Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Federal Charges Against Trump Dropped
Special Prosecutor Jack Smith is a fine lawyer and an effective prosecutor. He has a string of high profile convictions. However, he discovered, as did the rest of the world, that America has ceased to be a nation of laws (to the extent it ever was one). Now, politics Trump justice and legalities. The right people have always had an easier time of it, but now, they have a free pass. Between the stacked courts and the pardon power Mr. Trump will wield, there is little reason for them to fear anything remotely resembling an indictment. As proof, one cites Mr. Smith's decision yesterday to drop the charges against the president-elect over election interference and the mishandling of classified documents.
Neither of these is small potatoes. Both strike at the heart of the nation and its security in a violent world. Yet at every turn, there was a political answer to a legal question. The president-elect is clearly guilty of all the crimes alleged, and the presumption of innocence should not cloud one's thinking about the facts and the law. Had Mr. Trump a legitimate legal defense, one is confident he and his team would have rolled it out by now. Instead, they claimed immunity or other invented rights that adhere to a president, ex-president and/or candidate for president. And the courts from the Supremes on down have accepted that.
"It has long been the position of the Department of Justice that the United States Constitution forbids the federal indictment and subsequent criminal prosecution of a sitting President," Mr. Smith wrote in a filing in the election case. "This outcome is not based on the merits or strength of the case against the defendant," he added added in the six-page filing.
The judge in the case, Tanya Chutkin, has accepted the motion, and the charges were dismissed "without prejudice." That means that if Mr. Trump lives through his term (he is pushing 80 and has a diet a teenager could not manage day in and day out), these charges could come back. They will not and everyone knows it. The statute of limitations gets into the act, and the judiciary will be so beholden to the incoming man that every judge on the bench will give him a pass on these. If they do not, they will simply be reversed on appeal. One knows how the Supreme Court will vote on any issue: 6-3 for Mr. Trump.
Since Trump won the 2024 presidency, "his criminal problems go away," said former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani. "It's well established that a sitting president can"t be prosecuted." Although untrue (one cannot find a single case that proves it and DoJ guidelines are open to question), this is how it is all getting packaged for the public, whose bovine attention here is waning.
The simple truth is that Mr. Trump will not be held accountable for his actions owing to politics. That is the poison the the system that will eventually bring down what remains of the Republic. That is always a contributing factor to the death of a Republic. Marius violated Roman law, custom and constitution when he was Consul multiple times (six if memory serves). His rival Sulla committed countless crimes for which he never faced justice/ What followed was Gaius Julius Caesar and Augustus.
Republics do not die all at once. The collapse at the end tends to be a surprise, but the rot sets in decades before that happens. Anyone who is paying attention can see it, but the social pressure to ignore it is intense. That change in politics, though is obvious now. One does not rise through a party but one attaches oneself to a political leader and does his bidding. It is feudal politics any nobleman from 1000 years ago would understand instantly. Democratic politics may remain in name and form, but the real substance is medieval.
Avoiding that was the purpose of the system of checks and balances. Those are gone, and there is nothing left to stop the return of the Middle Ages in politics.
© Copyright 2024 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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