The other day, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) was doing an interview with faux-goodness expert Hugh Hewitt. We’ll let Sen. Kennedy stand in for all the Republican officials who say the same thing, since it will save a lot of time and typing to list every Republican in Congress who is supposedly “outraged” by the same false point.
Kennedy said that Trump is running against “a party whose four prosecutors have indicted him” and that such an action is “unprecedented” [tm]. (For the record, “unprecedented” [tm] is the memo-word for Republicans these days for the Trump indictments.) Kennedy added what was clearly intended to be a snarky put-down, “This is the sort of thing that happens in countries whose Powerball jackpot is 387 chickens and a goat.” Of course, what enabler Kennedy conveniently leaves out is the reason for all of Trump’s indictments. They didn’t just pop up out of thin air, you know. There are four indictments because what is unprecedented is that never before in the history of the United States has a former president other than Trump ever planned a coup to overthrow the government, pushed an Insurrection, tried to force a state’s Secretary of State to manipulate his election results, refused to return government documents (many of them highly classified). Not to mention that he has had had his charity foundation shut down for “shocking pattern of illegality,” had his company fined $1.6 million for tax fraud…or been personally found liable for what the judge wrote the equivalence of rape and fined $5 million, All that is “unprecedented” [tm] for a former president, too. Sen. Kennedy left that all out. An oversight, I’m sure. Although he seems to want people to think that indictments just happen to occur simply when a prosecutor wants them. Of course, if that was the case, U.S. history would be littered with indictments of former presidents. But Kennedy conveniently left out that we do have a judicial system in the United States, and that evidence is actually required for a Grand Jury to vote for an indictment – which is yet another thing Sen. Kennedy conveniently left out, that, no, it wasn’t President Biden or Attorney General Merrick Garland or Special Counsel Jack Smith, or Georgia D.A. Fani Willis who each decided one day (or, more accurately, four days) to indict Trump in a two-tier system of American justice., and poof, it was done, but it required a Grand Jury, since they are the only people who can indict someone. Left out, too, is that is that as much as Mr. Kennedy wants to desperately make the United States seem like some impoverished tropical banana republic is that in this judicial system, Trump will have his own team of lawyers to defend him, and that for the prosecution to convict him of the charged crimes, they will have to convince a jury of 12 American citizens sworn to be impartial that Trump is not only guilty, but guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and also that all 12 agree unanimously. That tends not to be the case in “countries whose Powerball jackpot is 387 chickens and a goat.” But then, Kennedy knows this. Furthermore, what Sen. Kennedy wants his easily-fooled base to believe when insisting that four such indictments of a former president only ever happen in these Third World chicken-coop countries (the kind that, in another context, Trump himself referred to as “sh*t hole countries”), is that they never, ever, never occur in major industrial nations who are advanced, rich, democracies -- and mostly white. In those countries, they’re “unprecedented.” [tm] The problem with this fake-theory, of which the GOP base seems to be blissfully unaware, is that far from being “unprecedented” [tm] it’s actually not terribly uncommon at all, because, as Axios reported in a detailed study – Since 2000, world leaders have been prosecuted or even jailed in at least 78 countries — which includes democracies (and U.S. allies) such as France, Italy, Israel, and South Korea. As recently as 1980, almost half of the world's countries have had at least one case where their leaders were prosecuted or jailed. (This does not count the times when world leaders left office due to impeachments or coups – a statistic Sen. Kennedy would be happy to know wouldn’t have counted against his “unprecedented” [tm] list if Trump had had his way.) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently in the midst of an active, ongoing corruption trial, where he is charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Former French president Nicolas Sakozy was convicted in two separate cases in 2021 and has been sentenced to prison. Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was convicted of tax fraud. Former Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian was convicted of bribery in 2009. Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was recently convicted of corruption – though the conviction was later thrown out, and he has been returned to office. Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razik was convicted of corruption and is currently in prison. Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye was convicted of corruption and sentenced to 24 years. Her successor pardoned her in 2021 after having served five years. Argentina’s former President and current Vice-President was convicted of fraud, though is still in office because the case is under appeal (and her job under Argentine law carries immunity). And the list goes on and on and on and on. And on… And no, not one of those are countries “whose Powerball jackpot is 387 chickens and a goat.” Even by John Kennedy disingenuous, snarky “unprecedented” [tm] standards. Worth noting: Axios states that the countries who are least likely to have indicted their leaders are "monarchies or dictatorships." Y'know, in the latter case, the kind of countries that John Kennedy was pointing to as his "unprecedented" [tm] model. (Or as my friend Don Friedman more aptly put it -- "The ones that elect sociopaths and criminals like Trump." Furthermore, beyond France, Italy, Israel, Brazil and others, indicting political leaders is not even “unprecedented” [tm] in the United States! Because what Sen. Kennedy conveniently leaves out is that a U.S. House committee voted to pass articles of impeachment for Richard Nixon, who resigned office first. And this came after his own vice president Spiro Agnew (who was also being investigated) resigned from office in a plea deal. So, while neither of these would count as Kennedy “precedents,” they’re as close to “precedents” as one can get without required a winch to separate them. And it doesn’t count all the U.S. Senators, U.S. Congressmen and state Governors who have been indicted, prosecuted and convicted throughout U.S. history. (And we’re not even getting into the mass of local officials.) In fact, 12 U.S. Senators have been indicted while still in office! This includes current senator Bob Menendez, which I’m sure Sen. Kennedy couldn’t possibly have overlooked, no matter how myopic and disingenuous he wanted to appear. The Nixon administration alone is a piñata of convicted White House officials, among them two Attorney Generals. Apparently, there was a bonus on Attorney Generals in the “Party of Law & Order.” (sic) The list of those indicted is much, much too long, but here’s a too-long page of federal politicians who not only were indicted, but were actually convicted. And we haven’t even gotten to governors, the chief executives of each state. It’s so over-precedented in Illinois that four of the state’s last 11 governors in went to prison! (That’s a .444 batting average, which if it was baseball would put them in the Hall of Fame.) Seven governors in total from Illinois alone have been either arrested or indicted. Over all, 28 governors in U.S. history have been convicted -- although a few had their overturned. And…and…well, you get the point. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) is trying hard to blow smoke up the collected rear-ends of Americans, though knowing that he’ll likely have his most success with the Republican base. And to reiterate, Kennedy -- as noted above -- is just a single name used to stand in for all the Republican officials trying to flim-flam the willfully-ignorant part of its base that the four indictments of private citizen Trump are supposedly “unprecedented.” In fairness, it’s possible that by “unprecedented,” Kennedy and Republican officials mean “common.” This is the bottom line: Even if in some magical fantasy world the indictments of Trump (a man found liable for the equivalence or rape) were “unprecedented” [tm] – and to relentlessly reinforce the reality, they aren’t even slightly close to that – we all know what we have repeated since grade school, that we live in a democracy with an independent judicial system, where no man is above the law, and we investigate crimes when they occur, and to even get indicted requires evidence and a vote by a Grand Jury, where those who are indicted get a lawyer, have the opportunity to defend themselves before a jury of their peers, sworn to be unbiased, and when facing felonies require juries to unanimously find them guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. And you either believe in that system of justice, or you don’t believe in the U.S. Constitution and democracy. Which in the case of today’s Republican Party is always a possibility. Indeed, every time I read about every Republican in Congress who complains about Trump being indicted four times -- let alone being found liable for the equivalence of rape -- I always want to say to each one, "I am so sorry you're upset that your party leader has been investigated and indicted. Again. And again. And again. But then, that's what happens when you enable and protect and throw your lot in with someone who has a lifetime of cheating people, a career of being sued, was impeached twice, tried to overthrow the government, fomented an Insurrection, stole government documents and tried to get state official to commit election fraud. And you all knew it and said said when he first ran. That. as Lindsey Graham insisted, he's a "kook". And "he will destroy the party." There is at least one amusing thing to come from all this. When Republican officials rise in faux-outrage about the two-tier system of justice in the United States, I can only burst out in laughter when thinking about how minorities, the poor and underprivileged having been trying to convince Republicans about this for the past century. And Republicans finally have decided to take up the gauntlet on this injustice on behalf of…Trump!! A man who has a lifetime of being sued and settling, had his charity foundation shut down for a “shocking pattern of illegality,” had his company found guilty of tax fraud, was personally found liable for the equivalence of rape and fined $5 million, and was, in fact, indicted by the U.S. government for the first time as far back as 50 years ago for racial bias. If any American is the poster child for how the two-tier system of justice in the United States has worked in his favor -- this is the poster.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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