Kimberly Guilfoyle Smacks Down Ocasio-Cortez and Her 'Threat' to Subpoena Don Jr.
Here’s a tip for new members of government: It’s probably not the wisest idea to use your freshly minted position to threaten people with subpoenas for exercising their right to free speech, even (especially) if the individual is the son of the president.
That’s a lesson Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-Soviet Russia, had to be taught by a lawyer. Namely, the lawyer dating the man she threatened, Donald Trump Jr.
If you haven’t heard, Trump Jr. made an Instagram funny at Ocasio-Cortez’s expense involving her socialist beliefs.
The meme shows Ocasio-Cortez saying, “Why are you so afraid of a socialist economy?” Underneath that is a picture of the president, saying, “Because Americans want to walk their dogs, not eat them.”
The joke was, of course, a rather edgy (but funny) dig at the lack of food in socialist utopias like Venezuela and the lengths that citizens often have to go to in order to survive.
This prompted an odd (and legally problematic) response by Ocasio-Cortez.
I have noticed that Junior here has a habit of posting nonsense about me whenever the Mueller investigation heats up.
Please, keep it coming Jr – it’s definitely a “very, very large brain” idea to troll a member of a body that will have subpoena power in a month.
Have fun! https://t.co/oQ6MsdJYCk
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) December 7, 2018
“I have noticed that Junior here has a habit of posting nonsense about me whenever the Mueller investigation heats up,” she tweeted last week. “Please, keep it coming Jr — it’s definitely a ‘very, very large brain’ idea to troll a member of a body that will have subpoena power in a month.
“Have fun!” she concluded.
That sounds conspicuously like a threat — and, as a former prosecutor, Kimberly Guilfoyle knows a bit about that. She’s Trump Jr.’s girlfriend and a former Fox News personality, and she — like many others — noticed the issues with this.
Did you just threaten to subpoena someone for criticizing you? As a lawyer and former prosecutor I find this deeply troubling. https://t.co/OqIpBkbsIS
— Kimberly Guilfoyle (@kimguilfoyle) December 7, 2018
“Did you just threaten to subpoena someone for criticizing you?” Guilfoyle tweeted back. “As a lawyer and former prosecutor, I find this deeply troubling.”
And she probably should. Take a look at 42 U.S. Code, Section 1983, passed in 1871, which reads:
“Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer’s judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable. For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia.”
What this essentially means is that if you use your position to deprive or punish someone for exercising their rights, you could end up in court as part of a civil action.
To be fair — and as Ocasio-Cortez pointed out as soon as this started becoming a thing — the representative-elect doesn’t actually have the ability to carry through on her threats.
For the GOP crying that this is a “threat” – I don’t have power to subpoena anybody.
Congress as a body, GOP included, has the power. No indiv. member can issue a subpoena unless they are a Chair (which, as a freshman, I can assure you I will not be). Also must be under purview.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) December 7, 2018
God knows what she meant by this, then.
Did she think she had the power of subpoena? She’s certainly proved herself woefully ignorant about how the government works on a number of occasions, recently failing to identify the three branches of government correctly even though she’s about to enter the ranks of one of those branches.
Was she engaging in a liberal version of “owning the libs?” If so, this definitely doesn’t feel like an own so, uh, good work?
Is she gloating over the fact that Trump Jr. might be asked to appear before Congress? Again, this isn’t a good look. During a week in which the cream of the House Democrats appeared grim-faced on every cable news show and pledged they were only interested in justice — harsh, harsh justice — for the president and those around him, it’s again not particularly mediagenic to have one of the most visible members among them tweeting about just how thrilled she is they finally have the power to punish some peeps.
Anyway, major props to Guilfoyle. She didn’t just stand up for her man, she managed to own Ocasio-Cortez by reminding a lawmaker exactly what the law is.
The scary thing is that we actually have to do that in 2018.
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