I was reading an article about Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics who was fired last week by Trump, because Trump claims the jobs report data she provided were “rigged to make him look bad.”
I was thinking, “Wouldn’t falsifying a report like that be a crime?”, and after looking around a bit, I think it would be.
Can McEntarfer demand to be charged with a crime? She’s being vilified by Trump and his minions, with no way to push back. But if she were actually charged with a crime, Trump would have to put up some actual evidence, not just blather. Of course, we know Trump would never take this route himself, because he never wants his bullshit to be examined in court, so I wonder - could McEntarfer “Demand her day in court”?
No, AFAIK (and IANAL) “demanding” to be charged is a completely performative act that has no legal repercussions.
Hence why it’s a favourite move by people who have actually committed a crime but have not actually been formally charged just accused of it in the media or civil court. “I demand I face my accusers in a criminal court! So I can prove them false once and for all in front of a jury of my peers!”
It is standard for plaintiffs to be deposed in any civil action. The president contends that he’s willing and able to do so, but that counsel needs to be willing to work around his “unique and pressing obligations” that come with his gig in the White House.
So that route would be stalled until after he’s out of office, so it solves nothing.
But with criminal charges, the government, not just Trump, has to put up or shut up.
She could demand to be charged but, as others have pointed out, that would not create any obligation on anyone to charge her.
A better strategy for her might be to say publicly that she is confident that she will not be charged, because the government knows that a prosecution would not succeed, because it is aware that there is no factual basis for the accusation that it has made.
She could have an associate bring private prosecution against her and proceed either with that or hope that public prosecutors (i.e., a DA) take over the case. But private prosecutions are such an obscure thing that it’d be more of a theoretical option.
A private prosecution isn’t going to achieve her (assumed) objective because when the prosecution fails Trump would just say that it was her own associate that brought the prosecution, and that naturally they (deliberately) failed to obtain a conviction.
I accuse myself of making a false accusation against myself, about making an accusation against myself. Or some such better wording of a circular self negating self accusation.
At the federal level, private prosecution has now been effectively abolished. There is no federal common law right to that effect and the federal statutes which permitted it are now limited to civil causes of action.
That article doesn’t claim, and I haven’t found any other source that states, that McEntarfer has done anything criminal. “Rigging” doesn’t mean falsifying, it just means that Trump is upset that she used the statistics in a way that looks bad from his point of view. A new Trump appointee would likely use the same real numbers/stats to make it look good for Trump.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
The question reminds me of a short story by Frederick Forsyth (who wrote The Day of the Jackal, among other thrillers), Privilege, in which a British businessman finds himself libeled in the press, but is told that fighting it in court, if you don’t have deep pockets, is a losing proposition. So, after researching his options, he goes to the townhouse of the writer, rings his doorbell, and promptly punches him in the nose. He then hunts up the local constable and demanded that he be arrested (he’s trying to force a trial). The policeman, upon talking with the bloody-nosed journalist, is unwilling to take any action, especially if the journalist is unwilling to press charges. The businessman reminds the policeman “this isn’t America,” saying that he doesn’t need to have the wronged party press charges. “I have to inform you,” says the businessman, “that if you don’t arrest me, I will do it again.” At that point the policeman pulls out his tablet and starts filling out the forms. “That’s done it,” he says.