Blog#123-7/14/22
WILL JUSTICE PREVAIL?
By Richard Davis
You don’t have to be a lawyer to come to the conclusion that there is enough evidence to convict Donald Trump on a number of charges. If he were a less prominent citizen he would have been found guilty by now and would be sitting in a jail cell.
But our criminal justice system does not provide a great deal of equality when it comes to prosecuting and punishing people who break the law. The more money and influence you have the less likely you are to be punished.
The hearings being conducted by the January 6 committee are providing the findings of fact that are needed to prosecute Trump. The committee is doing much of the work that the justice department needs to be done to move forward with a case. They are doing a good job of showing how Trump and his allies planned an insurrection to seize control of the government in an attempt to subvert the constitution and the rule of law.
According to an article on the Huffpost web site commenting on the committee hearings, “Lawmakers indicated that perhaps their most important audience member over the course of the hearings may be Attorney General Merrick Garland, who must decide whether his department can and should prosecute Trump. They left no doubt as to their own view whether the evidence is sufficient to proceed.”
Committee member Rep. Adam Schiff noted that “Once the evidence is accumulated by the Justice Department, it needs to make a decision about whether it can prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt the president’s guilt or anyone else’s. But they need to be investigated if there’s credible evidence, which I think there is.”
The problem the justice department faces in this potential prosecution is not legal but political. Politics should not enter into the mix, but this entire situation is mired in the most political of swamps and there is no way for any legal body to be free of political influence.
Our government institutions have never been pure. They have always been influenced by the political climate. But it seems that the current state of our republic is infected with a particularly virulent form of political poison in the year 2022. One need only look to the Supreme Court to understand the state of our current constitutional crisis.
The Huffpost article further provides this political context to the case against Trump. “Legal experts have said a Justice Department prosecution of Trump over the riot could set an uneasy precedent in which an administration of one party could more routinely go after the former president of another. “We will follow the facts wherever they lead,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in his speech at Harvard University’s commencement ceremony last month.
“A federal judge in California said in a March ruling in a civil case that Trump “more likely than not” committed federal crimes in seeking to obstruct the congressional count of the Electoral College ballots on Jan. 6, 2021. The judge cited two statutes: obstruction of an official proceeding, and conspiracy to defraud the United States. Trump has denied all wrongdoing.”
Of all the possible crimes Trump may be guilty of sedition is the worst. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines sedition as, “incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority”. Sedition carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
If Trump is not found guilty of sedition it will mean that our legal system and our constitution no longer exercise authority over the American people. What does that mean for the future of the United States of America?
