John Leonard – Technically speaking, Donald Trump is guilty of something — he’s guilty of the crime of being Donald Trump. He hasn’t broken any laws, but laws have been modified to break him.
As former NKVD (now the KGB) head Lavrentiy Beria once famously said, “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” The Democrats have been shown one term of Donald Trump in power and they didn’t like what they saw.
Energy independence, historically low unemployment, almost zero inflation, a strong economy… I mean, who wants that?
Not the Democrats, that’s for sure. They prefer to keep a horribly corrupt, senile old man in the White House by any means necessary, and that means a never-ending onslaught of lawfare designed to bankrupt even a billionaire.
Let’s begin with the judgments already issued against Donald Trump and then evaluate the ongoing court cases. We will break down each case according to judge name instead of a state because New York has multiple cases against him.
Judge Lewis Kaplan – total damages $88.3 million dollars to be paid to E. Jean Carroll
Kaplan wouldn’t allow Trump to present any evidence in his own defense. The “trial” was a complete joke – Carroll couldn’t even remember the year the alleged sexual assault took place and by some miracle of a coincidence, all the details of her account matched perfectly with the plot of an episode of Law and Order: SVU. Her entire case was a bad joke that has gone on for far too long. The alleged assault took place “in 1995 or 1996” but Carroll never even accused Trump of raping her until 2019.
There is no doubt that Trump should win on appeal… but can he afford to appeal? The laws of New York are quite unfriendly to the appellant in this regard, and much of Trump’s wealth will be tied up in the “other” New York judgment against him.
Judge Arthur Engoron — total damages $453.5 million to be paid to the state of New York
Of all the litigation involving Trump, this case is the most egregious of them all. Trump was convicted of a victimless crime, allegedly overvaluing his real estate holdings, in order to receive favorable loan terms from banks from whom Trump wanted to borrow money — money that was borrowed and repaid in full. The banks that lent Trump money want to lend him money again, but Engoron’s draconian ruling temporarily prohibits them from doing new business with one of their best customers.
Unsurprisingly, Governor Hochul is suddenly finding it quite difficult to convince other people currently doing business in New York that the same thing that just happened to Trump can’t happen to them. And why is that? Because the laws apply differently to Donald Trump, right?
Trump should win this case on appeal in a slam dunk. However, the recent conversation has been over whether Trump can afford to appeal the case without liquidating much of his real estate empire in a fire sale because of New York’s bond requirements for appeals. Trump is expected to pay the entire amount of the judgment to the court in cash to appeal this unjust judgment against him.
This is so grotesquely unfair that the Supreme Court would seem to have little choice but to intervene based on the Eighth Amendment’s protections against excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishment. Engoron had decided Trump was guilty before the trial even started. Trump was never allowed to present evidence rebutting the allegations of prosecutor Letitia James. It’s extraordinarily difficult to take Engoron’s ruling seriously — he valued Mar-a-Lago at $18 million. Do you know what you can really buy for $18 million in Palm Beach? The penthouse on top of the Tiffany building on the corner of Worth and Hibiscus Avenues. Unfinished.
Judge Tanya Chutkan — Washington, D.C. AND Judge Aileen Cannon — Florida
These two judges are mentioned together because prosecutor Jack Smith has brought the same basic case to two different venues — the accusations that Trump mishandled classified documents. The first problem with Smith’s cases is that Trump had full authority as President to declassify government documents.
The second problem is that no other U.S. President has ever been accused of a crime for the same thing. Remember Sandy Berger? He stuffed classified documents into his socks and stole them from the federal archives before cutting them up with scissors, and he only got a slap on the wrist. Trump never destroyed anything. He merely took some documents the National Archives wanted but he didn’t want to give back. Rather than negotiate, the Department of Justice raided Mar-A-Lago with the FBI and hired a Special Counsel who issued indictments.
But the biggest problem for the prosecution is Joe Biden himself. Biden took documents when he was senator and then vice-president and never had the presidential authority to declassify, and handled them quite carelessly, even sharing them with his biographer. Yet Joe Biden has not and will not be charged for doing something worse than Trump because he’s old and senile… just not too old or too senile to run for another term.
This is yet another glaring example of unequal protection under the law. If you’re going to break the law or do anything even remotely questionable, you’d better have a (D) after your name.
Judge Scott McAfee — Georgia
Judge McAfee just watched D.A. Fani Willis confess to adultery, paying her lover with taxpayer dollars, and embezzlement from her political campaign funds while completely melting down on the witness stand. Multiple witnesses have also testified that Willis committed perjury in sworn affidavits for her lover’s divorce case.
I’m no legal expert, but McAfee seems to have no choice but to disqualify Willis (and Nathan Ward) from further participation in the Trump prosecution. This doesn’t effectively end the Trump prosecution in Georgia, but it ought to delay it and there is no guarantee that another prosecutor will still want to move forward with the case, which involves the (alleged) losing party in an election contesting the results.
Democrats have a long history of protesting every national election they’ve lost since Reagan creamed Walter Mondale in 1984. If you watch movies like 2000 Mules, you’ll see that there are reasons to think the 2020 election wasn’t fair, and Democrats cheated. Speaking of what isn’t fair, what is being done to Donald Trump in the courts isn’t fair. Democrats are trying to put him in jail for normal business practices and things Democrats do with impunity all the time.
It looks like it will be up to the Supreme Court to save the republic.
SF Source American Thinker Feb 2024