Equality before the law propaganda: By now, most everyone is knows that DJT and America's radical right authoritarian political movement is screaming about DJT's indictment. According to their narrative, the indictment proves, proves mind you, that America has a grossly unfair, corrupt, weaponized two-tiered legal system. According to the authoritarians, one tier is for corrupt, communist Dems who can gleefully break laws with impunity. The other tier is weaponized law enforcement directed at poor persecuted, innocent Repubs who get cruelly whacked for either (i) literally nothing illegal (that is what DJT is claiming right now), (ii) minor or trivial offenses, or (iii) doing the same things that Dems were never prosecuted for.
By now it is undeniable that there really is a two-tiered system of law. Wealthy or powerful elites tends to get treated better than most everyone else. This applies to the kid gloves treatment that DJT has received so far. While DJT got to go with dignity to his arraignment, others in his position would have been arrested in an early morning raid in their homes and then hauled off to jail in handcuffs to await an arraignment. So yeah, the law is weaponized against those in the bottom tier.
The NYT writes about more favors that top-tier DJT got out of his arraignment proceeding:
Most of the substance of the hearing centered on the details of the bond agreement for Mr. Trump. Mr. Smith’s senior prosecutors waived demands for bail, or any other precondition that might be deemed as undignified or overly restrictive. They insisted that Mr. Trump not discuss the case with Mr. Nauta, who remains on the former president’s payroll as a personal aide.
Judge Goodman pressed for a tougher deal, suggesting that Mr. Trump be blocked from having any contact at all with important witnesses. His lawyers responded that the witnesses included people on Mr. Trump’s personal staff and security detail, and that it was not realistic to ask him to cut off contact with them.
The prosecution appeared willing to go along.
So, there we have it, DJT gets to collude with witnesses to get their lies straight. Prosecutors didn't demand any bail. No preconditions that might be undignified or overly restrictive.
How the law treats elite
criminals like DJT
(the Grand Poobah seated in the chair)
So, is that an exaggeration? Hell no, it isn't. For example, the NYT writes about other stealers of classified government documents:
Two weeks ago, a federal judge sentenced Robert Birchum, a former Air Force lieutenant colonel, to three years in jail for removing hundreds of secret documents from their authorized locations and storing them in his home and officer’s quarters.
In April, a judge sentenced Jeremy Brown, a former member of U.S. Special Forces, to more than seven years in prison partly for taking a classified report home with him after he retired. The report contained sensitive intelligence, including about an informant in another country.
In 2018, Nghia Hoang Pho received a five-and-a-half-year sentence for storing National Security Agency documents at his home. Prosecutors emphasized that Pho was aware he was not supposed to have taken the documents.
These three recent cases are among dozens in which the Justice Department has charged people with removing classified information from its proper place and trying to conceal their actions. That list includes several former high-ranking officials, like David Petraeus and John Deutch, who each ran the C.I.A.
Other Grand Poobahs like David Petraeus just got two years probation and a $100,000 fine as his punishment, even though he spilled his guts to reporters. Another Grand Poobah, former CIA director John M. Deutch plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge and paid a $5,000 fine for keeping classified information on his home computers.
Notice the two tiers elephant here? How can one not see it? It's right there:
“If the president in power can just jail his political opponents, which is what Joe Biden is trying to do tonight, we don’t have a republic anymore. We don’t have the rule of law. We don’t have the Constitution.” — Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)
Two final thoughts on this chunk:
1. DJT claims he is a victim of an unfair, weaponized two-tiered system of law enforcement. For context, one newspaper writes: "AOC says idea Trump is victim of a ‘two-tier’ justice system is an insult to Black and brown Americans." Does AOC raise a valid point? Or is that just an unjustifiable whataboutism?
2. People who claim this is political prosecution by Dems for political advantage are not asserting just garden variety lies. Those lies directly undermine our systems of law enforcement and courts. At this point given all that has happened since 2016, one can reasonably believe that people who assert that argument are insurrectionists and traitors. Or, does calling them insurrectionists and traitors go too far, since lies like that are protected free speech?
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Why DJT should get better treatment than the rest of us peons: The NYT article quoted above also discusses an argument for why elites should get better treatment:
Sean Trende, a political analyst with RealClearPolitics, has offered a helpful way to understand these questions — and specifically when a former president should, and should not, be charged with a crime.
Start by thinking about all the other people who had engaged in behavior similar to that for which the ex-president was charged with a crime. If just some of those other people were charged, the ex-president should not be, Trende wrote. Prosecutors have a large amount of discretion about which cases to bring, and they should err on the side of not indicting a former president because of the political turmoil it is likely to cause, he argued.
But if the ex-president did something that would have caused anybody else to be charged with a crime, he should be, too. “The president shouldn’t be above the law,” Trende explained.
The article goes on to point out that here is good reason to believe that the case against DJT is in the second category. If any other American done what DJT did, they would have been prosecuted. So, should prosecutors err on the side of not indicting a former president because of the political turmoil? Or, should they actually tip slightly against a former high level defendant who has betrayed the public trust to vindicate the damage done to civil society, the public interest, the nation, democracy and/or the rule of law itself? By erring in favor of a Grand Poobah, law enforcement and the courts undeniably signal that compared to the rest of us crimes of the elites are less bad and the public interest isn't worth spit.
Is that logic garbage and the attendant attitude of respect for sleazeball elites immoral, deeply and/or arrogant, or is it reasonable?
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How Faux News sees it: From the Projecting One's Own Bad Intentions Onto the Opposition Files: The WaPo reports:
Fox News shocks with ‘wannabe dictator’
graphic during Biden speech
A real Fox News chyron at the end of its 8 p.m. hour. pic.twitter.com/7fUT1Nj62D
— The Recount (@therecount) June 14, 2023
Q: Is it reasonable to think that Biden is a wannabe dictator? DJT?
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