History Proves Trump Indictments Persecution Not Prosecution
We Have Been Here Before
The most important thing to remember about all of the indictments arrayed against Donald Trump is simply this: we have been here before.
Not that there are not original elements to the latest indictments in Georgia. Donald Trump’s booking at Fulton County Jail is a first in US history, and not a good one.
Former Justice Department attorney and Trump loyalist Jeffrey Clark led a parade of five co-defenders who surrendered themselves to Fulton County authorities after the former president was booked into the Georgia jail on Thursday.
Donald Trump surrendered himself at the Fulton County Jail in Georgia on Thursday night on a 13-count indictment for efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has secured for herself her fifteen minutes of infamy with her orgy of prosecutorial overreach with a case so problematic and chaotic that it beggars belief, but that is all. Certainly “justice” is not an element of this latest persecution of Donald Trump.
Neither is historical perspective. For all the media fulminations about how “unprecedented” the indictments against Trump are, the simple reality is that we have been here before. More than once.
There is little doubt but that the Georgia case is a shoddy exemplar of prosecutorial misconduct. Even former Attorney General and Trump quisling Bill Barr finds the indictment questionable:
Former Attorney General Bill Barr criticized the Fulton County, Ga., indictment of former President Trump as “too sweeping” and “too broad,” arguing that it helps “feed the narrative” that Trump is being unfairly targeted by prosecutors.
“I’m not happy with the Georgia case,” Barr told Fox News’s Neil Cavuto on Thursday. “I think it’s much too sweeping, much too broad, excessive case that is [going to] make it look like people are piling on and being excessive to Trump and feed the narrative that he’s being victimized here.”
“I also think there’s merit in the point that this is a case that I don’t think is going to be triable before the election,” he added. “It’s just too sprawling.”
Remember, Bill Barr has previously criticised Donald Trump over his handling of the fallout from the contested 2020 election, and supported Jack Smith’s persecution prosecution of Trump.
The former attorney general also described Trump’s alleged actions as detailed in the indictment as “nauseating” and “despicable,” saying on “The Source,” “someone who engaged in that kind of bullying about a process that is fundamental to our system and to our self-government shouldn’t be anywhere near the Oval Office.”
Given such statements by Barr, for him to now chastise the Fulton County DA for her amateurish attempt to jump on the “Indict Trump” bandwagon speaks volumes about the lack of quality in Willis’ case.
Nor can we take any comfort in noted legal scholar Jonathan Turley comparing Fani Willis’ case to a Jackson Pollock painting:
Pollock once advised confused observers that they needed to stop looking for objective meaning. The same may be true with the fourth Trump indictment. Willis simply treats every statement as a knowing falsehood and conspiratorial effort.
The indictment, to many, reads like the type of unabashedly biased spin that’s typically seen on cable television shows.
As
points out on , this sort of behavior is the stuff of banana republics in Latin America. It is not supposed to be the stuff of the United States.We have Nazis coming into power now. The irony is that, the people being the Nazis are kidding themselves by claiming they are fighting the Nazis. Or the Fascists. Not quite the same thing, but the terms are kind of interchangeable right now for a blanket condemnation of everything that isn’t the approved Neolib Narrative.
Except, Trump isn’t the one acting like Stalin or Hitler. Trump could have persecuted Hillary. He did not. But Biden is persecuting Trump.
Fani Willis may have enough prosecutorial muscle to force a trial over Trump’s audacity in questioning the outcome of the 2020 election, but for all her voluminous detailing of supposedly corrupt and criminal acts by Donald Trump, the crux of her case hinges on the characterization of otherwise legal specific acts as corrupt and therefore criminal. Alas for her and for the Democrat puppetmasters inciting her misconduct, that characterization simply cannot stand, and for one simple reason:
We have been here before.
Donald Trump is not America’s first populist politician, nor is he even the first politician with national prominence to have the nation’s criminal justice system deployed against him and his allies. Huey Long, Louisiana’s (in)famous Depression Era governor and senator known as “the Kingfish”, endured similar treatments at the hands of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Not only did FDR deploy the IRS to hound Huey Long, but also supported a long-running inquiry into charges of election fraud against Long ally and fellow Louisiana senator John Overton1—charges which ultimately came up empty.
Indeed, there seems to be a pronounced historical tendency by America’s political establishment to demonize and denigrate populism and populist politicians, often equating populism with authoritarianism:
Long was neither the first nor the last American populist leader to display authoritarian tendencies. In the 1830s, Andrew Jackson was dubbed King Andrew the First because of his liberal use of executive power. At the same time Long was amassing political capital, the Catholic priest and radio personality Charles Coughlin used his platform to promote fascism and racism to his listeners. In the 1960s, the Alabama governor George Wallace infamously blocked the racial integration ordered by the Supreme Court with his own body. Today Trump is attempting to circumvent Congress’s authority over the federal budget by claiming emergency powers.
While the charge is not entirely without merit (Huey Long was not at all shy about pushing the limits of political power), it is often cynically deployed against authentic populist politicians such as Huey Long, even as Establishmentarian politicians such as the current President Dementia Joe embrace authoritarian rhetoric and policies while striking a faux populist pose.
We should not forget the Biden Regime’s “Winter of Death” rhetoric demonizing of those resisting mRNA inoculation against COVID.
We should not forget the Biden Regime’s fascistic plan to deploy OSHA to force an inoculation mandate on the American people.
We should not forget that while Dementia Joe’s handlers love to use populist rhetoric, particularly with regards to that epic economic lunacy known as “Bidenomics”, unlike authentic populists such as Huey Long, their policies hurt the people and advantage the elites.
As Huey Long’s brief but tempestuous political career demonstrates, when it comes to opposition against Trump, the United States has been here before.
As regards the presumed evidences of “corruption” asserted by both the uber partisan Fani Willis and the loyal gauleiter Jack Smith, had they remembered even a smattering of American history, they would have realized the improbability of divining corrupt intent simply from contesting a US Presidential election. The historical backdrop of both the Georgia and the federal indictments is…wait for it…”we have been here before.”
Specifically, before we had the Election of 2020 and the J6 riot (which was not an insurrection or in any way seditious), we had the highly contested Election of 18762.
The Election of 1876 had more than a few elements in common with 2020, most notably contested state results where both sides claimed victory.
On election day Tilden led Hayes by more than 260,000 votes and appeared on the verge of winning an electoral college majority, having swept much of the South; he also won the border states and several states in the northeast, including his home state of New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey. However, three states were in doubt: Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, with 19 electoral votes among them. The status of one of Oregon’s three electors—which had already been given to Tilden—was also in question. Hayes and most of his associates were ready to concede when a New Hampshire Republican leader, William E. Chandler, observed that if Hayes were awarded every one of the doubtful votes, he would defeat Tilden 185–184. Both parties claimed victory in all three Southern states and sent teams of observers and lawyers into all three in hopes of influencing the official canvass.
Because of this, both sides submitted slates of Electors to the Electoral College.
This produced a true “Constitutional crisis”, because the Constitution (even as amended by the 12th Amendment) only provided for what to do when no candidate for President secures a majority vote in the Electoral College—it goes to the House of Representatives.
if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice.
The Constitution is silent on what to do when there are disputes about slates of electors from the several states—but as the Supreme Court unaminously ruled in 2020, they and only they are meant to elect the President of the United States.
Despite Constitutional silence on the matter—and even despite numerous allegations of voter fraud and voter suppression3 (also a facet of the 2020 election)—neither the Congress nor the Department of Justice sought to criminalize either side for claiming victory and submitting slates of electors in the contested states during the 1876 election.
Instead, the Congress formed an Electoral Commission to take evidence on the claims from both sides over the contested states and determine which side should get which votes. Unsurprisingly, the matter was decided entirely along party lines.
In an unprecedented move, Congress decided to create an extralegal “Election Commission” composed of five senators, five House members and five Supreme Court justices. In late January, the commission voted 8-7 along party lines that Hayes had won all the contested states, and therefore the presidency, by just one electoral vote.
Furious Democrats refused to accept the ruling and threatened a filibuster. So, in long meetings behind closed doors, Democrats and Hayes’ Republican allies hashed out what came to be known as the Compromise of 1877: the informal but binding agreement that made Hayes president on the condition that he end Reconstruction in the South.
Finally, just after 4 a.m. on March 2, 1877, the Senate president declared Hayes the president-elect of the United States. Hayes—dubbed “His Fraudulency” by a bitter Democratic press—would be publicly inaugurated just two days later.
We should not overlook the reality that there was almost certainly significant levels of voter fraud in the 1876 election. This in particular is significant, because, as I detailed in discussing Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump over the 2020 election , there are at the very least significant questions of ballot integrity regarding multiple states’ results in 2020.
While one can decry the obvious politicking of the 1877 Electoral Commission—politicking which led many Democrats in 1877 to call winner Rutherford B Hayes “His Fraudulency” (sound familiar?)—two points are indisputable:
It resolved the contested election peaceably. No riots, no insurrection, no renewed civil war.
No one was charged with a crime just because they did not accept the results of a ballot with questionable integrity.
A point I stated the other day regarding Mike Pence’ debate performance in the August 23 GOP debate deserves reiteration here:
There is a vital distinction between defending the Constitution and defending the Deep State, and Mike Pence completely failed to make it. Given that he was the Vice President on January 6, 2021, he is the candidate who needs to make that distinction, which only magnifies that failure.
Not only did Mike Pence completely fail in his Constitutional obligations, but so has Jack Smith and now we can add Fani Willis to that ignominious list.
Like all populist politicians, Donald Trump can be a polarizing figure. Voters and other political leaders generally either love him unconditionally or despise him unwaveringly.
Such is the nature of Donald Trump, and such is the nature of populist politicians. It is the nature of populist rhetoric to set the broad swath of the electorate against the narrow interests of the notional elites. Fundamentally, that’s what the term “populism” means4.
Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of “the people” and often juxtapose this group against “the elite”. The term developed in the 19th century and has been applied to various politicians, parties, and movements since that time, although has rarely been chosen as a self-description.
Yet “polarizing” does not mean “criminal”, nor should it. Polarizing figures are only made criminal when the political establishment becomes fearful of them—that has been the historical pattern both in the US and abroad, and thus we may fairly conclude that the Democrats are terrified by the thought of a second Donald Trump administration.
The Democrats are terrified while a growing portion of Americans are at the very least sympathetic but also supportive of Donald Trump. For all Trump’s presumed character flaws and weaknesses as US President, a second Trump Administration is starting to look very much by a growing contingent of US citizens as a better choice that four more years of the figurehead Dementia Joe and his Reign of Error. Given the historical precedents on how 2020 “should” have been handled, it is difficult if not impossible to view Democrat (and even Establishment) politicians as viewing Trump in any other light.
If the Democrats do not fear Trump, why not let him run again in 2024 unmolested, and let the votes be cast as they will?
If the Democrats do not fear Trump, why are they lining up persecution after persecution against Trump?
If the Democrats do not fear Trump, why are they attacking his supporters and allies, threatening them with prison for daring to protest a corrupt election with numerous questions about documented lapses in ballot and voter integrity?
The Democrats did not fear Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876. Arguably, they did fear “the Kingfish” in the 1930s.
There was never a reason to indict Donald Trump over 2020. None.
There was never a reason to take the dangerous step of criminalizing political disputes and debate. None.
There is a powerful and compelling reason for the Democrats to have risen above such political pettiness—a reason that is unavoidable and yet simple.
We have been here before.
U.S. Senate Historical Office. U.S. Senate: Expulsion Case of Huey P. Long and John H. Overton of Louisiana (1934). 1995, https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/expulsion/117LongOverton_expulsion.htm.
Levy, M. “United States Presidential Election of 1876: The Disputed Election.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, Online Edition, 2011, https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-1876/The-disputed-election.
McGreevy, N. “Five Things to Know About the 1876 Presidential Election.” Smithsonian Magazine, Jan. 2021, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/confusion-voter-suppression-and-constitutional-crisis-five-things-know-about-1876-presidential-election-180976677/.
European Center For Populism Studies. Populism. https://www.populismstudies.org/Vocabulary/populism/.
Agree!!!! 😞
Is it me or does it appear Democrats seem to be more culpable in this kind of behaviour?