It’s time to find ways and means to end the unequal treatment (persecution) of a former president.
Behold the opening paragraphs of a June 29 Politico story on a decision by a federal judge in Manhattan that would effectively deny that Donald J. Trump was ever president -- which, more likely than not, would suit this jurist's political mindset.
NEW YORK – A federal judge on Thursday sharply rejected Donald Trump’s claim of “presidential immunity” to fend off a defamation lawsuit from the writer E. Jean Carroll, ruling that Trump’s disparaging comments about Carroll in 2019 had no legitimate connection to his duties as president.
The 46-page opinion all but ensures that Carroll’s second lawsuit against the former president will go to trial. And it’s the latest setback in Trump’s repeated bid to use the muscular protections of the presidency to shield him from civil litigation.
What this Politico piece refuses to recognize is that the Former Presidents Protection Act of 2012 conflicts with the kneejerk principle raised by the anti-Trump crowd -- No person is above the law -- by creating a class that has special protections and benefits, the class of former presidents. And thus, the appropriate figure of speech for former presidents should be: No former president is to be made vulnerable to vicious hounding by local, state or federal political hacks. To codify the principle of equal treatment for former presidents, the following proposal comes to mind.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan should propose amending the Former Presidents Protection Act of 2012 to put a stop to the current practice of political prosecutors and judges hounding a former president. To end the current spectacle of what could be an indefinite series of civil and criminal lawsuits to bring Donald J. Trump to his knees -- and prevent his 2024 presidential candidacy, the Supreme Court of the United States should be empowered to have original jurisdiction of any action in law or equity brought against a former president of the United States.
Such an amendment to the Former Presidents Protection of 2012 would be an appropriate reply to jurists whose partisanship would deny, in effect, that Mr. Trump ever was president, as well an apt rebuke to local district attorneys and state prosecutors, and special counsel of the opposing party, who would weaponize the "legal" process in the best traditions of banana republics.
Or, is post-presidential hounding of former presidents to become standard procedure by application of the sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander principle of political retribution? In such a case, one can imagine Republicans looking forward to the afternoon of January 20, 2025, when they can start to file complaints and indictments against former president Biden and family, from venues across the homeland -- while the media shouts "unfair, unfair." Rabid Democrats, do you think this will not happen? The year 2025 is closer than you think and to cite another saw; what goes around comes around." Far better to add to the "muscular protections" set forth in the Former Presidents Protection Act of 2012 as here suggested.
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