“The only way we can succeed and retain the trust of the American people is to adhere to the norms that have become part of the DNA of every Justice Department employee since Edward Levy’s stint as the first post-Watergate Attorney General,” Attorney General Merrick Garland told his new staff on Thursday. “[T]hose norms require that like cases be treated alike. That there not be one rule for Democrats and another for Republicans; One rule for friends and another for foes; One rule for the powerful and another for the powerless; One rule for the rich and another for the poor; Or different rules depending upon one’s race or ethnicity.”
David Rohde adds at The New Yorker:
Levi’s norms are, unquestionably, the standard that should be upheld by every U.S. Attorney General, but the political landscape—and the nation—that Garland inherits is vastly different from the one that Levi confronted nearly fifty years ago. On Wednesday, the intelligence community released a report warning that the threat of domestic violent extremism was rising. Partisanship is at its highest levels in decades. Public trust in institutions, from Congress to the courts, is at a near-record low. Republicans and Democrats increasingly get their information from cable and online information ecosystems that describe opposite realities. This division reached a zenith in the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol, which left five dead after an attempt to block Congress from certifying last year’s election results, and in Donald Trump’s subsequent second impeachment for his role in inciting the violence. In a recent poll, eighty-one per cent of Democrats said that Trump was mainly responsible for the violence and destruction. In a separate poll, fifty-eight per cent of Trump voters said that the attack was primarily inspired by Antifa.
Those alternate universes will not be reconciled by a norms-reset. But it could not hurt.
There has never been equal treatment under law in this country. Garland has little chance of rectifying that. But he can set a tone by public demonstration that the powerful and connected do not exist in a separate legal universe.
The obvious fact that there is one rule for the powerful and another for the rest has gnawed at public confidence for decades. Combined with Republicans’ relentless efforts to undermine faith in the democratic process, two-tiered justice has contributed to feelings that the entire system is broken beyond redemption. Among some citizens this manifests in the feeling that only the blood of unspecified tyrants will cure what ails the republic.
A few more perp walks for the rich and powerful won’t eliminate that sense, but could help take the edge off.
The New York Times Editorial Board this morning adds that unequal treatment dominates where it comes to taxation:
In a remarkable 2019 analysis, the Internal Revenue Service estimated that Americans report on their taxes less than half of all income that is not subject to some form of third-party verification like a W-2. Billions of dollars in business profits, rent and royalties are hidden from the government each year. By contrast, more than 95 percent of wage income is reported.
Unreported income is the single largest reason that unpaid federal income taxes may amount to more than $600 billion this year, and more than $7.5 trillion over the next decade. It is a truly staggering sum — more than half of the projected federal deficit over the same period.
Readers can probably call to mind one tax cheat in particular who has spent a lifetime making wage earners pay his way.
A former Internal Revenue Service chief, Charles Rossotti, proposes a new form of reporting non-wage and corporate income. Something like a 1099 for investments. It would not increase anyone’s tax rate, just depress their inclination to cheat.
Consider what happened after Congress passed legislation in 1986 to require taxpayers to list a Social Security number for each person claimed as a dependent. The government could not easily crosscheck all of those claims then, but the requirement itself caused a sharp drop in fraud. The next year, seven million children abruptly disappeared from tax returns.
The Editorial Board offers other tax enforcement recommendations and concludes, “The government can crack down on crime, improve the equity of taxation — and raise some needed money in the bargain. There are many proposals to raise taxes on the rich. Let’s start by collecting what they already owe.”
Garland and the IRS could make public examples of powerful malefactors’ poor choices. Punish their violations of law with punishments with more toothy than fines. Demonstrate that rich and poor alike will face the same justice, and that “and justice for all” is not just an empty slogan.
The public cheers when villains get theirs in films. Perhaps public confidence would be restored, just a little, by making life imitate art.