The Trump Indictment—In 10 Bothersome Paradoxes
Victor Davis Hanson, The Blade of Perseus
Yes, we are told Trump is facing serious charges. Experts tell us he will be going to prison. Some of his legal team have quit. Yes, he was sloppy about communicating with the lawyers of the National Archives. Yet, read the 1978 Presidential Records Act (put into place after the typical sloppy departure protocols of most presidents)—and consider that Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Vice President Mike Pence were likely all in violation. Moreover, we are not stupid, when asked to ignore the following:
1) That a president who had the prerogative to declassify almost any presidential papers he takes with him when leaving office, in a way that a senator or vice-president does not, should be prosecuted for doing just that when a former senator, and former vice-president are not prosecuted for doing the same.
2) That an ex-president is prosecuted for having supposedly classified papers in his possession after 18 months as a private citizen, but an ex-senator, ex-vice president, and current president is exempt, despite having classified documents for some 15 years—and keeping that fact absolutely quiet.
3) That a “disinterested” special counsel who is currently indicting a conservative Republican ex-president and current opposition presidential candidate, is married to a leftwing documentary filmmaker, whose recent work includes Becoming, a 2020 obsequious documentary of Michelle Obama.
4) That the current president removed classified documents, and kept them stored while President of the United States in as many as four unsecured locations, including a poorly locked garage, shared by his drug-addled son, who made millions of dollars by leveraging foreign governments in quid pro quo fashion, presumably on the principle that he and his father had inside information that could be of monetary value—and is not being indicted.
5) That never before in U.S. history has any administration overseen the indictment either of an ex-president of the opposite party or a current leading candidate for president of the opposite party—or both.
6) That many ex-presidents have removed presidential papers that were under dispute as to their exact legal ownership and classification and were never—until now—indicted.
7) That typically frequent archival disputes over presidential papers are considered jurisdictional matters that rarely even escalate to civil cases and are not violations of criminal statutes—until oddly now.
8) That a number of prominent ex-officials have committed by their own admission felonies with impunity—John Brennan, as CIA director admittedly lying on two occasions, at least once under oath to the U.S. Congress; James Clapper as Director of National Intelligence admittedly lying under oath to the U.S. Congress; Andrew McCabe, interim FBI director, admittedly lying under oath to federal investigators on at least three occasions; Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State, U.S. senator, and two-time presidential candidate admittedly destroying subpoenaed emails, smashing subpoenaed communication devices, unlawfully transmitting classified information on her own unsecured private email server, illegally hiring a foreign national to work on her presidential campaign, and conspiring to construct three paywalls to hide her payments to a British subject to compile and spread false information against her presidential opponent with the intent of destroying his character and his rival campaign. Navy veteran Walt Nauta is being charged with a felony for saying “I don’t know” in the fashion of James Comey’s 245 “I don’t know/recall/remember” while under oath before Congress.
9) That Trump is being indicted in a fashion never witnessed before, after his opponents previously had impeached him twice in a historical first resulting in two acquittals in the Senate, another historic first, including a Senate trial as a private citizen in yet another historical first, after a special counsel spent 22 months and $40 million in a failed effort to indict Trump on false charges of “Russian collusion,” after the FBI suppressed information about a laptop that was injurious to President Trump’s then opponent and now current President Joe Biden with the lie of “Russian disinformation,” after 51 former government intelligence authorities in conspiratorial fashion lied, on a Biden campaign prompt, in a signed letter that the laptop was likely “Russian disinformation,” and after the FBI interfered in two presidential election in efforts to harm two Trump candidacies.
10) That Trump’s home was raided in surprise fashion by legions of armed FBI agents pursuing reports of unlawfully removed classified documents, in a manner that the current president was not subject to such FBI treatment for the same alleged crime and was allowed to have the matter resolved by his own lawyers and government agents without the presence of law enforcement.
