4th Trump Indictment is as Legally Weak and Contrived as the First 3
These latest indictments ignore ironclad constitutional protections including the freedom to speak, to engage in political activity, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances that are unquestionably protected by the First Amendment
There were others indicted this past week in Georgia—several of them attorneys who have represented Pres. Trump—but because all of this is about politically destroying Trump, his case is the one I’m going to focus on.
I would preface my analysis by suggesting that by indicting these other individuals, the prosecution is likely “chilling” them … making them very reluctant to be available as witnesses for Pres. Trump in his defense case. The reason being that a witness who has been indicted themselves would be worrying about being cross-examined by a prosecutor in Trump’s case and possibly damaging the indicted person’s own criminal case.
Such a move by the prosecution is not unprecedented but it adds to the highly politicized nature of what many are already calling a “show trial.” (I’ll leave for another day how such a tactic is not “obstruction of justice” and/or “tampering with witnesses” by the prosecution because you could argue that it is).
The statute being used here is Georgia’s RICO law which generally mirrors the federal RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) statute which was originally created to catch Mafia bosses but has often been twisted by prosecutors into a legal “hammer,” and used to charge multiple, often-attenuated criminal offenses. A RICO case requires a “shared enterprise”—like a business—and the combination of, for example, an attorney and his client has never been legally construed as an “enterprise,” nor is there an easily identifiable group here allegedly participating in one.
As I’ve noted before, the power to indict is an enormous one that should be exercised with great care and prudence lest citizens lose faith in their legal system.
That is why a legally weak and politically motivated indictment is poisonous to the core of a functioning democracy, not least because the mere bringing of the indictment—the mere casting of the stone alone—does great damage to an individual’s reputation whether the stone hits its target or not. Harm, almost always irreparably, is done.
Using the power of government to eliminate political opponents is what happens in dictatorships. It’s what happens in places like China, N. Korea and Iran and banana republics like Venezuela where the strongman in power uses the military to crush his political opposition.
It’s not supposed to happen in America, but it is happening here.
This 4th Trump indictment is nothing but Biden forces trying to destroy their chief rival for the presidency, and they have formally weaponized the courts and the government to do it.
President Trump is entitled to the same constitutional rights every other American is. It is regrettable that (liberal) professor Alan Dershowitz must constantly be forced to reassert this point to the screaming hordes who—if their own life or liberty were threatened with a criminal charge— would not hesitate to avail themselves of these constitutional protections.
In closing, it’s hard to better summarize the case than Trump has done himself:
“The legal double-standard set against President Trump must end. Under the Crooked Biden Cartel, there are no rules for Democrats, while Republicans face criminal charges for exercising their First Amendment rights. These activities by Democrat leaders constitute a grave threat to American democracy and are direct attempts to deprive the American people of their rightful choice to cast their vote for President. Call it election interference or election manipulation—it is a dangerous effort by the ruling class to suppress the choice of the people. It is un-American and wrong. They are taking away President Trump’s First Amendment right to free speech, and the right to challenge a rigged and stolen election that the Democrats do all the time. The ones who should be prosecuted are the ones who created the corruption.”
We simply must not go down this road in which we are criminalizing politics. I say with a sense of sadness for our country that turnabout is fair play and now that this Pandora’s box of “presidential persecution” has been opened it won’t go unanswered. Democrat presidents and other Democrat politicians can anticipate an equally scorched earth approach to their politics by Republican prosecutors.
The greatest casualty, of course, is our country’s faith in our legal system.
