[rossdavidh]

In case you wondered what the point of the federal (i.e. states not totally controlled by federal government) system is, here's a good example. If only the federal government were allowed to pursue this case, it would have ended when the administration changed. 30 states chose to keep the case alive, and good on them.

[saaaaaam]

It makes you wonder why the DoJ settled so early. Or, rather, it doesn’t really make you wonder at all. It’s obvious there was a case and they should have let their lawsuit run. I wonder why they didn’t?

[dylan604]

this really seems like a naive question. what about this administration dropping the case seems out of place from the rest of the corruption occurring within it? do you honestly think this administration dropping a case in favor of a powerful business instead of fighting for the consumer as anything other than corrupt?

[saaaaaam]

Sorry, I was being satirical and that doesn’t come through always in text. It’s very obvious why they dropped it because they are corrupt as hell.

[jmcgough]

Bribes, campaign donations, presidential ballrooms. The current administration has settled MANY cases that they'd already won, it's very easy to buy favors now.

[Terr_]

In particular, Live Nation gave $500,000 to Trump's "inauguration fund" [0] and took on a Trump flunkie onto their board of directors. [1]

[0] https://www.citizen.org/news/trumps-corporate-inauguration-d...

[1] https://variety.com/2025/music/news/live-nation-names-richar...

[varispeed]

and sign of law enforcement taking tax payer money and not working.

[cbsmith]

> If only the federal government were allowed to pursue this case, it would have ended when the administration changed.

This is more why DOJ cases should remain independent from the executive branch. Politically controlled prosecutions means justice is intrinsically unequal. Having states be independent is helpful, but not in this regard.

[BrenBarn]

Federalism is a red herring. For every case of "federalism is good because it let the states do this good thing" you can find a case of "federalism is bad because it let the states do this bad thing".

[dragontamer]

On the other hand, I'm not sure a European style tribunal would have been allowed to settle the case early.

Yes. It's good that the states can serve as a check on the Federal level government. But why can the federal level government give up on cases on a national level? Just because a different party was voted in?

[rossdavidh]

No matter what your politics, sooner or later someone you don't agree with will be in charge at the national level.

There are also cases where states take on cases that the national government never pursues in the first case. IIRC, states pursued the tobacco companies when the national government would not (Democrat or Republican).

Of course, it happens in federal courts, so you also need separate and independent branches at the national level. But states that can act independently are important as well.

[dragontamer]

I think you misunderstand.

Courts in Europe are often older than the countries. Indeed, many "countries" of Europe have governments that only existed since the 1920s, or 1940s (depending on which World War wrecked the old system). Nonetheless, court rulings persisted through that period. So there's a string of independence here that's hard to replicate.

Furthermore, prosecutors are part of the court system over there (not part of the executable branch like here in the USA). IIRC: most European countries are Inquisitorial, rather than Adversarial (like USA).

Finally, because European systems have no "two party system", the "rulers" are rarely one party. Its often a coalition of two different parties, maybe even three parties.

----------

The USA's adversarial style of prosecutor vs defendant is extremely unique. Both good and bad. One of the bads is that prosecutors will give up on cases that mismatch with the politicians in charge.

But there's many mechanisms that would have prevented this situation from arising in France or Germany.

[danaris]

The problem is that the Department of Justice is part of the Executive Branch, and due to the burgeoning of the Imperial Presidency over the past several decades, that means that as soon as a new President is voted in, he can order the DoJ to change all their priorities to match his.

Our system doesn't have to be this way, even with the federal/state split; it doesn't even have to be this way with the designation of the DoJ as being within the Executive Branch. It's taken a lot of erosion of norms and flagrant breaking of laws to get to the point the US is at now.