“It is unclear that the felony statute that Trump is accused of violating actually applies to him,” moans Vox’s Ian Millhiser. “Trump is accused of violating a state law that makes it a crime to falsify business records with the intent to defraud — and doing so specifically to conceal another crime, the federal legal violations at the heart of [Michael] Cohen’s conviction.” So if “the payments to [Stormy] Daniels . . . were not a federal crime, then Trump potentially cannot be charged with the felony version of the New York law and the case against him must be dismissed.” And “we may need to wait a very long time before the courts” settle these issues and proceed to trial. “Indeed, if the Supreme Court gets involved in this case, we may not get an answer until well after the 2024 election.”
The “biggest problem for the democratic world is the overdependence of each country’s economy on China,” warns Jianli Yang at City Journal, with China “leveraging its economic power to coerce democracies.” It’s time “to establish economic alliances to resist coercion arising from values-based conflicts. Think of these alliances as an economic ‘NATO’ for the world’s democracies.” It would “engage in collective defense and offensive moves on values-related issues” to “help break the collective-action dilemma” facing the free world. “The world has entered a new kind of cold war”; the new alliance “would represent a fundamental and effective structural response to the challenge that China poses to world democracy.”
“By intervening in labor disputes between coffee shops and their employees, Democrats are expanding the legislative scope of the 1935 National Labor Relations Act,” and so “are law-breaking with their overt pro-union policies,” argues the Washington Examiner’s James Rogan. “Under the plain language of the 1935 act, the National Labor Relations Board was intended to be a neutral mediator” in companies “with a significant relationship with interstate commerce,” i.e., “essential industries such as railroads and trucking.” Yet individual Starbucks stores are purely local businesses. “Intervening in the current Starbucks labor dispute” is thus “blatant law-breaking” and “violates the constitutionally guaranteed property rights of the shareholders and management of the Starbucks company.” The fix is for Congress “to limit the scope of the 1935 act” or for the Supreme Court to act.
“Lock Donald Trump up, or don’t” — but “don’t tell me that ‘no one is above the law,’ ” scoffs The Federalist’s David Harsanyi. “It’s one of the most ludicrous fantasies peddled by the left.” Indeed, “plenty of people are ‘above the law’ ”: Ex-National Security Director James Clapper, who lied to Congress. Ex-CIA boss John Brennan, who likewise lied. Ex-Attorney General Eric Holder, who ignored a congressional subpoena. Hillary Clinton, with her secret home server to “circumvent transparency.” In New York, “people who don’t pay for public transportation,” trespass or obstruct government administration “are all above the law.” Never mind the “double standards”; the left’s “growing disdain for any semblance of limiting principles . . . continues to do profound damage to the system.”
“Indicting Donald Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records, Bragg left out a small detail,” quips Jonathan Turley at The Hill: “the underlying felony” — a campaign law violation — “Trump allegedly sought to conceal.” Why? “There is no campaign finance violation in Trump paying women to hush up alleged affairs” per the Justice Department. So “we have a case brought by a prosecutor who campaigned on bagging Trump, to be tried before a jury” from “a district that also voted against Trump, 84.5 percent to 14.5 percent.” Judge Juan Merchan could show he won’t play along “by ordering a change of venue.” But he’s already “set the next hearing for December, so Bragg has eight months to come up with an actual crime.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board