Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore | Flickr
Democrats just spent 50 million dollars to call Donald Trump a “convicted felon,” thinking this is their ace in the hole, an unconstitutional sham trial in New York, cruising for reversal. The money is wasted. Democrats do not get it. If fake felonies are used to prosecute political enemies, all Americans are susceptible to being felons – for their beliefs.
If Trump wins in November – assuming projected turnout, swing state trends, and minimal corruption – Democrats will shame the nation, say laws no longer matter, convictions do not matter, as he was a “convicted felon” and won anyway.
But that is not how a majority of Americans see this conviction. They see it as fake. When 85 percent of the nation thinks – as a recent Pew poll suggests – that those in power “do not care about them,” trust is rock bottom. America sees its elected leaders, especially in Washington, as untruthful, self-serving, and corrupt.
Even putting aside Tammany Hall-era corruption, and zero accountability for the White House, Congress, state legislatures, and governors, something else is afoot.
We live in a time of profound doubt in our leaders, cynicism bordering on contempt for those who pretend to do public service, then serve themselves. These leaders taint their institutions, White House to judges, which bleed legitimacy.
When the average mother or father would not trust the President, Surgeon General, or local judge to babysit their kids; when they do not trust the head of Homeland Security; when they see an Attorney General (still) pushing a task force investigating parents at school boards under a terrorism law, trust is gone.
Gone are the days of Lincoln, TR, FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, Reagan, and GHB Bush. Gone is Ephram Zimbalist, Jr. in his red convertible pulling up to the FBI for America. Gone is Andy Griffith the impartial sheriff and judge. Gone is trust.
Gone too is the legitimacy of the judicial institutions we once trusted. Today, only the military, field-level law enforcement, and Supreme Court hold legitimacy, and Democrats seem determined to shred that also, bring all down to their level.
No wonder a leading New York legal publication in 2020, the New York Law Journal, described New York judgeships this way: “…to become a judge you must contribute to the political party … and avoid controversy. Judgeships are essentially for sale, and all the lawyers know it, even though the public does not.”
That was four years ago. Today, complaints about judicial corruption in New York, articles and cases filed – disposed of by judges for other judges – are inordinately high, corruption constant. New York is home of the highest public corruption in the nation. But no matter, Democrats used it to good effect, have a “convicted felon.”
So, now we come to those two New York judges, and bizarre Trump trials, one destroying predictability for business in New York, the other subverting predictability in criminal procedure, a fake felony based on a fake statute of limitations, and two unproven misdemeanors allowed to destroy a Republican candidate for president, goal of prosecutors’ campaigns. Does it get more corrupt?
As a former New York attorney myself, schooled at Columbia Law in the dark ages of public integrity, once practicing there, the legal absurdity behind these rulings is eye-popping. They are a sham, a miscarriage of impartiality, and everyone knows it.
Still, Democrat lawyers are a mum to one, the dirty job done … so they think. The idea is – apparently was – to get Democrat prosecutors to move in waves, two in New York, one in Georgia, one federal, all to disable, label, and bankrupt Trump.
Once they got him convicted of anything, even on fake charges, if they did not bankrupt him, they could sully him as a “convicted felon,” and bang! They win.
Only …not so fast. New York’s judicial corruption, compounded by regional bar associations threatening attorneys like me – also a Connecticut attorney – for impugning the two outcomes, makes a complete mockery of judicial impartiality.
To be blunt, these two trials were no better than a bad joke, a miserable exercise in procedural abuse and partisanship, the most anti-democratic, ethically indefensible displays of courtroom lawlessness most have ever seen, even if they say nothing.
So, what is going to happen? Why does no one care Trump is labeled – and why are Democrats spending 50 billion to repeat “convicted felon?” Why do those who should care not care? Because the trial, transparently, was a sham, the outcome was a sham.
Bottom line: If the question is legitimacy, or who do Americans trust more –corrupt prosecutors and judges or Donald Trump? – they choose Trump. That is what polls show. Democrats do not get it, cannot gild the lily. If felonies are made up to prosecute political enemies, we are toast, all felons. That is not America.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.
