The Justice Department would do the same, though I'm sad to say, as a Canadian, that our prosecutors in Canada seem less interested in high-level white collar crime. (Yes, less interested than their American counterparts, believe it or not.)
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon#British_governme...
Willfully violating sanctions is a serious crime.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-07/huawei-s-...
Meng has apparently comitted a serious crime according to US law by exporting US-made tech to Iran.
If this is proven to be true, she's clearly violating the law, and surely knowingly so.
The US unilaterally decided in May this year they want to pull out of that agreement.
The EU is still pushing ahead to have their largest companies trading with Iran despite American protestations. We both know nothing will happen to Daimler or Societe General execs.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-07/huawei-s-...
> Skycom tried to sell 1.3 million euros ($1.7 million) worth of Hewlett-Packard Co. computer gear in late 2010, according to Reuters.
How egregious that may be is up for people to decide themselves. Bail was set at $7m.
Were the escalating tensions not so serious there'd be room here for a joke about Huawei doing the west a favour with such a poor choice of manufacturer.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realpolitik
power and situation dictates how laws, specially from international treaties, are upheld.
It would be naive to believe politics/geopolitics plays no role in the justice system; it would be equally naive to believe rule of law is a sham.
I am an immigrant from a place where the legal code is largely a set of tools and pretexts for the powerful. I can assure you that the rule of law is more than just a phrase thrown around by our politicians.
Before the statement by Trump, I was expecting the extradition request being granted. After the statement by Trump, I am more expecting it to be rejected.
It is an unfortunate circumstance that Canada's implementation of its laws (specifically extradition laws) has run afoul of China's sensitivities and resulted in what seems to be retaliatory behavoiur. However it would be quite devastating if those considerations factored into our implementation of our laws.
Canada should do this by the book, and it seems it will.
Unlike in China, Canadian and American courts are fiercely independent of the executive.
Didn't Trump nominate the supreme court justice? And isn't the nomination confirmed by congress? What about the constant conservative vs democrat number battle in the supreme court?
Also, didn't Trump himself say that he can intervene in Ms. Meng's case?
Edit: Great. Thanks for the downvotes as answers. Now I have a better understanding of how things work in the US.
Judges in general do not oversee or initiate prosecutions, U.S. attorneys do. They're also appointed by the executive, but they operate independently and while, subject to Congressional oversight, he can fire some of them (but not the permanent civil servants who are the bulk of the staff), he cannot directly order them to do anything.
In any case, an investigation of this complexity almost certainly started under Obama, just because they tend to take many years to reach the stage where charges are filed.
Trump frequently claims to have powers that he does not have. He has said many times that he is going to do something only to find that he cannot actually do it, and so it hasn't been done.
Independent, not sovereign [1]. The branches can check each other, but a judge over whom the President has pretty much zero power will decide if Ms. Meng is guilty or not.
For example, one of Trump's nominees recently voted to keep existing case law regarding Planned Parenthood in place [2]. This disappointed conservatives. But there isn't anything the President can do except complain about it.
> didn't Trump himself say that he can intervene in Ms. Meng's case?
Trump says lots of things. His Justice Department can decide whether or not to bring the case. That's prosecutorial discretion, and it's devastatingly powerful. But in the end, if Ms. Meng is to be convicted, an independent judge presiding over a jury must agree with their case.
(It's not all rosy. The U.S. federal conviction rate is over 90% [3]. Better than China's 99.9%, but nothing to phone home about.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_independence
[2] https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2018/12/12/wh...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_rate#United_States
[4] https://qz.com/246696/chinas-criminal-conviction-rate-is-99-...
Side note: You asked an honest question. It's ridiculous you're getting downvoted.
It is easy to make the rate low: prosecute based on mere suspicion, or have the prosecutor be a person who barely graduated from law school.
The big difference is that things do not work on the basis of discretion or chain of command. If the sub mayor of Baoshan District Shanghai tells a police officer to cover up a murder or charge a foreigner with drugs offences because they broke up with the sub mayor’s daughter it will happen. If Trump tries to shut down the Huawei investigation for national security reasons the court could listen to his justifications and say no.
Yes, nominating judges is basically the extent to which the judiciary is not independent, nominated justices are very much expected to act independently and without regards to who nominated them. Some examples of what Trump and Congress cannot do would be removing someone from the court, forcing the court to rule in a certain way, and so on.
> Also, didn't Trump himself say that he can intervene in Ms. Meng's case?
Trump regularly claims to be able to do things he can't in my experience - but yes. Trump can, perhaps, intervene in choosing not to prosecute Ms. Meng for a crime she did in fact commit. That's because how a court case works in the US is two sides argue their case to a judge. The judge is part of the judicial branch, but the side of the case representing the government is the executive branch of the government, which Trump is the head of. Prosecutors (the part of the executive branch that prosecutes people) have discretion towards which crimes they prosecute. With most prosecutions the president actually influencing the use of that power would probably be near impossible (but likely legal), extradition is more political as I understand it so he might actually be able to do so.
What Trump can't do is influence how that judges will react to the prosecution. If Ms. Meng did not commit a crime she will be found innocent (and indeed, if the government can't show that she committed a crime in a public trial with legally gathered evidence beyond a reasonable doubt). If the government can be shown to be knowingly maliciously prosecuting her despite her being innocent the attorney's involved will be sanctioned and she can likely sue the government for significant sums of money.
> What about the constant conservative vs democrat number battle in the supreme court?
This is basically entirely an unrelated internal politics thing. The US constitution is a rather vague document really, and as such there are some different interpretations. One party would prefer one set, another party would prefer another set, and they both try and nominate supreme court justices that will agree with their set. This has to do with things like "does the second amendment protect carrying handguns or just owning them". A "democratic" justice isn't going to be ruling on things because one side of a case is a democratic or anything like that.
I am not from the US but another democratic country. So I think I can provide an answer.
Being nominated(in democracies) doesn't imply that they've to play by the nominator's rules. In democracies, all branches of the Government have to work by the constitution(unlike in China where they are answerable to the Party). For example, in India, the judge of the Supreme Court is appointed by the President(head of the executive) who is essentially just a figurehead for the legislature(or the Parliament). So, indirectly the legislature nominates the Supreme court judge but Supreme court occasionally strikes down laws that it finds unconstitutional.
> Also, didn't Trump himself say that he can intervene in Ms. Meng's case?
Not sure about this but the executive/legislature often has powers to overturn the Supreme court's decisions. In India, the legislature often passes laws that by bypass/overturn Supreme court's decisions. In the case of the US, I think the President can do this as the US is essentially a Presidential form of government.
He nominates judges, and the legislature (which is its own branch) decides if they agree with his picks (by voting in the senate).
Similarly, he nominates people to oversee each division in the executive branch, and the senate confirms those people also. The people he nominates are in charge of their division. He can't go to the DOJ and demand they drop cases... that's a crime called obstruction of justice.
Constitutional cases are heard by the supreme court (but Meng's case isn't one of those).. but if the president does not like their decision, he can't do anything himself about it. There are only two ways to change the constitution: by getting 2/3rds of the 50 states to agree to the change (very hard, long process that usually takes much longer than the president's term.. rarely attempted); or by nominating judges to the supreme court who favor a different interpretation.
On the second part, there are a few road blocks too: whoever he picks must be confirmed by the senate. Once they are confirmed, it's a lifetime appointment. So if you look at the current court, you can see the current judges were nominated by 5 different presidents over 30 years. Since he needs to wait for one of these judges to retire, the president's picks will always be a minority on the court. He has no way of knowing when or if someone will retire. He'll only get a couple of chances to nominate a judge during his term (presidents serve max 2 terms of 4 years).
The legislature and president can change laws (sometimes those changes are the result of court decisions), but they don't change the court's decisions. Just their future decisions. Also laws can't override the constitution. And there are limits to the laws they can pass.. they can't for example make things illegal retroactively.
Also, I should add, the president can be imprisoned for violating the law. If he obstructs justice, he can impeached by the legislature and removed from office. He can then be prosecuted for the crimes he's committed. It's very unlikely though, because in the past, the vice president (who replaces the president after he's removed) can pardon the president for his crimes.
US is indeed a presidential system.
There's deliberately limited legal ability for the legislature or the executive to influence or impose penalties on a serving judge, and the rule of law means that the president can't apply extra-legal pressure either. A judge could removed from office for really extreme or criminal behaviour, but that's considered extraordinary.
Day-to-day, judges can rule against governments and politicians without any fear of reprisals. The selection process just weeds out people who are likely to frequently make such rulings.
I'm an American, but I have a Chinese friend who liked the 近距离看美国 series of books by 林达 as an explanation of the American system for a Chinese audience.