The Political Parley: Indictment, Veto and the Hearing

Trump should be arrested, the veto was boring, and the TikTok hearing was redundant.

The+rather+useless+TikTok+hearing+on+Thursday+did+nothing+constructive

COURTESY OF TOM WILLIAMS / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The rather useless TikTok hearing on Thursday did nothing constructive

ANNE MURPHY, Evergreen columnist

Just arrest Trump already

It does not matter what the charges are, if former President Trump gets arrested, it will be very enjoyable to watch.

The possible indictment of former President Trump seems to be taking a while and the world is waiting, some excited, some nervous, to see if the U.S. will arrest a former president for the first time in history.

A Manhattan grand jury is currently working on investigating former President Trump for his potential involvement in a hush-money scheme in 2016 where the former president allegedly had his personal attorney Michael Cohen pay Stormy Daniels $130,000 during the 2016 presidential campaign, in order to prevent her from revealing they had an alleged affair according to Politico.

Though it is unlikely Trump would actually be arrested rather than surrender, he would still be fingerprinted, photographed, and possibly even handcuffed if he was to be indicted according to U.S. News and World Reports.

The charges that the former president may be facing have not yet been revealed to the public as the grand jury’s work is kept secret.

The grand jury was originally expected to announce their verdict Last week week but they did not choose to hear any more testimony on the case, meaning that because the inditment did not happen it has been pushed to an unforseen date.

The former president himself announced on Saturday, March 18, that he expected to be arrested March, 21, and called for his supporters to protest and “TAKE OUR NATION BACK” according to a post he made on his social media site Truth Social.

The potential for a former President to be indicted and possibly arrested is a very intriguing prospect, as it has never before happened in U.S. history and would be another thing to add to the list of negative firsts connected to former President Trump.

Biden’s first veto

President Biden’s first veto was not very interesting and somewhat complicated to understand but still really important. 

The veto was used on keeping a Labor Department rule intact, which had overwritten a Trump-era policy that forbids retirement managers from considering ESG or environmental, social, and governance factors before investing retirement funds. 

According to a message from President Biden, “The Department of Labor’s final rule protects the hard‑earned life savings and pensions of tens of millions of workers and retirees across the country.”

The bill took over a month to pass in the House of Representatives with the final vote being 216-to-205.

This also allows financial companies to consider factors like climate change and potential lawsuits before investing their clients’ retirement funds according to U.S. News and World Reports.  

The measure was sponsored by Republican Congressman Donalds of Florida in an attempt to undo the Labor Department rule that undid the Trump-era policy. 

Terrible TikTok hearing

The rather useless TikTok hearing on Thursday did nothing constructive but rather emphasized the divide between Congress and its constituents. 

The lawmakers who questioned TikTok’s chief executive Shou Zi Chew did not have many facts to back up their argument that TikTok may be leaking information to the Chinese Communist Party, but there was no testimony Chew gave to prove that this has ever happened according to an article from Politico

Chew testified for over five hours before a House of Representatives committee, but nothing he said seemed to sway any of the lawmakers. Distaste for TikTok seems to have briefly united Republicans and Democrats, who both grilled Chew on various aspects of TikTok’s privacy regulations and whether TikTok’s data may possibly end up in the hands of the Chinese government. 

Both Republicans and Democrats are now pushing for more legislation that would effectively ban TikTok in the U.S. said U.S. News and World Reports. Banning TikTok would likely not be as effective as Congress believes, because no matter what people will still find a way to use it if they want to.  

The entire TikTok hearing feels rather useless in the grand scheme of things because there are much more pressing matters that we should be focusing on, like climate change and safe access to abortion, rather than banning a social media app that Congress does not seem to understand.