The Difference

Documents

The MAGA talking point, right now, is this:  Donald Trump kept classified documents.  Joe Biden kept classified documents.  Mike Pence kept classified documents.  Hillary Clinton kept classified documents. There’s no difference.  The Department of Justice indicted Trump, eight total indictments many with multiple charges, thirty-seven total. Biden and Pence, returned the documents and nothing:  no charges, no punishment.  Clinton turned over most of her email records (though more were destroyed). Famously, documented in Jim Comey’s speech – no charges.  Therefore, this must be a politically motivated prosecution by the “Biden/Garland” Justice Department to stop Trump’s run for President in 2024.

As the MSD kids used to say – “I call BS”.  Biden and Pence had classified documents.  At their request, the FBI searched their homes and offices. They asked the FBI to check for documents. Those documents were returned.  Far be it from me to quote Mike Pence, but, as he said, “…the documents were there, they were returned and I took responsibility for them.”  Biden did the same.

Clinton was throughly investigated, and the FBI found that what she did, did not rise to the level of an indictable crime. They were acts of omission rather than commission. When further emails were found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop, the FBI reinvestigated, and still did not charge her. But, they did manage to cost her the Presidency.

Intent

Trump, on the other hand, conspired with others to hide the documents from the FBI.  He stored them in a public place (Mara Lago) in a horrifyingly public manner. They were on the stage of the ballroom, in bathrooms and showers, and on the floor of a storeroom. When his own lawyers said they wanted to search, he said no. 

 As it turned out, he packed the boxes, he kept the classified documents, and then he took them out and showed them to people who were not cleared to see them. He obstructed investigation, and literally discussed with his attorneys ways to hide the documents from the FBI. His own attorney said the Trump signaled for him to pluck them out and take them to his hotel room.

This wasn’t a mistake of neglect, they were multiple actions with intent. Not acts of omission, they were acts of commission.

A Higher Cause 

For political reasons, former Vice President Pence and other Republicans are throwing these indictments at the feet of Attorney General Garland. Why the Attorney General? Garland’s appointee, Special Counsel Jack Smith, isn’t a good target.  He looks like the angel of death, a man dedicated to the job of protecting our Nation.  There’s nothing political about Smith, just  “…a maniacal devotion to the Nation.” (That’s a Monty Python reference, in case it sounds familiar).  

Ah, but Garland, he’s “attackable”.  He’s directly appointed by President Biden, and also was the “pawn” in the successful Republican Supreme Court gambit to block Barack Obama’s appointment.  And, of course, he seems like a gentle grandfather, not a tough “Jabba-the-Hut” guy like Trump’s Bill Barr. By the way, Barr said that if even half of the indictment is true, Trump is “toast”.

 But  Fox News commentator Professor Jonathan Turley made the case:  Garland should see the “greater good” in NOT prosecuting Trump.  Turley didn’t defend Trump, he actually said Trump may well face serious jail time. He simply said it would have been better to NOT prosecute, better for the Nation.

Really, would it be better for the Nation?  

A Pardon and An Opinion

Damn, Gerald Ford.  He seemed like a good guy, a Michigan football player and a Yale Law School graduate.  Nixon picked him as Vice President, in part because he believed that no one would ever let Gerry Ford be President.  The quote of the time was, “He played too much football without a helmet on.”  But when the White House tapes were released, and the Nation knew that Nixon orchestrated the “cover-up” of the multiple felonies during Watergate, he had to go.  The Congress was well on the way to impeachment and removal, when Nixon resigned.  An important reason for his resignation:  he’d lose his Presidential pension if he was removed.  

Ford was surrounded by Republican friends who wanted to immediately put the Nixon era behind them.  The quickest way was to get the disgraced ex-President out of the spotlight.  Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski, was preparing multiple indictments that clearly would result in Nixon behind bars.  Ford, convinced that we needed to put our “long national nightmare” behind us, pardoned Nixon for anything he might have done wrong. So there’s the first precedent – a former President “shouldn’t” be tried in Court.

There were actually two precedents that came out of that era.  The first was that it was in the “public interest” to never (italics added) try a former President.  And the second was the now-famous Department of Justice memo saying a serving President cannot be prosecuted or even indicted.  Both precedents have now come full circle now, forty years later.  They’re biting us in the – well, you know.

Golden Ticket

Somehow, we never thought we’d elect another crook (Nixon’s words).  We depended on “norms”, and the old Lincoln axiom about the voters:  you can fool all of them some of the time, and some of them all of the time, but not all of them, all of the time.  We hoped that the voters would recognize a “crook” when they saw one, and save us from another Nixon.  But, after Watergate, we actually took down the barriers that might have protected us from that fate.  Now the Presidency was a kind of criminal “golden ticket”, exempt from prosecution or trial.  And, established by the Ford pardon, that ticket was “stamped” for life.

Donald Trump played fast and loose with the law his whole career.  It was only about money; if you got sued and lost, you paid.  If you counter-sued, you raised the stakes so your opponent couldn’t play.  And when he got to the White House, he realized that, as President, he really could do almost anything he wanted.  His Department of Justice couldn’t touch him, McConnell’s Senate would protect him, and the MAGA crowd loved him.  Shoot someone on Fifth Avenue: Trump found he could blackmail another nation’s President, or inspire an Insurrection, and nothing would happen.  Where were the guardrails on his Presidency?  

Fooling

Why should retirement be any different?  The Ford precedent was “bulletproof”.  And when it looked like it wasn’t, Trump knew what he had to do: run for President again.  IF he won, he could stop the Justice Department (the memo).  IF he lost, well, the Department had another policy: not to interfere in elections (did anyone tell Jim Comey?).  At worst, running for office would buy time, and winning would buy freedom.

But Smith flipped the script.  He ignored Ford’s “guideline”, and went ahead with the prosecution. He did it a full year and a half before the election. And here we are, with a former President, hoping to be a future President, under Federal indictment for real crimes that he really committed. And this is only the first.  The Insurrection investigation still looms on the horizon. And the Georgia state indictments for voter interference is all but certain. 

Ultimately, Lincoln’s axiom will be put to the test.  “‘Murica” will have to make a choice:  vote for a man under indictment in Florida, Georgia, Washington and New York; or vote for someone else. I hope the majority can figure this one out.  Or, as President George W Bush said:

 “Fool me once, shame on…shame on you. Fool me—you can’t get fooled again.”