etc, and when the Light Side is treated in some respects as the moral arbiter of the setting, and when a big part of the Light Side is “trust your feelings,” and when the “force feelings” don’t really apply to beasts or droids, they don't get a lot of consideration.

Why is it that the only visions of authority are somewhere on a spectrum from “centralized, despotic autocracy” (the Empire) to “decentralized, semi-feudal oligarchy” (the Republic, with a Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth-style weak senatorial authority, proliferation of local nobles like counts and princesses, etc, and, perhaps to an even further extent along that spectrum, the Confederacy of Independent Systems)? Maybe because it reflects  how the Force tends to structure itself: the Dark Side tends to concentrate power in the hands of a couple of megalomaniacs. The Light Side tends to distribute it across a broader order of Force-wielding elites, but still very rare as a fraction of the  population.

You might say that these ideas don’t really get to the essence of the core appeal of Star Wars, which is more like stuff like starfighter battles and lightsaber duels and such, but I’m not saying these themes would necessarily be debated in great detail to the exclusion of action and stuff. They just could be the reason for the lightsaber duels and starfighter battles and such. Consider: in Episode I, the pretext for a lot of the action was a dispute over tariffs. Stated baldly, I think that’s drier than anything I mentioned.

[schraubd]

Announcing You're Going to Discriminate Discriminating = Liability for Discrimination

When the Trump administration's Muslim ban was moving through the courts, there was the weird debate people were having about whether it was fair to use Donald Trump's explicit statements announcing a discriminatory motive for the ban as evidence that the ban was discriminatory. The debate was weird because in any other circumstance the answer is obvious -- of course it's evidence. It's close to dispositive evidence. That's how anti-discrimination law works. For example, this past week the Eleventh Circuit decided the case of McCarthy v. City of Cordele. Here are the relevant facts: Joshua Deriso campaigned for election as chairman of the City Commission of Cordele, Georgia, by publicly stating his intent to “replace Caucasian employees with African Americans”; to lead “an entirely African American” City Commission; and to replace Roland McCarthy, the white City Manager, with a black City Manager. On social media, Deriso declared, “Structure needs to change . . . More Blacks!!!”; “The new City Manager should be Black”; and “it is time for African Americans to run our city.” Deriso won the election. The same day he and fellow commissioners took their oaths of office, the Commission voted on racial lines to fire McCarthy and to replace him with a black City Manager. "The question," the court continued, "is whether those allegations permit the inference that the City Commission fired McCarthy because he is white." They quite reasonably answered "yes". When you publicly campaign on "I am going to racially discriminate", and then you do exactly what you promised to do, it's entirely reasonable to conclude that what you've done is engage in racial discrimination. And that inference is valid notwithstanding the fact that under normal circumstances the city council has wide discretion in hiring or terminating its city manager. This is not hard. There's no pay off here other than to reemphasize the lawless anomaly that was Trump v. Hawaii. The pass it gave to blatant, undisguised discrimination is completely at odds with the doctrine both before and after the case. Judges fully understand how senseless Trump's rule is in other cases (especially, one must observe, in cases of "reverse discrimination"). Indeed, while Trump v. Hawaii was under consideration I observed that in any remotely analogous circumstance involving "Smallsville, Anystate" the case is an absolute dunker as a clear and obvious legal violation. It is only Donald Trump who received and continues to receive these ridiculous one-offs as the Supreme Court's special favorite. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/GKeskyO

[batboyblog]

The Charges against Donald Trump in Georgia:

Violation of the Georgia RICO Act: Serious Felony

Solicitation of Violation of Oath by Public Officer: Felony

Conspiracy to Commit Impersonating a Public Officer: Felony

Conspiracy to Commit Forgery in the First Degree: Felony

Conspiracy to Commit False Statements and Writings: Felony

Conspiracy to Commit Filing False Documents: Felony

Conspiracy to Commit Forgery in the First Degree: Felony

Conspiracy to Commit False Statements and Writings: Felony

Filing False Documents: Felony

Solicitation of Violation of Oath by Public Officer: Felony

False Statements and Writings: Felony

Solicitation of Violation of Oath by Public Officer: Felony

False Statements and Writings: Felony

if this is accurate to the charges that are brought against Trump it would bring to 91 the number of felonies Trump is facing in Federal and State Courts.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Donald Trump stormed out of a Manhattan courtroom Wednesday after a heated day in court that saw the former president called to the witness stand in his $250 million fraud case and fined $10,000 for violating a gag order.

Trump's abrupt departure appeared to surprise even his own lawyers and his Secret Service agents, who went scurrying after him. He returned to the courtroom after the court day ended, and after his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, finished his contentious testimony.

Judge Arthur Engoron handed down the financial penalty after calling Trump to testify under oath in the afternoon about who he was talking about when he told reporters earlier in the day that the person sitting next to the Judge was "very partisan."

Trump said he was referring to Cohen, who he's previously called a rat, a liar and a felon.

The Judge asked Trump if he'd previously referred to his law clerk as "partisan" and Trump said, "maybe" he had referred to her as not fair because she's "very biased."

But, Trump insisted, he was referring to Cohen when he told reporters earlier that Engoron is “a very partisan judge with a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside him, perhaps even much more partisan than he is.”

Engoron's law clerk sits next to him and has been the subject of complaints from Trump's team, including earlier Wednesday, when Trump lawyer Alina Habba asked that there be no eye-rolling or whispers from the bench during her questioning of Cohen.

Engoron said he found Trump's testimony "not credible." He fined Trump for violating the gag order he issued earlier this month after the former president had smeared his law clerk on social media.

Trump stormed out of the courtroom about 45 minutes later, after the Judge denied a motion from his lawyers on a separate legal issue. Trump lawyer Cliff Robert had seized on Cohen's testimony that Trump never explicitly instructed him to inflate his financial statements to ask the Judge for a directed verdict dismissing the AG's claims about the statements, which Engoron refused.

The abrupt departure appeared to catch even his attorneys by surprise and caused gasps throughout the courtroom.

"The witness just admitted that we won the trial and the Judge should end this trial immediately. Thank you," Trump told reporters after he left.

Under questioning from AG's office, Cohen testified later Trump didn't specifically tell him to inflate the numbers and said he was like a "mob boss" who tells you what he wants without directly telling you.

When Cohen wrapped up his fiery two days on the witness stand, Robert again asked the Judge for a directed verdict, a request he said was "absolutely denied."

"This case has credible evidence all over the place," the judge said. "There is enough evidence in this case to fill this courtroom."

“They wanted to make a motion to dismiss the case, to which the judge responded: ‘Yeah, absolutely not,’” Cohen told reporters after leaving the courtroom. “You know why? Because he will ultimately be held accountable.”

Trump's lawyer had earlier asked the Judge to reconsider the fine, again contending the "partisan" person Trump referred to was Cohen. The Judge denied the motion and told Trump, "Don't do it again." If he does, the Judge said, the penalty will be "worse."

This is the second time Engoron has fined Trump for violating the gag order.

[reasoningdaily]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/09/03/beverly-hills-police-lawsuit/

A Beverly Hills police task force arrested 106 people. All but one were Black, lawsuit claims.

Beverly Hills Police targeted Black people with harassment and arrest for low-level or nonexistent violations in an effort to keep them away from Rodeo Drive, according to a class-action racial discrimination lawsuit filed in California Superior Court Monday by civil rights attorneys Ben Crump and Bradley Gage.

The complaint centers on the Beverly Hills Police Department’s “Operation Safe Streets,” a campaign to address safety on the city’s famed luxury shopping destination of Rodeo Drive.

The suit claims that between March 2020 and July 2021, the task force made 106 arrests — 105 of whom were of Black people.

“If 2 percent of the residents of Beverly Hills are Black but almost 100 percent of the arrests are Black [people,] that’s a pretty clear indication something’s wrong,” Gage told The Washington Post Thursday.

“The women and men of BHPD take an oath to protect human life and enforce the law — regardless of race,” Beverly Hills Police Chief Dominick Rivetti said in a statement Wednesday. “Any violation of this pledge is contrary to the values of this department. We take all concerns regarding the conduct of our officers very seriously.“

During a Wednesday news conference announcing the lawsuit, Crump — the attorney best-known for representing the family of George Floyd — framed the alleged racial bias in Beverly Hills as a national scourge that has led to the death or injury of people whose names are now synonymous with racially biased and violent policing.

“If implicit bias goes unchecked and discrimination goes unchecked, it leads to what happened to George Floyd in Minneapolis; what happened to Breonna Taylor in Louisville; what happened to Jacob Blake Jr. in Kenosha, Wis.,” he said. “That’s what happens if the actions of the Beverly Hills Police Department goes unchecked.”

Rivetti in his Wednesday statement said he formed the “Rodeo Drive Team” to address complaints from businesses about a rise in burglary, shoplifting and nuisances such as public intoxication. Rivetti touted the success of the task force, noting that officers arrested individuals with “fraudulently obtained state unemployment benefits” and seizing $250,000 in cash and “ill-gotten debit cards.”

The police did not respond to The Post’s request for the number of arrests or their racial breakdown.

Gage said his team corroborated the figure through a variety of sources, including Beverly Hills police officers who were troubled by the trend that resulted from the 16-month safety operation.

The more than 100 arrestees were cited for a range of noncriminal behaviors such as roller skating or riding a scooter on the sidewalk to low-level infractions such as jaywalking. None of the same behaviors and infractions were enforced against White people, the lawsuit claims.

“The way [police] stop them for trivial things is troubling as well,” Gage said, alleging that Black people questioned by police would face four or five officers or have guns drawn on them. “White people don’t have that.”

The two named plaintiffs in the suit were not California residents but visiting from Philadelphia. During a visit to Beverly Hills last September, Khalil White and Jasmine Williams were arrested while riding scooters on the sidewalk and jailed for resisting arrest. The charges, like most of those that stemmed from the operation, were dropped.

The lawsuit claims that other incidents with police did not end in arrest but indicate a pattern of harassment and over-policing of Black people. Salehe Bembury, then the vice president of men’s footwear at Versace, was allegedly jaywalking and holding two shopping bags from his store last October when police stopped him, asked for his ID and ran his name for warrants.

Bembury filmed the encounter, which went viral.

“So I’m in Beverly Hills and I’m getting … searched for shopping at the store I work for and just being Black,” he said in an Instagram video.

“You’re making a completely different narrative,” a BHPD officer said in response.

The current iteration of the lawsuit focuses on the outcome of Operation Safe Streets, but Gage expects it will broaden to encompass a wider review of discriminatory policing by BHPD and expects the class of complainants to grow tenfold.

“I don’t think Ben or I have had five minutes since the press conference that we haven’t received phone calls. I’ve been getting them since midnight,” Gage said. Since Wednesday, he estimates the legal team has received at least 100 new complaints of racial profiling in traffic stops and other claims of discrimination from around the same period as Operation Safe Streets.

[arizonaconservativegal]

"No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability."

Here's the thing with the push to remove Trump from the ballot on the grounds of committing an 'insurrection' - it's not just about Trump. Frankly I think it's a hell of a stretch to say that anything Trump has done qualifies as an insurrection or rebellion and I would argue that using this section against him when he has not been convicted of anything or even charged with insurrection is a violation of due process. But again, it's not just about Trump. If the left is allowed to remove Trump from the ballot because of January 6, they will try it on all Republican candidates, either on the grounds that they participated directly or that they gave 'aid and comfort' to those who did.

Did you donate money to a legal defense fund or to Trump's campaign after J6? Did you retweet something questioning the election? Did you like a post from someone who was at the Capitol that day? Did you vote for a politician who did? Will you refuse to formally denounce the protestors when the media questions you on it?

"Oh come on," you might say, "that's ridiculous. 'Aid and comfort' means something specific. They can't just apply to it everything like that." Yeah, I would have said the same about 'insurrection' a couple years ago. And yet here we are.

The worst part is they don't even have to win the lawsuits to win the fight. They just have to keep us tied up in never ending legal battles over it. Just think about what that means. They can drain our campaigns of resources and keep our candidates stuck in a courtroom all year instead of on the campaign trail. They'll scare off all potential supporters because no one wants to be the next one in the crosshairs. And judges apparently can put a gag order on you so you can't even defend yourself publicly while the media is free to write all the borderline libelous headlines they want. They don't have disqualify you to defeat you. The threat and accusation is enough.

I'm not generally prone to catastrophizing about politics but this is one that genuinely scares me. I'm not worried about losing an election, I'm worried about losing the country. If one party is allowed to do this to the other, what are we left with? Single-party rule until someone else decides to take control by methods more forceful than a ballot box. If the left thought what happened before was an insurrection, well... let's just say I don't want think anyone wants to see what a real insurrection looks like.

[dertaglichedan]

More than 100 former national security officials from Republican administrations and former Republican members of Congress endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday after concluding that their party’s nominee, Donald J. Trump, is “unfit to serve again as president.”

In a letter to the public, the Republicans, including both vocal longtime Trump opponents and others who had not endorsed Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2020, argued that while they might “disagree with Kamala Harris” on many issues, Mr. Trump had demonstrated “dangerous qualities.” Those include, they said, “unusual affinity” for dictators like President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and “contempt for the norms of decent, ethical and lawful behavior.”

“As president,” the letter said, “he promoted daily chaos in government, praised our enemies and undermined our allies, politicized the military and disparaged our veterans, prioritized his personal interest above American interests and betrayed our values, democracy and this country’s founding documents.”

The letter condemned Mr. Trump’s incitement of the mob attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, aimed at allowing him to hold onto power after losing an election, saying that “he has violated his oath of office and brought danger to our country.” It quoted Mr. Trump’s own former vice president, Mike Pence, who has said that “anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States.”

The letter came not long after former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, former Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, both said they would vote for Ms. Harris. Democrats featured a number of anti-Trump Republicans at their nominating convention last month, including former Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. Mr. Pence has said he will not endorse Mr. Trump but has not endorsed Ms. Harris.

The 111 signatories included former officials who served under Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush. Many of them had previously broken with Mr. Trump, including two former defense secretaries, Chuck Hagel and William S. Cohen; Robert B. Zoellick, a former president of the World Bank; the former C.I.A. directors Michael V. Hayden and William H. Webster; a former director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte; and former Gov. William F. Weld of Massachusetts. Miles Taylor and Olivia Troye, two Trump administration officials who became vocal critics, also signed.

But a number of Republicans who did not sign a similar letter on behalf of Mr. Biden in 2020 signed the one for Ms. Harris this time, including several former House members, like Charles W. Boustany Jr. of Louisiana, Barbara Comstock of Virginia, Dan Miller of Florida and Bill Paxon of New York

*** What the?!?!?!

[robertreich]

This One Thing May Stop Trump From Running For Re-Election

Far-right politicians are dragging America back to the 19th century.

Reproductive rights in Wisconsin are now governed by an abortion law passed in 1849 — and in Arizona, a judge recently reinstated a ban on abortion first adopted in 1864.

Well, if Republicans are so keen to wind back the clock, I suggest reviving a different 19th century provision of the Constitution : Section Three of the 14th Amendment.

It states that, anyone who has taken an oath to protect the Constitution can be barred from holding public office if they “have engaged in insurrection” against the United States.

Sound familiar?

A judge in New Mexico thought so — and recently used it to permanently ban an insurrectionist from ever holding any state or federal office again.

The official — Commissioner Couy Griffin — spent months normalizing violence to keep Trump in office and urged supporters to travel to Washington with him on January 6th.

Griffin also voted twice against certifying New Mexico’s 2022 primary election, fueled by conspiracy theories about the security of voting equipment.

His case proves that it is possible to expel public officials who violate their oaths to the Constitution.

Any lawmakers who engaged in insurrection on January 6th must be held accountable and barred from holding public office now and in the future.

And yes, that includes Donald Trump.

[beardedmrbean]

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Video showing the moment a former Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officer was caught allegedly taking money from a suspect was released on Tuesday. 

Henry Chapman was arrested on March 14, hours after he allegedly took $900 from a man he was arresting and hid it in his patrol car. The incident started when Chapman pulled over a driver for speeding and then learned the suspect was wanted for a federal arrest warrant. According to an affidavit, the man had nearly $8,000 in his possession during the arrest. 

Body camera footage showed the suspect accusing Chapman of taking some money from him. 

"I don't know if it's in your door or where it's at," the man said. "Do you see anything? That's my money, that's my money right there." 

Click here to sign up for the daily WCNC Charlotte newsletter

An assisting officer said Chapman was shifting the money between his legs and moving it into the door pocket of his patrol car. The cash was found with a receipt inside the driver's door of Chapman's patrol car. 

"I heard him tampering with that rubber band," the man said. "That rubber band was on that money because my girlfriend gave it to me this morning." 

Chapman initially denied knowing the money was there, according to CMPD. The affidavit states Chapman later admitted to taking the money but claimed he wasn't stealing it. Chapman was charged with one count of embezzlement. 

Chapman was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation. He resigned from CMPD on March 15. He'd been on CMPD's force since 2009 and was assigned to the University City division.

An internal investigation found that Chapman violated CMPD's body camera policy during the arrest. The investigation is now in the hands of the Mecklenburg County district attorney. Chapman is expected to appear in court next month. 

The video shows the arrestee asking for officers to count the cash from an evidence envelope obtained from Chapman while in a parking area at the University City Division patrol office. That was when officers searched Chapman's patrol car and found about $900 inside the driver's side door. Chapman was then placed in a separate room away from the car.

After an interview with detectives, Chapman was arrested and taken to jail.

Chief Johnny Jennings issued the following statement Monday:

“The video shows a CMPD police officer committing a crime, stealing money from a person who was in his custody. Adherence to the law is an absolute for police officers. The actions of former Officer Chapman were a contradiction to what we stand for. 

I want you to know the detectives and leadership acted quickly when this incident was brought to light. Both a criminal investigation and an internal investigation were launched immediately. Chapman was arrested less than six hours after the incident following a continuous investigation and was placed on immediate unpaid administrative leave. I commend those who took those allegations serious enough to fully investigate this case which led to the arrest of one of our own.

On March 15, 2024, the day after the incident, he resigned from his employment at CMPD.  The criminal case is still pending.

This incident does not represent or define the men and women of CMPD who show up every day and night to serve our community. While one officer did violate his oath, thousands more are still here and stand strong on the oath they took. I commend them for their commitment to this department and to this city. I am proud to serve with them. And we are all proud to serve you.”