When he announced the federal indictment of former President Donald Trump, Special Counsel Jack Smith pontificated, “We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone.”
Really? If that’s the case, then why wasn’t Hillary Clinton prosecuted for storing classified national security information on her unsecure private email sever, which was readily hackable by foreign actors? And why wasn’t she prosecuted for thwarting a congressional subpoena for the content of her server by deleting 33,000 emails and having subordinates use hammers to break apart cellphones that had been used to transmit and receive those emails? And why did FBI Director James Comey absolve her by laughably announcing that no reasonable prosecutor would haven taken the case?
If the law applies to everyone, then why has the FBI been sitting on Hunter Biden’s laptop since 2019? And why is it refusing to publicly disclose the unclassified Form 1023, which memorializes a reliable source’s information about a $5,000,000 bribe paid by Ukrainian interests to then-Vice President Joe Biden? And why has the FBI refused to disclose the audio tapes of the informant’s conversations with Hunter and Joe Biden? And why did 51 intelligence community officials publicly and meretriciously dismiss the damning contents of the laptop as Russian disinformation?
If we are all equal before the law, then why did the FBI investigate and smear Trump and hamstring his administration based on what it knew to be a Clinton campaign dirty trick that falsely accused him of being a Russian asset?
The problem with Smith’s grand words is that the 74 million Americans who voted for Trump in 2020 and are poised to do so again in 2024 aren’t idiots. They have seen for themselves how the FBI and Justice Department have been transformed into a political police force at the service of the Democrat Party and the Biden administration.
Peaceful pro-life demonstrators have been treated as enemies of the state subject to SWAT raids by armed FBI agents. Parents protesting at school board meetings have been subject to FBI surveillance and investigation. A plan within the FBI to infiltrate and investigate traditional Latin Mass Catholic parishes has been discovered. Nonviolent protesters who journeyed to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, have had their financial records pulled by the FBI as its Washington Field Office attempts to inflate the number of arrests arising out of the Capitol Hill protest.
There was a time not so long ago when being indicted and arrested on federal charges would have utterly destroyed the political prospects of any candidate for public office. But, thanks to the rank partisan politicization of the FBI and Justice Department, those days are over. Those organizations have eroded their credibility and alienated a vast swath of American society that simply doesn’t trust or believe them.
Trump has been indicted for the felonious possession of records that were generated during his time in office and obstructing efforts to retrieve them. How that case will play out in court remains to be seen. But it doesn’t seem to be quite as compelling as a case premised on a $5,000,000 bribe purportedly paid to Biden by nefarious interests in Ukraine. Could the timing of Trump’s arrest have anything to do with drawing public attention away from that scheme?
The Biden regime has made history by attempting to imprison a former president and its leading political opponent. But so far Trump’s poll numbers have gone up. And we should expect his arrest and prosecution to be a major campaign issue since his followers will have it in their power to save him from prison. Because, if reelected, he would be able to pardon himself.
In this regard, it is well to recall the example of Joseph McGuinness, a member of the Irish Volunteers who fought in the 1916 Easter Rising against the British. For that, he was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment. But in 1917, while an inmate, he ran as a Sein Fein candidate for the British Parliament. His campaign slogan was “Put Him In To Get Him Out!”
And it worked. McGuinness was elected and released from prison to serve in Parliament.
So it is that Trump might want to paraphrase McGuiness’ slogan to “Vote Him In To Keep Him Out!”
For what better and more effective response could there be to this descent into Stalinist tyranny than to free Trump, topple the Biden regime, and “Make Our Government American Again”?
George Parry is a former federal and state prosecutor. He blogs at knowledgeisgood.net.