In my Other Worldly series, there’s a running thread regarding a dearth of legal ethics and the plague of corruption among lawyers, especially in the past presidential administration.
In Alienable Rights, first book in the series, I touch upon issues associated with a former Nevada attorney general with a gun fetish and decided lack of recognition of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, as in separation of church and state, crowing about “upholding your God-given right to bear arms.” As Rowan said, “Both the US and Nevada attorneys general were busy practicing what they preached, religion as opposed to law.”
It’s the ex-US attorney general, specifically Bill Barr, who has done so much, in my estimation, to erode the integrity and credibility of the legal profession, including rampant abuse of power.
In Aliens Abound, third book in the series published in March, protagonist Rowan Layne is under attack from an attorney general who is quite literally trying to take her out—and others who get in his way as he perpetrates crimes on behalf of the president. As Rowan said, “That fat fascist is a master Pinocchio puppeteer! It’s he who wants to remain in power!”
Rowan Layne also had something to say on the subject as a newspaper columnist: “We all know he has no professional ethics. I wrote columns about him protecting his twenty-two million dollars. And about how as attorney general, he was supposed to be America’s top lawyer and crime fighter, not the president’s personal fixer and partner in crime.”
Pretty much sums it up. Between blatant lies about the Mueller report, smug mischaracterization of the actual domestic terrorists in last summer’s protests, and a whole host of other coy distortions and flat out lies, it’s not surprising a federal judge has called out Bill Barr’s “disingenuous” behavior towards the American people—as well as the judiciary and legislative branches of Congress.
Bill Barr lied to that judge, and he lied to Congress. He lied to us all. Yet it has taken far too long for him to even begin to be held accountable for his crimes. His insidious cover-up permeated the Justice Department with the stench, the poison, of a decided lack of integrity.
It should go without saying that the head of the Department of Justice should not engage in obstruction of justice. Nor should everyone look the other way while he does so.
In Alienable Rights, Rowan Layne is required to take a test on legal professional ethics as part of her admission to practice law in Nevada, wherein she notes, “Security measures were beyond insane due to cheating methods wannabe lawyers concocted to make extreme precautions a necessary evil.”
Rampant cheating. On a test about legal professional ethics. Ponder that.
Meanwhile, numerous lawyers associated with the (then) current administration were being criminally indicted on a regular basis. And Rowan Layne couldn’t help but cop an attitude about it. Because those prominent lawyers never seemed to manage to get disbarred by the licensing authority that enabled them to practice law in the first place: their state bars.
When it comes to good old boys and boys will be boys who protect their own no matter what, police have nothing on those licensed to practice law. As Rowan Layne said in Alienable Rights:
“There’s a big push to maintain the public’s positive perception of the integrity of the legal profession as described in the rules I’d be tested on tomorrow via a series of multiple choice questions some deemed an exercise in choosing the best of four wrong answers.
“Given the frequency of headlines about White House lawyers indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice, or judges convicted of extortion, or lawyers and judges committing acts of moral turpitude against children or women, it might be less about maintaining a positive image than obtaining one.”
Perhaps legal professional ethics shouldn’t be boiled down to inane multiple choice questions and answers. And rules don’t matter if lawyers aren’t held accountable for violating them. Repeatedly. Blatantly. Arrogantly. Evilly. For millions to hear and see and read.
The villain that is Bill Barr is far worse than anything conjured in the pages of fiction. As is the galling injustice that he got away with preventing a maniacal president from being held accountable for his crimes so two more lawyers could be shoved onto seats on the Supreme Court to further erode separation of church and state. A Court already dangerously diminished by one justice in particular with clearly questionable personal integrity.
As Rowan Layne said in Alienable Rights, “Insanity, by the way, is a legal term of art, not medical.”