Meet the Man Curbing Trump's Power Without Anyone Noticing

[DonViejo]

He’s a pioneering attorney and Haitian immigrant who’s leading the emoluments lawsuit. He engineered some of Dems’ biggest wins in 2018. So why haven’t you heard of Karl Racine?

By HARRY JAFFE February 23, 2019

Harry Jaffe is an editor at large at Washingtonian magazine and co-author of Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington, D.C.

Afew hours before President Donald Trump went into the Rose Garden last Friday to announce his intent to declare a national emergency so he could build his long-promised border wall, Karl Racine sent a shot across the bow: If Trump was serious about this, he was in for a fight.

“We will not hesitate to use our legal authority to defend the rule of law,” the 56-year-old attorney general of Washington, D.C., said in a terse statement.

It’s a posture that has become almost routine for Racine, who as co-chair of the national Democratic Attorneys General Association is playing a little-noticed but hugely influential role in fighting the Trump administration at the polls, in the courts and in the news media.

The past few years have been uncommonly high profile for the American legal system. The president finds himself in both personal and professional legal jeopardy. Several of his former aides and advisers have been criminally indicted. The administration’s every move is subject to major lawsuits.

But while the public has been mesmerized by Trump’s legal troubles, Racine has been quietly building out Democrats’ ability to check his administration at the state level. Without much notice, he’s quietly emerged as perhaps the single most important player in restoring Democratic clout in America’s legal system.

As D.C. attorney general, Racine is leading the ongoing emoluments suit against the president over foreign governments’ allegedly corrupt patronage of the Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington, along with Maryland AG Brian Frosh. As co-chair of DAGA, he has helped coordinate the legal and political strategies behind the lawsuits suing the Trump administration over issues including the separation of children and parents at the Mexican border, upholding the Affordable Care Act and protecting DACA recipients. And more substantial yet, Racine was the architect of one of the least-discussed but most far-reaching results of November’s elections: Democrats winning a majority of the nation’s attorney general positions—an electoral success with far-reaching implications for workers’ rights, immigration, civil rights, consumer protections and the ability to erect a judicial wall against the Trump administration.

more
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/02/23/karl-racine-profile-attorney-general-emoluments-lawsuit-trump-2020-225200

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

1. K & R.

[empedocles]

2. Dems need all the help they can get. Fortunately, there is a lot out there already . . .

. . . and, imo, there may be much more out there.

[Honeycombe8]

3. One of the unspoken heroes trying to protect the country from the Republican travesty.

Good to know about Racine.

[defacto7]

4. K&R

[bonniebgood]

5. Who will win? DAGA vs MAGA.

[True Blue American]

6. Positive thinking!

[calimary]

7. Man, this is GREAT!

Color me impressed. VERY impressed! Grateful that guys like Racine are at work. Watch the nogoodnik story to target him now, though...

[iamateacher]

8. Great article

Thank you for posting!

[Jeffersons Ghost]

9. K&R

[BlancheSplanchnik]

10. I'm grateful to the man!

May he inspire others, too.

[BigmanPigman]

11. People like this give me hope, which is rare these days.

[Cha]

12. K!

[smirkymonkey]

13. K&R

This man is one of the silent heroes of the Trump era.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

14. A Haitian born attorney with the law on his side. DT's worst nightmare.