As dawn breaks over America, all eyes are now firmly glued to newscasts, social media, and newspapers as the headlines all read “TRUMP INDICTED.” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has gotten a grand jury to vote to indict former president Donald Trump. At this time, we do not know what the charges are. All we have are reports from sources that leaked to media outlets.
Trump is expected to turn himself in on Tuesday, and we will undoubtedly find out what the charges are at that time. In the meantime, that gives the 2024 candidate plenty of time to rake in more money in donations.
Which, in and of itself, should be a big problem. Justice is supposed to be blind, and leaking incoming indictments to stir up media headlines gives away the game here: They were always going to indict Trump, it was just a matter of finding the right charge or charges.
No one is above the law, presidents and ex-presidents included. If Trump committed a crime, he should have to answer for it. But do not think for a moment that this is really about justice. To pursue Trump on the case of paying off a porn star – with a known liar as your star witness, no less – when every law enforcement agency previously walked away from that investigation isn’t justice. It’s a vendetta.
And when I say “every law enforcement agency,” I include the Manhattan DA’s office in that. It wasn’t until progressives began raising their voices at Bragg that the office decided to reverse course on that.
After the 2008 presidential primary, Democratic candidate John Edwards faced six counts for similar allegations. He was alleged to be violating federal election law and campaign finance rules to pay people off over an extramarital affair. Ultimately, the case ended with a not guilty on one count and a mistrial on the remaining five. At the time, Michael Steele and Joe Scarborough called the proceedings “an absolute waste of resources.”
“This is an absolute waste of resources right now. The man has gone through a huge public humiliation,” said Steele, the former Republican National Committee chairman.
“Let him gather himself, pay whatever fines he needs to pay and then let him go back to his family and heal,” Steele said.
[…]
“Is there anybody who disagrees with me that John Edwards’s family has suffered enough and that this is a waste of precious resources by the Justice Department?” Scarborough asked.
You will note Scarborough and Steele have no such sentiments regarding Trump’s current predicament.
But the investigation against Trump is even less tenuous than the case against Edwards. It is based on the testimony of a convicted, serial liar and is only tangentially about campaign finance. The investigation is instead centered around falsified business records – a state-level crime – and uses campaign finance as the tool to have accomplished that. However, he was never charged with campaign finance violations, which are federal-level crimes. It seems legally difficult to prove him guilty on one charge if it’s based on other crimes he has never been charged with, much less convicted of.
This is weaponized, dumb justice at its worst. This is vendetta politics, using the legal system as a way to take out a political opponent, and it’s going to backfire. This will end with egg on Bragg’s face and progressives sputtering with rage that they have once again failed to convict the Extremely Evil and Bad and Evil Orange Man.
This is the first time an ex-president has been charged with a crime after leaving office. It is unprecedented, legally weak, and a sign that the left cares more about using the legal system to harass and arrest political opponents than it does about actual justice. This is exactly the type of weaponization of the legal system that conservatives have been warning about, and we’re seeing it come to pass right now.
It Won’t Stop Here
And keep in mind, it doesn’t stop with Trump. Being able to convince a progressive DA that these (most likely) weak charges are worth pursuing to go after a political opponent means the left will be incentivized to continue doing it. If they can come for a former president actively campaigning for the White House, they can come for us, and they can come for you.
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