Is Lady Justice still blind?
Read part 2 here
I must confess that I have never penned a column with a heavier heart. My beloved country, the United States of America, is in trouble.
We are in the early stages of what I strongly suspect will be a presidential campaign unlike any other in American history. The overruling Republican frontrunner at present is Donald Trump, a former president (2017-2021) who is now under multiple indictments by the Federal Justice Department which is under the authority of his most like opponent, President Joe Biden.
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The prospect of a national party’s candidate for president campaigning while juggling court dates is so bizarre that I suspect even a cocaine-addicted Hollywood director (if he were not on strike) would reject it as implausible. Nevertheless, it is happening.
The idea that the candidate’s general election opponent is likely to be the president who has directed the Justice Department to indict him would make the plot even more bizarre. Nevertheless, it is happening.
When you add to the mix that the current Democrat candidate (Joe Biden) is now laboring under the looming shadow of what gives every indication as “shaping up to be one of the greatest corruption scandals in the history of Washington and that is saying a lot” (Jonathan Turley, a non-Trumpister). Nevertheless, it’s happening.
Then you add the fact that President Biden gives every indication of throwing as many charges as he possibly can at his purported opponent in order to overshadow the skeletons in his own closet and you have a truly toxic brew adding to the implausibility of the plot. Nevertheless, it is happening.
Former Democrat Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (2013-2021) and former presidential candidate (2020) stated it candidly:
A death rattle of any democracy is when a sitting president uses the state security apparatus to go after political opponents and cover up lies and crimes committed by himself or his family. Biden is doing that now. His actions make it clear he believes himself to be not the enforcer of the law but the exception to it.
Why would former Representative Gabbard come to this conclusion?
On June 7, 2021, under significant congressional pressure, the FBI released documents alleging that the Bidens took a $10 million bribe from Burisma.
On June 8, Special Counsel Jack Smith indicted former President Trump in the Mar-a-Lago documents case.
On July 26, Hunter Biden goes to court and rejects the sweetest of sweetheart plea deals after the presiding judge discovered a paragraph that would have given him blanket immunity from future prosecutions.
On July 27, Special Council Smith added more charges to the Mar-a-Lago indictment.
On July 31, Hunter Biden’s former business partner testified before Congress that President Biden participated on over 20 phone calls with Hunter Biden’s business partners and that Burisma business executives pressured them to fire the prosecutor (an accomplishment Biden is on film bragging about having accomplished).
On Aug. 1, Smith indicted Trump for the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol and claimed Trump didn't really believe he won the 2020 election.
It seems clear to me that Gabbard has a point. I find myself asking the question, “Just how gullible do the Bidens think the American people are?”
Perhaps the most ominous development in this federal government's departure from the rule of law is the latest indictment against former President Trump. As George Washington University Law School professor and First Amendment scholar Jonathan Turley put it, “This is a free speech-killing indictment. ... I have rarely seen a more chilling thing by the Department of Justice ... what they are attempting to do is criminalize what they consider to be disinformation.”
As Trump's attorney John Lauro described it, former President Trump is being criminalized for questioning whether the 2020 election was conducted in a proper manner. Mr. Lauro declared: “We’re going to be representing not just President Trump, but every single American that believes in the First Amendment and believes in your ability to redress and bring grievance to Congress.”
Even allowing for the fact that Mr. Lauro is Trump’s defense attorney and thus far from impartial, he has a very valid point. Why would Jonathan Turley label this indictment “a free-speech killing indictment?” One need only examine the indictment itself to answer that question.
The indictment hinges on the assertion that then-President Trump knew he did not win the 2020 election and thus “knowingly” conspired to overrule the 2020 election. I know many people told President Trump that he did indeed lose the election. However, other people, including attorneys, told him otherwise.
If indeed Trump did think he actually lost the election, how would you prove it? You have to prove state of mind and intent. I have no trouble personally believing that former President Trump still believes he actually won the 2020 election, just as Hillary Clinton still argues that she won the 2016 election. Are we going to “criminalize” opinions with which the government disagrees? Are we going to start indicting attorneys for giving legal advice with which the current government disagrees? If we are, we are trampling the First Amendment free speech guarantees into sawdust.
We are treading on truly dangerous ground. As Allen Dershowitz, distinguished Harvard law professor (and non-Trump supporter) so admirably summarized it: “The standards of morality and ethics have gone so low in America today for so many people, especially on both sides of the political spectrum, and the excuse they all have is, well, they did it first. Two wrongs do make a right. The victim is Americans who want to have a system of due process in place, and equal application of the law. We’re very far from that today."
I am fearful that professor Dershowitz is unfortunately correct. We have unequal application of the law and Hunter Biden is the poster child for that argument. When I hear “no one is above the law,” usually referring to indictments of President Trump, I want to respond, “True, but no one is below the law either!”
The Biden Justice Department’s “jihad” against a former president and current presidential candidate gives every appearance of being an attempt at political "knee-capping” in the name of justice. By the way, why wait 31 months before this last indictment if it was not intended to distract from Biden’s scandals and to disrupt the 2024 election?
As Americans, we are witnessing the deep-rending of the American political and social fabric and we are, or soon will be, discovering that the social fabric of a nation is far, far easier to rend than it is to mend. We are playing with fire here. It must stop. And only we the people can stop it. The hour is late.
Lady Justice is no longer blind. In fact, she is completely disrobed and exposed and she is no lady.
We must all covenant together to listen to “the better angels of our nature,” and resist the temptation for retaliation.
If we do not, we can indeed lose this remarkable republic of the rule of law which is our priceless collective heritage. If that happens we will only have ourselves to blame. Let us pray that America does not perish from self-inflicted wounds.
