"Now every state and local prosecutor in America who wants to make a name for themselves is going to go out there and say, ‘Well, who can I target?'"That's OK with me.
How about we expect the rich and powerful to set a good example? How about we expect them to obey the law?
Republican officeholders are showing loyalty to the GOP brand by attacking the prosecution of Donald Trump. They complain that the DA is prosecuting "minor," "trivial," crimes of a former president and current candidate. They don't claim Trump didn't do the crimes. They say Trump is too politically important to prosecute. Besides, they complain these crimes are mere tax and election fraud, barely felonies. So what if he characterized hush money payments as deductible business expenses? These involved trivial amounts of money, only $130,000 to Stormy Daniels, only $450,000 passed through Michael Cohen and all he did was lie about it.
The outrage is misplaced. Trump is being prosecuted for alleged crimes, for which there is substantial evidence, as determined by a Grand Jury which looked at the documents and heard from witnesses. They heard evidence. The people cheering and boo-ing the indictment have not. If the evidence is not sufficient to convict him, the jury will acquit. Some people say it is a weak case. If so, Trump will be vindicated and the DA will be humiliated. I am an equal-opportunity supporter of law enforcement. If Joe Biden is breaking the law now, or did so in the past, I welcome investigation and prosecution the day after he leaves office, including by Republican District Attorneys.
People thinking of running for office, from city council up through Congress and the Presidency, need to clean up their acts, if they need cleaning. Think carefully about your life. If you got away with crimes in your past, and you want them kept secret, then don't run for office. Meanwhile, don't file dishonest tax returns. Don't fabricate deductions. Don't create false business records. Obey election laws, even when it is inconvenient. Don't cheat your employees, vendors, or customers. Don't do misdemeanors. Don't do felonies. Best not to cheat on your husband or wife.
It goes for family, too. If you have children cashing in on your name and office, then warn them that it looks terrible and it may destroy your political career. That goes for Hunter Biden, Donald Jr., Eric, Ivanka, son-in-law Jared, and everyone else, from presidents' families, to senators' families, down to those of local officials. Warn them that if they are in a gray area of crony business dealings, that prosecutors will examine it with a hostile eye. Warn them they may face prison, and they may drag you into prison with them.
Elon Musk flagrantly broke SEC rules regarding public communications. He laughed it off. After all, he is Elon Musk and too big to punish. The SEC let it go. They shouldn't have. Martha Stewart illegally traded on inside information, then lied about it. She was sentenced to a cushy prison with tennis courts. We coddle white collar criminals. It would have been a better lesson to her and for America if she had spent a year in a holding cell at Rikers Island. That is how we handle blue collar crime by non-celebrities.
I would prefer a new American ethic built around virtue, not fear of investigation and prosecution. I would prefer politicians be squeaky clean because they respect the law and want to set a good example. I wish voters had the same expectation, and saw the scofflaw politicians as dangerous, not heroic. There is a path to getting there: Prosecutors who hold celebrity lawbreakers to account.
Let the warnings by Rubio, Lindsay Graham and others predicting prosecutorial revenge be a heads up to politicians, movie stars, and billionaires. The laws apply to you, too.
[Note: to subscribe to the blog and get it delivered by email every day, go to: petersage.substack.com Subscribe. The blog is free and always will be.]
14 comments:
We all know Trump incited a riot; we watched it on live television. We also learned that he was working behind the scenes to overthrow the newly elected government. Compared to that, falsification of business records may seem trivial, but so what? The outrage from his cult followers would be just great if he were being prosecuted for shooting someone in the middle of 5th Avenue.
#45 told us he trusted Putin more than his U.S. intelligence agencies. He said he “fell in love” with Kim Jong-un and that North Korea was no longer a threat. He praised Xi Jinping as COVID-19 spread across the globe, and claimed he had the pandemic under control. He insists he won the 2020 election. Yet most Republicans still eagerly gobble up his bullshit as fast as he can shovel it. Who cares what they think? They’re as crazy as he is.
Let's just hope the D.A. is smart enough to know that his future career probably depends on this prosecution being a slam dunk.
Who says that statutes of limitations don't matter anymore? Examples? Be specific: who, what and when. Tell us what you know, otherwise your accusations are not credible, they are fake.
If only the Clinton's (subject of Gawd alone knows how many hostile investigations), former President Obama (8 years, 0 scandals, resignations or prosecutions) and the others Anonymous (of course, too chicken to identify him or herself) names had actually broken the laws of the Land, a Prosecution would be in order. But by all means, let us waste years and multiple Millions of dollars on fruitless snipe hunts.. Maybe even bring back Trey " Howdy" Goudy to chair the investigations, he did so well trying to pin something on Hillary Clinton, oh! Wait ! He and his inquisitors failed to find a single instance of broken laws.
I agree except for the part about Martha Stewart, which seems over the top.
She was convicted and sentenced to 5 months in a women's Federal prison in West Virginia. (Apparently, she was not allowed to serve her sentence in the prison that she requested to be closer to her 90 year old mother.)
After that, she was placed on two-years probation, including 5 months of home confinement wearing an ankle monitor. She also paid a fine and had other restrictions placed on her.
Riker's Island is a New York (not Federal) jail complex for men.
Martha Stewart built her empire the old-fashioned way. She started as a caterer and then wrote popular cookbooks. The rest is history. Even if one is not a fan, there is no need to go overboard on sentencing. Her crime was non-violent and she had no prior criminal history. Maybe you were in a bad mood when you wrote this and took it out on Martha. Or maybe because you are a retired financial advisor and her crime hit close to home.
On the other hand, take a look at what Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) got away with as CEO of Columbia/HCA (Hospital Corporation of America). While he was CEO, the company defrauded the Medicare program on a grand scale (Google it).
Martha Stewart is very successful and she donated money to Democrats. Her crime was very limited in scope. Rick Scott was CEO when HCA was defrauding the Federal government. He is a conservative Republican. HCA was started by Dr. Thomas Frist, brother of former Senator Bill Frist (R-TN).
Stewart's case and the HCA Medicare fraud case both occurred under the George W. Bush administration, as I recall.
Peter advocates total respect for the law. What about when the law is totally stupid?
I and my fellow hippies spent our entire youths breaking the stupid drug laws.
As a civilian employee of the US Navy, I spent a good part of the my time there working with my colleagues to figure out how to get around the insane thicket of bureaucratic rules that seemed to have been designed by an angry god to prevent us from getting anything useful done (we mostly failed in those attempts).
Here’s a quote from George Will’s column in today’s Oregonian:
——————
In “Three Felonies a Day,” civil libertarian Harvey A. Silverglate’s 2009 book about how easy it is in our law-clotted society to be accused of a felony, he tells of a game some prosecutors play in private: For what crime could they have indicted, say, Mother Teresa?
——————
It’s difficult to generate a consensus on respect for the law when parts of the law show such little respect for common sense.
Ed said,
… let us waste years and multiple Millions of dollars on fruitless snipe hunts.
To say nothing of the enormously useful results of Mueller’s investigation of RussiaGate.
Republicans are stuck supporting Trump until they lose so badly they do a major overhaul. They can not support the rule of law AND support Trump, so they chose Trump. Let’s see how that works out. It is now either support democracy and the rule of law or Trump and the inherent lawlessness that goes with it. The hypocrisy of Republicans is becoming more and more blatant.
Trump reflects criminality in his thinking and behavior so the Republicans must follow. If Americans choose that we deserve the failed state that will follow.
Mueller found convincing evidence of obstruction of justice, and said so. It was not prosecutable, he said, only because Trump was in office. It diminishes the credibility of defenders of Trump when the mischaracterize the Mueller Report and pretend it absolved Trump.
The law in question is in regards to election fraud. Just that, at least so far.
There's no way to know for sure, but had the truth been known perhaps there would have been a different outcome. Maybe not. It does seem the cult disregards anything that challenges their delusional thinking, but that's the dilemma. We can't know, and never will. So all we are left with is the fact of the cheating, and that's illegal.
There is a great line from "Broadcast News", where the anchor is accused of "crossing the line" to which he replies, "but they keep moving it".
I would suggest that Republicans have erased it.
If we enforce any law we should enforce this one. Otherwise we are doomed to being governed by a phalanx of Santos's.
Peter,
I was speaking politically, not legally. The political effect of the Mueller investigation was zero. That’s what most people noticed. Your detailed point about the legalities is true, but politically irrelevant.
Federal investigators spent months and a fortune making a case against Martha Stewart for insider trading. Her trial and conviction provided a nice diversion from Bush’s close ties to Enron.
And of course, the pollical effect of the Mueller investigation was zero because Republicans don’t care about Trump’s criminality any more than Charles Manson’s followers cared about his.
The political effect of the Mueller investigation was zero because it wasn’t even enough of a smoking gun to affect the opinions of swing voters.
As we can see by the 2020 election results, plenty of swing voters' opinions were affected by Trump's unacceptable behavior, some of which the Mueller report detailed.
Mueller Rocks! So does James Comey!
Post a Comment