by WorldTribune Staff, April 6, 2023
No one is above the law is one of the “most ludicrous fantasies peddled by the Left,” a new analysis points out.
In his April 4 piece, the Federalist’s David Harsanyi provides plenty of examples of individuals who obviously are above the law.
“James Clapper, who lied under oath to Congress about spying on the American people, is above the law. John Brennan, who lied about a domestic spying operation on Senate staffers, is above the law. Unlike Trump advisor Peter Navarro, Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder was never going to be handcuffed and thrown in prison for ignoring a congressional subpoena. He is above the law.”
The conservative rally cry of “lock her up” during the 2016 campaign was just that, a rally cry. Hillary Clinton was never going to be indicted because she is above the law.
“The then-Secretary of State set up a private server in her home to circumvent transparency surrounding her slush-fund foundation,” Harsanyi noted. “She sent 110 emails containing marked classified information, and 36 of those emails contained secret information. Eight of the email chains contained ‘top secret’ information. Every one of those instances was a potential felony punishable with up to ten years in prison.”
Then-FBI Director James Comey said publicly that Hillary had been “extremely careless” in conducting her business.
“Comey didn’t recommend charges because, he claimed, the state couldn’t prove Clinton’s intent — even though “gross negligence,” not intent, was the only standard he needed,” Harsanyi noted. “Gross negligence and extreme carelessness are synonyms. Comey concocted a new standard to protect Clinton because she is above the law.”
What about Bill?
Hillary’s husband, “also above the law, perjured himself under oath, Democrats argued that puritanical conservatives were only pursuing Bill because of some trumped-up charge over ‘sex,’ ” Harsanyi wrote. “Using that logic, Trump’s campaign finance charges related to Stormy Daniels’ ‘hush money’ are also about sex. This is different because Trump is the boogeyman, and everyone knows he’s guilty of something. The important thing is getting that mug shot.”
As former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi puts it: “Everyone has the right to a trial to prove innocence.”
By “everyone,” Pelosi, of course, means Republicans.
“And if you think this authoritarian formulation is an accident, you haven’t been paying attention,” Harsanyi wrote. “When Democrats were smearing Brett Kavanaugh as a (gang) rapist a few years back, Mazie Hirono was asked whether the then-nominee deserved the ‘same presumption of innocence as anyone else in America?’ After all, this wasn’t about any judicial disagreement but about alleged criminal behavior. The Hawaii senator responded, ‘I put his denial in the context of everything that I know about him in terms of how he approaches his cases.’ ”
“In other words,” Harsanyi continued, “if you’re a conservative, your politics are evil; and if your politics are evil, you’re probably evil. I imagine that was the rationalization used by Kamala Harris when reading obvious fabrications about Kavanaugh into the Congressional Record. It is likely the rationalization of Lois Lerner or Merrick Garland — both above the law — when they weaponized government agencies against political opponents. It is almost surely the rationalization of Alvin Bragg. This is what justifies the contemporary Left’s increasing comfort with deploying the state to punish and destroy political enemies. For many progressives, the legal system isn’t merely a tool for criminal justice (if that) but a way to exact poetic political justice.”
Christopher Bedford, author of “The Art of the Donald”, noted in an April 5 analysis for The Federalist that the difference between the left and right was on full display in the Trump arraignment.
“Let’s compare. Despite the chorus of execrations, Republicans’ ‘lock her up’ chants were so much political theater. Sure, they could yell it real loud and even print it on hats, T-shirts, and bumper stickers, but it was never going to happen. While liberal reporters and politicians launched accusations of fascism over the chants and the merchandising, conservatives never really had the power to affect as hardline a policy as they were accused of. Under President Trump, Hillary Clinton wrote books, did podcasts, and worked on documentaries about herself, while FBI leaders colluded against the White House, and FBI agents kneeled before anti-Trump protesters. Right-wing fascism, this was not.”
On the other hand, Bedford continued, the Left “actually has the power to undermine administrations and even arrest its enemies. The power is innate, wielding it doesn’t even take beaming some nefarious order from the top — the institutions themselves are thoroughly captured.
“President Barack Obama, for example, didn’t need to call Lois Lerner and order her to use the Internal Revenue Service to hobble conservative nonprofits, just as U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland didn’t have to order FBI tactical teams to target Christians after Roe was struck down. All it takes is mid-level functionaries who believe their cause is just, are willing to use their powers to punish their political enemies, and aren’t really afraid they’ll ever be held accountable for it.”
Executing the plan from the top is “where loyal lieutenants like Bragg come in,” Bedford wrote. “He’s openly bragged that this is his role. When running for New York City prosecutor, he touted that he’d sued Trump more than 100 times. He all but promised partisan allies he’d hold their political enemies to account.”
Bedford continued: “We saw similar squirming when Garland issued his memo explicitly instructing agents to target parents at school meetings, but as with Bragg’s flimsy case, no harm will come to the perpetrators. No one will be held to account; the game will go on.
“Republicans will of course accuse their opponents of ‘hypocrisy.’ They’ll take to the networks and send out emails and raise millions of dollars. They’ll yell ‘hypocrisy’ because that’s what powerless people see when actual power is wielded against them. And when it’s over, Bragg’s publicly political and legally weak case isn’t going to cause any trouble for the American left beyond a little heartburn. Another norm will be bulldozed, and Republicans will claim they’re too principled to respond in kind, contenting themselves instead with calling their opponents hypocrites and other words the weak fling helplessly against the strong.”
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