The Espionage Act? Is that being used in good faith? Was it ever? It was used by Woodrow Wilson to jail anti-war protesters. Are they going to dredge up sodomy and blue laws to prosecute him, too?
We can haggle over the legal arguments in favor or against protecting Trump for his handling of comments under the purview of the National Archives, but it's a stretch to say that he was hiding anything here, and it misses the more important issue, which is the selective and unequal application of the law.
Putting aside the Foreign Agent and money laundering aspects, the DoJ has been sitting on solid evidence that Hunter Biden lied on his firearms background check application for years, a crime for which people have been sent to jail, and in the current hysteria over "national background checks," ought to count for something.
Overshadowed by the indictment news, we learned yesterday also that the FBI has been giving the whistleblower's 1023 a good leaving-alone. That testimony accuses a sitting VP, now a sitting President, of taking bribes to influence foreign affairs and American investments in foreign countries. Yet our high-minded legal eagles don't seem very curious about it.
I think we know now why Rudy Giuliani and Trump were so viciously attacked when they started sniffing into Biden's activities in Ukraine. While they have been prosecuted, Biden has been writing blank checks to the government in Ukraine.
As for differentiating the Biden's handling of documents, do you think it's possible that the existence of the Biden document troves was leaked and investigated so that Biden could "willingly" disclose and turn them over, specifically to differentiate his "handling" of them from Trump's, and thus create a legal rationale for Smith to proceed in his prosecution of Trump? But that would be unethical and would require collusion between the White House and the Special Prosecutor. Well - yeah!
Given the behavior of the FBI and the DoJ since 2015 (deceiving the FISA court with phony evidence to establish a pretext for spying on the Trump campaign and prosecuting his advisers on process crimes, etc.), I think it's highly likely.
Why on earth should we believe anything that comes out of the DoJ on face value, let alone a presumption of good faith, any more than we do for the NIH and other federal agencies that have been discredited by the political activists who pose as civil servants?
How many times must we witness the DoJ and the FBI abuse their power before we ignore their shenanigans turn our full attention to THEM?
It's not enough to call this Banana Republic stuff. People like bananas. They like republics. They are good things. What they refer to in the popular cliche are the military juntas that ruled Latin American countries for decades. Corrupt dictatorships. One-party rule.
What is happening with the criminalization of our politics, of which this indictment a part, is not just a legal issue.
There are conservatives today who have fingers crossed behind their backs, hoping that while this may be over-the-top, it will rid us of Trump and allow this-or-that republican to break through the primary jam. They are naively thinking this sort of abuse is limited in its application to their political enemies. History shows us that once a government goes down this road, it does not turn back without blood being shed.
Outside of DC and the political salon, something else is going on. The clear pattern is that these prosecutions strengthen Trump's persona. They are making him into a righteous Outlaw fighting an unjust system. I've watched enough old and modern variations of this popular film genre to know which side the crowd cheers for.
We have the indictment now, and it's more substantial than I thought it would be, though the only real things that don't appear to be process crimes are the claims Trump disclosed a highly classified military document and map. We won't know until the facts are further developed, but from what I've seen of the video of the president showing a document relating to military plans, it appears likely Trump just explained what was in the document, and didn't actually give it to another for review. The same is likely true concerning the map, for the indictment itself says Trump said the person with whom he was talking shouldn't get too close to the map, and in any event the map probably just shows visually what has been already disclosed. If I'm right on this, the question is whether it would be a crime if a former president disclosed this info from memory without possession of a document. My guess, and that's all it is, is that former presidents are in a class by themselves when it comes to disclosing information from memory. Lots of presidents have written memoirs. I can't see Dwight Eisenhower, five star general, Supreme Commander of Allied Expeditionary Forces, charter commander of NATO forces, two-term president of the United States, running his memoir by a pre-publication censor or going to the slammer for speaking out of school.
As for nobody being above the law, the left lives above the law. Hillary Clinton is above the law. Based on the scope of the Hunter Biden investigation, it appears Hunter is at least partly above the law, It seems likely Joe Biden is above the law. The "dreamers" are above the law, The illegal immigrants flooding the southern border with no real attempt to stop them are above the law. By efforts to put 11 million illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship, the left wants to put them above the law. The vandals during the 2020 summer of rage are largely above the law. Classes of criminals woke prosecutors refuse to prosecute are above the law. I could go on. Jim Dueholm
Good faith? You are far too charitable, Paul.
The Espionage Act? Is that being used in good faith? Was it ever? It was used by Woodrow Wilson to jail anti-war protesters. Are they going to dredge up sodomy and blue laws to prosecute him, too?
We can haggle over the legal arguments in favor or against protecting Trump for his handling of comments under the purview of the National Archives, but it's a stretch to say that he was hiding anything here, and it misses the more important issue, which is the selective and unequal application of the law.
Putting aside the Foreign Agent and money laundering aspects, the DoJ has been sitting on solid evidence that Hunter Biden lied on his firearms background check application for years, a crime for which people have been sent to jail, and in the current hysteria over "national background checks," ought to count for something.
Overshadowed by the indictment news, we learned yesterday also that the FBI has been giving the whistleblower's 1023 a good leaving-alone. That testimony accuses a sitting VP, now a sitting President, of taking bribes to influence foreign affairs and American investments in foreign countries. Yet our high-minded legal eagles don't seem very curious about it.
I think we know now why Rudy Giuliani and Trump were so viciously attacked when they started sniffing into Biden's activities in Ukraine. While they have been prosecuted, Biden has been writing blank checks to the government in Ukraine.
As for differentiating the Biden's handling of documents, do you think it's possible that the existence of the Biden document troves was leaked and investigated so that Biden could "willingly" disclose and turn them over, specifically to differentiate his "handling" of them from Trump's, and thus create a legal rationale for Smith to proceed in his prosecution of Trump? But that would be unethical and would require collusion between the White House and the Special Prosecutor. Well - yeah!
Given the behavior of the FBI and the DoJ since 2015 (deceiving the FISA court with phony evidence to establish a pretext for spying on the Trump campaign and prosecuting his advisers on process crimes, etc.), I think it's highly likely.
Why on earth should we believe anything that comes out of the DoJ on face value, let alone a presumption of good faith, any more than we do for the NIH and other federal agencies that have been discredited by the political activists who pose as civil servants?
How many times must we witness the DoJ and the FBI abuse their power before we ignore their shenanigans turn our full attention to THEM?
It's not enough to call this Banana Republic stuff. People like bananas. They like republics. They are good things. What they refer to in the popular cliche are the military juntas that ruled Latin American countries for decades. Corrupt dictatorships. One-party rule.
What is happening with the criminalization of our politics, of which this indictment a part, is not just a legal issue.
There are conservatives today who have fingers crossed behind their backs, hoping that while this may be over-the-top, it will rid us of Trump and allow this-or-that republican to break through the primary jam. They are naively thinking this sort of abuse is limited in its application to their political enemies. History shows us that once a government goes down this road, it does not turn back without blood being shed.
Outside of DC and the political salon, something else is going on. The clear pattern is that these prosecutions strengthen Trump's persona. They are making him into a righteous Outlaw fighting an unjust system. I've watched enough old and modern variations of this popular film genre to know which side the crowd cheers for.
We have the indictment now, and it's more substantial than I thought it would be, though the only real things that don't appear to be process crimes are the claims Trump disclosed a highly classified military document and map. We won't know until the facts are further developed, but from what I've seen of the video of the president showing a document relating to military plans, it appears likely Trump just explained what was in the document, and didn't actually give it to another for review. The same is likely true concerning the map, for the indictment itself says Trump said the person with whom he was talking shouldn't get too close to the map, and in any event the map probably just shows visually what has been already disclosed. If I'm right on this, the question is whether it would be a crime if a former president disclosed this info from memory without possession of a document. My guess, and that's all it is, is that former presidents are in a class by themselves when it comes to disclosing information from memory. Lots of presidents have written memoirs. I can't see Dwight Eisenhower, five star general, Supreme Commander of Allied Expeditionary Forces, charter commander of NATO forces, two-term president of the United States, running his memoir by a pre-publication censor or going to the slammer for speaking out of school.
As for nobody being above the law, the left lives above the law. Hillary Clinton is above the law. Based on the scope of the Hunter Biden investigation, it appears Hunter is at least partly above the law, It seems likely Joe Biden is above the law. The "dreamers" are above the law, The illegal immigrants flooding the southern border with no real attempt to stop them are above the law. By efforts to put 11 million illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship, the left wants to put them above the law. The vandals during the 2020 summer of rage are largely above the law. Classes of criminals woke prosecutors refuse to prosecute are above the law. I could go on. Jim Dueholm