A federal judge held a lawyer from President Donald Trump's Department of Justice in contempt on Wednesday for failing to return a detainee's identification paperwork after the detainee was released from immigration custody, according to a report. Judge Laura Provinzino of the District Court of Minn...
      • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
        6·
        5 days ago

        Exactly, they don’t care about fines that they’ll never pay. Besides, his salary is chump change. The entire point is to use your office as a platform for corruption that will bring you far, far more. It’s not like your boss is going to fire you for stealing.

        • grue@lemmy.world
          3·
          5 days ago

          Then they could just immediately hold them in contempt again and put them right back.

          More to the point, I’m pretty sure contempt is different from a “federal crime” in the sense that it is an inherent power of the court system, not a law passed by the legislature that was broken. I don’t think it actually is pardonable.

          • Jaysyn@lemmy.world
            1·
            5 days ago

            I think you’re getting the inherent contempt power of Congress mixed up with criminal contempt.

            Civil or criminal contempt?

            There is also the possibility of Trump administration officials being found in criminal contempt - for which the punishment could include jail time.

            “That’s considered one of the most serious things, and usually the last resort,” Prof Tsai said.

            In the case of criminal contempt, Prof Tsai said the normal course of events would be to refer the issue for prosecution by the justice >department, which is run by Attorney General Pam Bondi.

            Judge Boasberg also has the power to appoint a special prosecutor to pursue criminal contempt charges and to sidestep Bondi, a Trump loyalist who was appointed by the president.

            “With this administration, it is very possible that the justice department refuses to prosecute,” George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin explained to the BBC.

            Even if the justice department does take the case, Trump has the power to pardon a criminal offence. But the president does not have the power to issue pardons for civil liability (civil contempt).

            https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg72d3zpj9xo

    • mr_account@lemmy.world
      24·
      5 days ago

      I’m fine with it being $500/day at first. Then after a set period of noncompliance (like 1wk), it doubles each day. Even for the 1%, exponential growth is small, until it isn’t.

    • AmidFuror@fedia.io
      10·
      5 days ago

      The salary for an Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) typically starts around $55,204 and can increase significantly with experience, reaching up to a maximum of about $176,200. Salaries may also be adjusted based on local cost of living factors.

      So, you’d like it to be (at a minimum) $552 to $1762 per day?

    • i_am_not_a_robot@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      5·
      5 days ago

      That’s 182.5k a year. They’d need to be making several times the average US lawyer salary to shrug that off. Most lawyers don’t make that much money post taxes.