The MAGA talking point, right now, is this:\u00a0\u00a0Donald Trump kept classified documents.\u00a0\u00a0Joe Biden kept classified documents.\u00a0\u00a0Mike Pence kept classified documents.\u00a0\u00a0Hillary Clinton kept classified documents. There\u2019s no difference.\u00a0\u00a0The Department of Justice indicted Trump, eight total indictments many with multiple charges, thirty-seven total. Biden and Pence, returned the documents and nothing:\u00a0\u00a0no charges, no punishment.\u00a0 Clinton turned over most of her email records (though more were destroyed). Famously, documented in Jim Comey’s speech – no charges. \u00a0Therefore, this must be a politically motivated prosecution by the \u201cBiden\/Garland\u201d Justice Department to stop Trump\u2019s run for President in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the MSD kids used to say \u2013 \u201cI call BS\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Biden and Pence had classified documents.\u00a0\u00a0At their request, the FBI searched their homes and offices. They asked the FBI to check for documents. Those documents were returned.\u00a0\u00a0Far be it from me to quote Mike Pence, but, as he said, \u201c\u2026the documents were there, they were returned and I took responsibility for them.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Biden did the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump, on the other hand, conspired with others to hide the documents from the FBI.\u00a0\u00a0He 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0As it turned out, he packed the boxes, he kept the classified documents, and then he took them out and\u00a0showed them to people who were not cleared to see them.\u00a0He obstructed investigation, and literally discussed with his attorneys ways to\u00a0hide\u00a0the documents from the FBI. His own attorney said the Trump signaled for him to pluck them out and take them to his hotel room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This wasn\u2019t a mistake of neglect, they were multiple actions with intent. Not acts of omission, they were acts of commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u2019s appointee, Special Counsel Jack Smith, isn\u2019t a good target.\u00a0\u00a0He looks like the angel of death, a man dedicated to the job of protecting our Nation.\u00a0\u00a0There\u2019s nothing political about Smith, just\u00a0\u00a0\u201c\u2026a maniacal devotion to the Nation.\u201d (That\u2019s a\u00a0Monty Python<\/em>\u00a0reference, in case it sounds familiar).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ah, but Garland, he\u2019s \u201cattackable\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0He\u2019s directly appointed by President Biden, and also was the \u201cpawn\u201d in the successful Republican Supreme Court gambit to block Barack Obama\u2019s appointment.\u00a0\u00a0And, of course, he seems like a gentle grandfather, not a tough \u201cJabba-the-Hut\u201d guy like Trump’s Bill Barr. By the way, Barr said that if even half of the indictment is true, Trump is “toast”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0But \u00a0Fox News commentator Professor Jonathan Turley made the case:\u00a0\u00a0Garland should see the \u201cgreater good\u201d in NOT prosecuting Trump.\u00a0\u00a0Turley didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Really, would it be better for the Nation?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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, \u201cHe played too much football without a helmet on.\u201d But when the White House tapes were released, and the Nation knew that Nixon orchestrated the \u201ccover-up\u201d 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\u2019d lose his Presidential pension if he was removed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ford was surrounded by Republican friends who wanted to immediately put the Nixon era behind them.\u00a0\u00a0The quickest way was to get the disgraced ex-President out of the spotlight.\u00a0 Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski, was preparing multiple indictments that clearly would result in Nixon behind bars.\u00a0\u00a0Ford, convinced that we needed to put our \u201clong national nightmare\u201d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There were actually two precedents that came out of that era.\u00a0\u00a0The first was that it was in the \u201cpublic interest\u201d to\u00a0never (<\/em>italics added) try a former President.\u00a0\u00a0And the second was the now-famous Department of Justice memo saying a serving President cannot be prosecuted or even indicted.\u00a0\u00a0Both precedents have now come full circle now, forty years later.\u00a0\u00a0They\u2019re biting us in the \u2013 well, you know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Somehow, we never thought we\u2019d elect another crook (Nixon\u2019s words).\u00a0\u00a0We depended on \u201cnorms\u201d, and the old Lincoln axiom about the voters:\u00a0\u00a0you 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.\u00a0\u00a0We hoped that the voters would recognize a \u201ccrook\u201d when they saw one, and save us from another Nixon.\u00a0\u00a0But, after Watergate, we actually took down the barriers that might have protected us from that fate.\u00a0\u00a0Now the Presidency was a kind of criminal \u201cgolden ticket\u201d, exempt from prosecution or trial.\u00a0\u00a0And, established by the Ford pardon, that ticket was \u201cstamped\u201d for life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Donald Trump played fast and loose with the law his whole career.\u00a0\u00a0It was only about money; if you got sued and lost, you paid.\u00a0\u00a0If you counter-sued, you raised the stakes so your opponent couldn\u2019t play.\u00a0\u00a0And when he got to the White House, he realized that, as President, he really could do almost anything he wanted.\u00a0\u00a0His Department of Justice couldn\u2019t touch him, McConnell\u2019s Senate would protect him, and the MAGA crowd loved him.\u00a0\u00a0Shoot someone on Fifth Avenue: Trump found he could blackmail another nation’s President, or inspire an Insurrection, and nothing would happen. \u00a0Where were the guardrails on his Presidency?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why should retirement be any different?\u00a0\u00a0The Ford precedent was \u201cbulletproof\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0And when it looked like it wasn\u2019t, Trump knew what he had to do: run for President again.\u00a0\u00a0IF he won, he could stop the Justice Department (the memo).\u00a0\u00a0IF he lost, well, the Department had another policy: not to interfere in elections (did anyone tell Jim Comey?).\u00a0\u00a0At worst, running for office would buy time, and winning would buy freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Smith flipped the script.\u00a0\u00a0He 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.\u00a0\u00a0The Insurrection investigation still looms on the horizon. And the Georgia state indictments for voter interference is all but certain.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ultimately, Lincoln\u2019s axiom will be put to the test.\u00a0\u00a0\u201c\u2018Murica\u201d will have to make a choice:\u00a0\u00a0vote 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.\u00a0\u00a0Or, as President George W Bush said:<\/p>\n\n\n\nA Pardon and An Opinion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Golden Ticket<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Fooling<\/h3>\n\n\n\n