By Rob Meyne
- June 10, 2023
- 5-min read
One of the most important, and tragic, events in American history occurred this week: the indictment of a former president on federal charges. This is unprecedented. Whatever you may think of former President Donald Trump, it says as much about the forces determined to stop him as it does about Trump himself. In no sense is this a good thing for the country.
It is easier to make decisions on most issues based on emotion and your own biases (factually based or not) than to make them based on facts and objectivity. This is such a case.
While we like to say we are a nation of laws, most decisions regarding who to prosecute involve an overwhelming amount of subjectivity. If you believe most prosecutions are based on facts alone then, with respect, you don’t know much about our system. Nearly all prosecutorial choices involve opinion, bias, and preferences. It is called “prosecutorial discretion.” The DA who indicted Trump in New York, for example, immediately upon taking office, reduced the charges against thousands of people accused of violent crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. The facts had not changed, only the opinion of the DA.
I’ll go further and say that any lawyer who doesn’t recognize the decision to charge Trump is unjustifiable based on past actions in similar cases – and doesn’t say so – is at this point a hypocrite not deserving of membership in the bar. Any political observer who doesn’t admit this is an entirely unjustified prosecution is also either uninformed, corrupt, or lying. If that is too pointed or confrontational for you, my apologies, and maybe this piece isn’t your cup of tea. The stakes are high and the time for timidity is gone.
How is that for direct? 😊 You know who you are! With love and apologies all around, the time for being afraid to express your opinion is gone. We are in many ways losing our country, and if you don’t work to preserve it, you are part of the problem.
The decision to charge Trump is politically driven. Period.
From the political side, it is very likely, in my view, that leading Democrats are pushing for prosecution of Trump because they know it will inflame his base and make his nomination more likely. They WANT Trump to be the nominee because they think they can beat him. At the same time, they know moderates and non-partisans will be hesitant to vote for someone under indictment or convicted.
The political ramifications will be interesting, but the legal outline is clear.
Every executive in Washington must follow a complex system of requirements and procedures for record-keeping. It is rare for Washington’s denizens NOT to violate a procedure, either intentionally or inadvertently. In almost all such cases there is either no punishment or only minor fines. That is what makes the Trump indictment indefensible. None of his predecessors has been subject to the same level of investigation, scrutiny, or potential sanctions.
Be clear: the DOJ works for the president and is taking actions to affect his leading opponent and to impact the election. Anyone who doesn’t recognize that should just, candidly, go home and stay there on Election Day, because they are hopelessly naïve.
Memos and emails have already shown the White House was involved in the decision to search Mar-A-Lago, even though President Joe Biden claimed he didn’t even know it was going to happen. This White House spews more lies in a week than Pinocchio did in a lifetime, and they aren’t even particularly clever about it.
Remember:
Bill Clinton had classified docs in his sock drawer.
Obama took thousands of docs to Chicago and said “we have thousands of classified documents. We will get them to you eventually.” But to date he has not.
Biden has kept classified documents in several locations, including in his own garage. He even has attorneys reviewing them who are not authorized to do so and don’t have the proper clearance. That act itself – allowing your own attorneys to review classified information – is espionage. Yet in this era of a two-tiered justice system he has faced no charges.
And, of course, the FBI has a report, from one of their trusted sources, that Biden was the recipient of a $5 million bribe, a fact also testified to in a Ukraine court. Yet the FBI fought to keep it secret, and even lied when they said the report did not exist. They’ve known about this for years but have done nothing. They have had evidence of crimes on Hunter’s laptop and have done nothing. Does anyone still really believe the system is fair?
On another side note, the Hildebeast herself did things that could have been prosecuted as espionage and obstruction of justice, if you believe FBI Director Comey, but she was charged with nothing under Obama’s DOJ. Trump’s DOJ could have prosecuted Hillary for those very crimes, but Trump thought it would be unseemly, and bad precedent, for a president to allow prosecution of a political opponent. Got it? Trump had more respect for the system than to indict an opponent; Biden does not.
Hillary Clinton, while under subpoena, destroyed 33,000 highly classified e-mails on her private server, broke up cell phones with a hammer, had staff cut off “top secret” from documents so they could copy them for her, and communicated regularly with President Obama on a private email (again, that is espionage). Yet she has faced no charges.
Vice President Pence took classified documents home. George W Bush, George H. W .Bush, Dick Cheney, Al Gore, David Petraeus, Dan Quayle, Jimmy Carter – all had classified docs.
Obama’s AG was held in contempt of Congress, Clinton’s national security advisor stole classified documents, took them home, and destroyed them.
ONLY Trump has been charged with a crime. Only a couple of the others faced any sanctions at all.
Bottom line: the tradition, the custom, is to give great deference to former office holders and not throw the book at them. None of these people had their homes raided. Only Trump. At the time of the raid, his lawyers were in ongoing, regular discussion about exactly what documents the government wanted returned, and he had already allowed one search of his home and sent at least 18 boxes of docs to the archives. He had not “refused” to comply at all.
There is also the reality that the president has unrestricted authority to declassify anything he wants at any time, and to give people clearance to view them at any time. No one else has that authority. Trump maintains he declassified the documents he took with him. To do so, you do not have to fill out forms, get permission, or check boxes. You can simply do it. Just say it. Just make the decision. That will be an important defense.
IF we are to reach a point where, as a nation, we treat violations of record-keeping rules and classified procedures as prison-worthy offenses, let’s begin applying that new standard in the future. Let’s not retroactively treat conduct as being more egregious than we have traditionally considered it.
The barbaric injustice against Trump is an unprecedented abuse of power directed by Biden & DOJ Merrick Garland. The FBI has interfered in the past two presidential elections and continues to act as a partisan organization today. We are in danger of losing our nation if we allow this two-tiered system to continue. We are running out of time.
