Trump at Bay

The Political Prosecution of Donald Trump Advances Tyranny in America.

Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash

“Lock her up!  Lock her up!”  That’s one of many things, along with “Build that wall!,” that supporters of Donald Trump chanted during his rallies back in 2016 before he was elected forty-fifth president of the United States.  Why did they think that Hillary Clinton should be locked up?  Because she had been, according to James Comey, the Director of the FBI under Barack Obama, extremely careless in handling classified materials by storing them on an insecure email server at her home where hostile foreign intelligence services could and almost certainly did read them.   At the time Comey, usurping the authority of the Attorney General, announced that “no reasonable prosecutor” would pursue charges under the Espionage Act against the former secretary of state.  Ironically, these are virtually the same charges that now former president Trump is facing in a federal trial in Florida.  Scores of millions of Americans recognize this for what it is:  unequal application of the law.

Much to everyone’s surprise, in 2016, Donald Trump defeated Mrs. Clinton and was inaugurated president in January of 2017.  President Trump had all the authority he needed to investigate, prosecute, and if she was convicted, to lock her up.  But he quietly let the opportunity slip away.  He neglected to prosecute her for the same reason that President Gerald Ford pardoned former President Nixon:  he didn’t believe it would be good for the country.  Trump was right.  Joe Biden has never had such good judgement, or been willing to place the good of the nation above his own personal interests. 

When asked yesterday by reporters to respond to Trump’s claim that he was a “political prisoner,” Biden just smirked.  His gloating smile said it all.  He’d gotten his man.

Beginning in 2017 President Trump had the power to use the legal system to destroy his erstwhile opponent, but he refused to make use of it.  In making that decision, he  was following a path pioneered over two hundred years ago when then President John Adams and his Federalist Party agreed to the peaceful transfer of power to Thomas Jefferson and his Republican party in a compromise that saved the republic and avoided a potential civil war.  It was the beginning of political toleration in America, without which no republic can function.  The whole idea was that, as the two parties inevitably alternated power, those who currently held power would agree not use their authority to crush those who are temporarily out of power.  Absent such assurances, neither party once in power would voluntarily give it up.   It is one of the fundamental rules of democratic politics.  The compromise held for sixty years until the election of the Republican Abraham Lincoln, caused eleven states led by Democrats who feared for the safety of slavery, to secede from the union, precipitating what is still by far, the bloodiest war in American history.

Once again, over 160 years later, we are nearing the breaking point.  The Democratic party, regarding Republicans as illegitimate, has proven itself unwilling to tolerate rule for four years by the GOP.  Beginning in 2016, Democrats throughout government and society waged an all-out bureaucratic and public relations struggle to sabotage the sitting administration.  It abused the legal system and the rule of law to cripple its ability to govern. 

 President Trump was unaware as he took office in 2017 that Mrs. Clinton, using a series of cutouts associated with the Democratic Party which she then controlled while she ran for president, had paid a foreign agent to concoct a phony dossier on the president alleging that he had been compromised by Russian intelligence.  She had solicited and paid for foreign interference in an American presidential election.  In an incredible irony, she concealed her payments  for the Steele dossier  as “legal services,” and “legal and compliance consulting” on her financial records, the same infraction for which President Trump was just convicted in New York!  In short, Hillary “falsified business records” while colluding with a foreign national to damage her political rival.  While Trump might have covered up a dalliance with a porn star to allegedly prevent damage to his electoral campaign, Hillary covered up payments to a foreign agent for his assistance in influencing an election.  Trump faces,  years in prison.   She, and the DNC were fined $100,000, a mere slap on the wrist, by the Federal Election Commission for a much greater offense.  Double standard?

The so-called Steele dossier which she acquired, was disseminated throughout the entire American intelligence complex and mainstream media by the Obama Administration, with the knowledge of outgoing Vice-President Joe Biden.  It became the basis for over two years of unremitting bureaucratic political warfare against the new president and his administration.  In the process Democrat loyalists within the foreign policy bureaucracy suborned the FBI, the CIA, the FISA court, and other intelligence agencies into using powers granted them to fight the misbegotten “War on Terror,” to illegally spy on the Trump campaign and subsequently on American citizens exercising their rights under the Bill of Rights.  Once Democrats regained power in 2021, they continued to abuse the criminal justice system to persecute President Trump, and his allies, in a relentless effort to prevent his reacquisition of power.

The administration of Joe Biden has abused both the federal and state legal systems controlled by corrupt local authorities in Democratic political strongholds such as Washington D.C., Manhattan, and Fulton County Georgia, to persecute, bankrupt, and jail its political opponents such as President Trump and his advisor Peter Navarro, in ways never employed before in the history of the United States. Having secured a conviction of President Trump in a trial that respected Democrat legal experts such as Alan Dershowitz and Jonathan Turley have described as disgraceful,  local authorities may seek to imprison the former president.  Regardless of what sentence they seek to impose, all the proceedings against President Trump are utterly unprecedented in American history.

Where this will lead is unclear.  The New York case will certainly be appealed and probably overturned, but that might not happen until after the election.  By that time the intended damage will have been done.  In the meantime, given the gravity of the issues involved and the impending election, the Supreme Court of the United States may step in to resolve some of the outstanding issues.  In the interim, three additional cases will remain unresolved prior to the election. 

Meanwhile, many Republican leaders and attorneys such as U.C. Berkeley law professor John Yoo contend that the neither the nation nor the GOP can simply sit back and rely on the appellate courts and SCOTUS to save the equal application of the law.  Democrats they argue, having tasted blood, will not relent unless they too feel the sting of political persecution at the hands of weaponized district attorneys and attorneys general in red states.  The political commentator and news anchor Megyn Kelley points out that many Democrats are potentially vulnerable to legitimate prosecution.  Among these are such previously untouchable figures as Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, James Comey, and even Barack Obama.  In short, the only way they argue, to prevent the further partisan weaponization of political “lawfare” is to employ it in retaliatory fashion.  Tit for tat. Unfortunately, they may be right.

One thing that is clear is that the American people are becoming thoroughly disenchanted with the legal onslaught leveled against President Trump.  In a period of fewer than six hours after the announcement of the verdict, ordinary Americans from across the country have made some thirty-five million dollars in so-called “small dollar” donations to the Trump campaign and fifty-two million within 24 hours.  Furthermore, a “snap poll,” indicated a spike in support for Mr. Trump.  In short, it seems as though the “lawfare” campaign against Mr. Trump is  backfiring against the Biden campaign.

  Meanwhile, throughout right-wing social media, there appears to be an explosion of anger and disbelief that such a thing could happen in this country.  It’s hard to imagine that any could be surprised by these developments as they have unfolded, but apparently millions of Americans have simply not been paying close attention to the left’s “weaponization” of the justice system during the last several years.   In any case, many are voicing the opinion that the conviction of Donald Trump has “awakened a sleeping giant.”  If so, Joe Biden and his “brains-trust,” to revive a term from the days of FDR, may rue the day that they chose to shatter the two-hundred-twenty-five-year tradition of political toleration and equal application of the law, upon which republican government depends.

Joe Biden’s Administration has unquestionably been among the worst in American history.  His foreign policies have been partially responsible for the outbreak of two major wars abroad, one that he quietly encouraged in Europe, and another that he failed to deter in the Middle East.   Meanwhile at home, his policy of prosecution of his political rivals shatters the rule of law and the preservation of the democracy that he loudly pretends to defend.

Ironically, given the demonization of Donald Trump by Democrats who pretend that he is a threat to democracy, the reelection of Mr. Trump, even if from behind bars, is the last chance the American people have to preserve their liberties and the republic. The reelection of Joe Biden will signal the nation’s continued fall into despotism. It is unthinkable. Perhaps the American people are awakening from their slumber in the nick of time.