Trump Administration Sides With Sudan Against USS Cole Survivors In Lawsuit
Trump Administration Sides With Sudan Against USS Cole Survivors In Lawsuit
Rick Harrison (from left) was a firefighter and machinist on the USS Cole, and David Morales was a boatswain's mate. Lorrie Triplett, Jamal Gunn
and David Francis all lost family members who worked aboard the Cole.
Legally, the Trump administration acted (amicus curiae) as a "Friend of the Court".
Why they did so rather than allow Sudan to argue the merit of it's defense somewhat baffles me. Without this US Govt. assistance, the plaintiffs could very well have prevailed.
State sponsors of terrorism, per the State department: DPRK, Iran, Sudan and Syria.
Red:
You and I both.
To be sure, I've not read the amicus brief, so I must refrain from positing what may be the purpose for filing it.
I will say that given what the legal contention -- that the notification of the lawsuit was mailed to the wrong address; thus the judgment cannot stand -- strikes me as the sort of legal connivery Trump himself would employ to get out of an adverse judgment.
From the article:
The argument is that to allow such notifications to be made at an embassy would breach the "inviolability" of embassies and consulates that is guaranteed under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
The Trump administration argues as well that if Sudan and other countries can be served notice of lawsuits at embassies, the U.S. could suffer a similar fate at its embassies.
But lawyers for the Cole victims counter that the U.S. has a firm policy of never accepting such legal service at its embassies and that the U.S. has not had any difficulty enforcing that policy over a period of more than four decades.
Seriously?!? The Trump Admin is arguing to preserve form over substance in instances of process service. Some of the justices recognize as much:
- One justice noted that wanting "to mail something to the head of a department in a foreign country," the jurist's first thought would be to deliver it to the embassy.
- Another remarked that senders of personal mail often sent it to the court headquarters in his state, and the court, in turn, forwarded the letter/parcel.
- Another observed that Everybody understands embassies are the point of contact for anything re: a foreign government.
Trump's newly seated shill, however, observed that he didn't see what was the "big deal" about delivering the letter to Khartoum. Um...
that civil war raged there seems a "big deal" to me.
I suggest he mail a letter there and the next week fly to Khartoum; I wonder which will arrive first, let alone safely.
I wouldn't put much money on him arriving safely, but I'd put none the letter doing so, though I'm sure
the USPS would try to deliver it. (I doubt FedEx or UPS would, but maybe they would....I just don't know.) Lord help the letter if it must at some point transfer to Sudapost,
Sudan's national postal service, an organization that describes as among its objectives, "
recovery of the postal environment in Sudan." (Not "maintaining," "optimizing," "expanding," or any number of things that imply the system is in good shape to begin with and they're trying to make it "world class.")
