As the nation prepares this day to cross the Rubicon into unbridled political warfare with the arraignment of a former president and enemy of the current political regime, it brings to mind something once proclaimed by Lavrentiy Beria, the infamous chief of secret police during Joseph Stalin’s reign of terror in the Soviet Union. Though you might think them the words of Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg in his “witch hunt” designed to convict Donald Trump by any means available, it was Beria who asserted almost a century ago – with good cause given the communist system of justice – that he could prove criminal conduct by anyone, guilty or not. “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” was the boast.
Is this not precisely what is happening to Donald Trump? But as much as the indictment of the 45th president is sending shock waves across the nation, this is not the only chilling similarity to Soviet-style justice these days. Equally worthy of note is another blight on humanity, the infamous “show trial,” in which only the state prosecutor is allowed to present damning “evidence,” and guilty verdicts are pre-ordained. And that is exactly what we witnessed just a few months ago, when Democrats used millions in taxpayer funds, under the guise of a legitimate congressional hearing, to produce a spectacular, state-sponsored, Hollywood-style vilification of the man they hate with every fiber of their collective being – and whom they may face again in the next election.
Many will remember the well-worn statement by Sol Wachtler, the former chief judge of New York state, that he could get any grand jury to “indict a ham sandwich.” And while Trump’s sandwich of choice is the Big Mac, it was obvious once this matter was sent up to a grand jury that an indictment would follow. Designed by the founders to protect citizens from malicious or unwarranted prosecution, the grand jury system has increasingly, and most unfortunately, evolved into the opposite: a vehicle for state prosecutors to justify and validate their personal agendas.
Donald Trump, Enemy of the State
Donald Trump (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Are we headed for a mirror image of the McCarthy era, with the left naming, shaming, and cooking up charges against all who dare disagree with their deconstructionist progressive agenda? Or are we there already? Once Trump is arraigned, we will not be able to reverse the curse it is certain to unleash on the American justice system. Revenge-minded opponents of future administrations will cite this precedent as permission to launch their own political witch hunts on presidents disguised as legitimate legal action. We will never squeeze this toothpaste back into the tube. The line will have been crossed, the sides drawn, the battle joined.
Does this indictment for a process crime, and the unprecedented effort to elevate it from a misdemeanor to a felony, mean the other pending cases against Trump are not close enough to producing the arrest necessary to soothe the savage beast, otherwise known as the American left? After all, even many progressives agree that, of all the charges pending against the 45th president, these are by far the flimsiest. Many will at least understand, if not agree with the unrelated allegations leveled against Trump. People will take seriously the accusation that he incited a riot on 1/6/21, or tried to squeeze votes out of Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, or deliberately ignored the limits on a former president holding classified documents.
But while those three matters are of a more serious nature and carry more severe consequences if Trump is found guilty, in some ways it makes sense for the bloodthirsty left to make their stand on this relatively petty matter. They need something, anything, to change the subject from the cascading revelations about the Biden family enterprise being unearthed by the House. On top of that, they have seen their January 6 narrative, if not reversed, significantly dulled by newly released footage of “QAnon Shaman” Jacob Chansley proving that the left’s characterization of him as the violent ringleader and face of the “insurrection” was a lie. At the same time, Joe Biden was found to be housing classified documents in more locations than Trump, which served to quell the typically reflexive moral outrage and virtue-signaling among his enemies regarding the infamous FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago. And if you were a Democrat, would you count on a jury in Georgia voting to convict Donald Trump? Bragg’s case may actually represent the left’s best shot at producing the desired guilty verdict in a timely fashion.
But make no mistake, this is a riverboat gamble. If Bragg succeeds with a prosecution of Trump, it will breathe new life into the other investigations. But if he fails, it will similarly energize the Trump campaign, and subsequent legal action against him will be widely viewed not as prosecution, but as pure political persecution.
There is the common assumption that Trump’s many enemies have conspired to collectively control the course of events. Is Bragg acting on his own, or is he taking orders from on high? The various matters being investigated are all in separate courts and jurisdictions, and leftists dispute the idea that Democratic power brokers engaged in some form of group chat, deciding who gets to go first with their case. But as Democrats watch polls consistently showing Trump even with or ahead of Biden, the powers-that-be evidently decided to advance the case that stands to bear the most fruit in the immediate future – so they can hopefully weaken Trump before he starts campaigning in earnest. Whether you believe this action is part of a larger conspiracy by the left or not, it beggars belief that Democratic leaders, from fellow New Yorker Chuck Schumer to Joe Biden to high-ranking White House or campaign officials, would simply allow a district attorney in a single municipal jurisdiction to make such an earth-shaking decision all by himself.
Democrats are trapped in what is commonly called cognitive dissonance, attempting to reconcile two simultaneous and clashing beliefs. Though few would admit it, most Democrats view the younger rising star Ron DeSantis – and perhaps other GOP hopefuls – as the greater threat to their hold on the White House, and believe Trump will be the easiest Republican to defeat. After all, their thinking goes, Biden already beat him once, and with the help of a compliant media have done everything in their power to depict him as the devil incarnate, so they see no reason why Trump should prevail in a rematch.
But at the same time, they are hardly confident enough in that belief not to be utterly terrified about what will happen if they are wrong. The stakes become higher than ever with a highly flammable state of play now animated by both the Stalinist-style political indictment of this enemy of the state and Trump’s openly expressed plans for retribution against his lengthy parade of enemies in the Swamp.
If you factor in the likelihood of Republicans continuing their control of the House and their likely takeover of the Senate – they are defending just ten solid seats in 2024 compared to 23 for Democrats – the specter of Donald Trump returning to the seat of power and co-joined with a fully GOP-controlled Congress is more than enough to scare the bejesus out of the left. In fact, it might be enough to cause all those celebrity leftists who promised to leave the country if Donald Trump were elected – same as they did with George W. Bush – to finally make good on their promises.
