New York State Attorney General Leticia James should have expected that people would be sifting through her life with a fine-toothed comb.
Trump on Truth Social:
“Letitia James, a totally corrupt politician, should resign from her position as New York State Attorney, IMMEDIATELY. Everyone is trying to MAKE NEW YORK GREAT AGAIN, and it can never be done with this wacky crook in office.”
I am watching both Democrats and Republicans complain about "lawfare." In its meaning today, lawfare is the complaint that opponents use investigations and prosecutions of supposed tiny criminal offenses to hurt an opponent, offenses that might otherwise not be prosecuted.
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| Fox headline: "Letitia James reaps what she sows after leveling 'laughable' case at Trump." |
Trump and his media and partisan allies call "lawfare" the "hush money" case brought and prosecuted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg involving payments to Trump attorney Michael Cohen to reimburse him for payments he made to Stormy Daniels. Trump was charged with making false business records in furtherance of another crime, election interference. The case was tried and Trump was convicted by a unanimous jury.
Trump and his allies also complain that the tax and loan fraud case brought against him by Leticia James was lawfare. The prosecution argued in court that he falsified values, and received loans at lower interest rates than he would have received had he been honest. Trump's defense was that the bank lenders knew full well who Trump was, that they were big boys and could assert their own self-interest in an arm's-length transaction, and that it worked out because they got paid what was owed. So, too, the tax authorities, who were big-boy actors with independent ability to value and tax real estate at a fair value. Therefore, the prosecution was discriminatory.
Now Letitia James is making a parallel argument. While serving as a New York state officeholder, she bought a small house in Virginia and signed one document saying that she and her niece would use it as a "primary residence." (A home that is a primary residence usually qualifies for lower interest rates than a second or investment home because people prioritize being current on their primary home more than on an investment property.) There is also some question about whether James' primary New York home has four or five units. At one point an earlier owner had said it was five. James has always said it was four, but amid the hostile examination taking place now, discrepancies like this -- even if irrelevant -- become fodder for suspicion.
James asserts that subsequent documents submitted to the mortgage company clarify that the Virginia home is not her primary residence. That may or may not stand up to examination, but still, there is a discrepancy. That is her signature on something that is untrue and it may or may not have been clarified.
Both Letitia James and Donald Trump are calling foul.
I have a different take. I think both Democrats and Republicans should accept the reality that if they enter the political sphere their lives will be examined closely by people with hostile motives. Call it lawfare. Opponents will be looking for something -- anything -- that is out of order and they will publicize it. If it is illegal, opponents will demand it be prosecuted.
Did Bill Clinton puff a joint of marijuana in college? Did George W. Bush pull strings to get into the Air National Guard to avoid being drafted? Was any of that relevant? Yes. As president, Clinton oversaw a Justice Department that imprisoned people for having marijuana. As president, Bush oversaw a Selective Service system with the power to force people into the military. And as D.A., Leticia James prosecuted Trump for false loan applications. It is hypocritical to prosecute a crime if you did the crime.
Politics is hardball. The best defense is to not have finagled in the first place. If you want a public life, play it straight, because you are charged with the job of creating or enforcing laws thaat others must live up to. You discredit our laws if you break them yourself.
But who really cares about a little mortgage puffery? Isn't this overdone? No. We should all care. Winking at phony mortgage information is what allowed the "liar loans" of 2002-2008 that got packaged into securities that rating agencies winked at and called AAA-rated, which banks then resold to the public. That process created a bubble that finally burst in 2008, bringing down the economy and causing hardship to tens of millions of people in the U.S. and around the world.
Trump has planted his flag: America needs a swashbuckling, rule-breaking, regulation-flouting, break-the-institutions, break-the-fuddy-duddy Constitution president. He stopped enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Stop being so clean; get business done. That is Trump's policy, behavior, and brand. America knew what it was getting with Trump. We will see how this works.
Democrats have room for a different policy and vibe. How about being Mr. Clean? Don't protest Trump's claim of "lawfare" and unfair prosecution. Don't defend Letitia James or Alvin Bragg if it turns out they broke laws. Be consistent. Defend the law, not Democrats.
Some of what Trump is doing is unambiguously dangerous and autocratic. In a two-party system, the other party needs to represent something different. Democrats need to defend standards of behavior. Don't communicate one expectation for Democrats and another for Trump. One law. One standard. Trump is saying it is okay -- necessary and good, even -- to ignore the Constitution and establish the president as the sole credible and legitimate voice of the people. Voters will not take seriously Democrats' complaints about Trump's crimes against the Constitution unless Democratic leaders have clean hands.
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6 comments:
What you say is true, but Trump’s offenses go way beyond his tax fraud and porno star hush money. As we all know, there’s the little matter of his coup attempt for which he was indicted but never tried. Sometimes a major criminal needs to be nailed with whatever will stick. Al Capone was finally convicted of tax evasion. Although Trump hasn’t killed anybody that we know of, the damage he’s done far exceeds Al Capone’s – which makes comparisons between Ms. James and Trump a false equivalence.
Your point should be obvious to all. Around the same time Republicans impeached President Clinton, Newt Gingrich resigned from Congress on account of behaviors that probably wouldn't bother today's Republicans in the slightest. But, at the same time, Democrats blamed a "vast right wing conspiracy" for Clinton's political problems. Democrats bear a lot of responsibility for degrading our political sense of right versus wrong over the past thirty years. A lot of MAGA is based on the idea that, when it comes to corruption, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." I'm not suggesting a false equivalency between President Trump's appalling misconduct and the conduct of his predecessors. But MAGA sees it differently. MAGA thinks it's in a war with Democratic corruption on a scale that justifies whatever Trump does.
Ms. James will be held accountable for her alleged errors. This does not negate the New York Attorney General work. As such, it's petty revenge at the taxpayer's expense. Money well spent?
You make a good observation. Trump and MAGA think it is just evening the weapons of war. Of course there was no Russian collusion in 2016. They have never heard of Paul Manifort or the Senate report. Biden was utterly corrupt with multimillion dollar payoffs, but they know nothing about Saudi investments in Jared's fund. I still see Truth So I'll posts about Killery having killed Vince Foster.Democrats are so corrupt anything is justified and necessary.
Every time a goody-goody, squeaky clean candidate runs for office, they get creamed at the polls.
This isn’t about virtue. Politics has devolved completely into war of tribes or personal loyalty. There’s barely a veneer of discussion of anything to do with good governance. Trump’s superpower has always been to evoke an emotional response by making vague and generalized assertions that resonate with many people. Our shrinking attention spans are fertile soil for his words to go from plausible to probable to certain in the blink of an eye for many. Being a squeaky clean opponent will never be an effective counter to his methods of character assassination by simple accusation.
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