Is this episode of No, The Above Headline Isn't From the Satire Site, The Babylon Bee...
But man, this story sure reads like it's from The Bee.
Anyway, the left-wing outlet The New Republic dropped an op-ed on Friday under the headline: "We Have to Beat Donald Trump. Clearly, the Broken Legal System Won’t." The equally ironic subhead reads: "How the law warps and harms our democracy."
So here's the thing — and I suspect some of you are already thinking what I'm thinking: Every word of the headline and subhead would be true if instead of "Trump," the headline said "Biden."
From beginning to end, the op-ed drips with hypocritical irony. Let's look at a couple of examples.
After first whining about Judge Scott McAfee's ruling that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis can stay on the case against Donald Trump, provided that Nathan Wade, the prosecutor with whom she had (has?) a relationship, withdrew — and that Willis has damaged herself by her "colossally terrible judgment that it probably would have been better if she were out of the picture," the op-ed then inexplicably turns to the "broken" U.S. justice system — and former President Trump.
Meanwhile, Thursday, down in Florida, we saw Trumpy Judge Aileen Cannon issue yet another ruling in the classified documents case that helps Trump. She didn’t support Trump’s lawyers’ motion to dismiss the case, but she kicked the can down the road in a way that’s very helpful to Trump.
MSNBC analyst Andrew Weissmann even called it the “worst possible outcome” for the government. “If the judge had simply said, ‘I agree with Donald Trump, and I find that this is vague, and I’m dismissing it,’ the government could have appealed it to the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, as they have done twice before and won twice before,” Weissmann said. “But she also did not want to rule in favor of the government. So what she did say is, ‘Why don’t you bring this up later? I think there’s some real issues here.’”
Hold the bus.
Judge Cannon could very well have believed the indictments against Trump were vague — but not to the point of dismissing the case, which The New Republic and Mr. Weissman would've been happy at this point because, as the MSNBC analyst said, the government could have appealed the case to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
Instead, the judge's decision leaves open the possibility that the prosecutors could refile (or "supersede") the indictment, adding more specificity about exactly which duties of office were implicated — i.e., how the performance of those particular duties is reflected by the terms of the various oaths of office public officials take.
My only point: Facts matter.
And here's another fact, and the most important fact of all:
The New Republic and the MSNBC analyst "forgot" to mention that at least Trump was indicted on charges of willfully retaining classified documents after he left office. At the same time, Special Counsel Robert Hur found cause that Joe Biden willfully retained classified documents — but refused to indict the president because Hur also found Biden to be “a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” whom a jury would find it hard to convict.
So, please tell us again about this country's "broken" legal justice system. Oh, google "two-tier justice system," and there it is.
The New Republic then fired a broadside against the Stormy Daniels hush-money case against Trump, claiming that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg "shocked us all" by asking for a 30-day delay in the trial, which was scheduled to start March 25. Trump’s lawyers had requested a 90-day delay — and Bragg conceded that some delay was appropriate.
The leftists at The New Republic were not happy campers.
Why? It looks like it’s the fault of federal prosecutors. Bragg’s office requested certain documents a while ago from the Southern District of New York, and it shared them with Trump’s lawyers during the discovery process. Trump’s lawyers suspected there was more, especially relating to Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, so they subpoenaed the SDNY. That happened in January. It was only earlier this month that the Southern District turned over all the documents.
Bragg’s filing to the court on Thursday included this fascinating sentence, a clear swipe at the SDNY (in this sentence, “the People” equals Bragg’s office): “Based on our initial review of yesterday’s production, those records appear to contain materials related to the subject matter of this case, including materials that the People requested from the USAO more than a year ago and that the USAO previously declined to provide.”
It's more than fair to ask," the op-ed reads: "Why did the Southern District take so long to produce these documents? Did Merrick Garland know his prosecutors were taking so long to hand over documents and thus playing into Trump’s hands? And if he knew, did he do anything about it?
Far be it from me to understand the mind of Attorney General Merrick Garland but I'm sure he would rather walk barefoot over burning coals than intentionally do anything that would play into Trump's hand.
The op-ed went on to moan about the criminal January 6 "insurrection" nonsense against Trump. Frankly, I'm over it.
Finally, this was The New Republic's conclusion about the U.S. judicial system:
The American legal system doesn’t uphold the values of democratic rule like equality. It far more often corrupts and perverts them. Rich people like Trump twist the system into a pretzel and win delay after delay after delay. Corporations pay fines, usually not that large when considered against their bottom line, and they admit no wrongdoing, even after their practices have killed people. Poor people, meanwhile, get pushed around by the system constantly.
There is no such thing in this country as equality before the law, and everyone knows it. And I would argue that this legal inequality does more damage to democracy than all the political inequities for the simple reason that they’re more visible.
And they’ve never been more visible than they are now with Trump. If he is able to push all these cases back past November, or at least three of them (the Bragg case should proceed this summer), and then especially if he wins the White House and pardons himself, that will constitute the biggest failure of the rule of law in the history of the country.
Translation: Stage 4 Trump Derangement Syndrome.
The Bottom Line:
Meanwhile, Hunter, Joe, and Jim Biden continue to lie like rugs — and get caught — about the Biden Family Business and foreign influence peddling for millions of dollars, yet not a single indictment has been issued against any of the three.
Yes, America's legal system is broken — just not in the way that The New Republic absurdly claims.
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