Letitia James

Has Donald Trump “weaponized” the justice system to go after his political enemies? The answer is no. “What about former FBI director James Comey?” you ask. “What about New York Attorney General Letitia James?” Both went after Trump hammer and tongs. Now both have been indicted by the Trump Justice Department. Are those not textbook cases of “weaponization,” of “retribution,” of using the power of the system to punish people who have punished you? Hold on. I write this in mid-October. By the time you read it, I suspect that the list of indictments will be much longer.

A buzzword of the moment is “lawfare.” What is lawfare? It’s one of those portmanteau words that Lewis Carroll taught us about. A combination of “law” and “warfare,” “lawfare” is distinctly less clever an invention than “chortle” – one of Carroll’s coinages, my beamish boy, which combines the words “chuckle” and “snort.” The word “lawfare” apparently dates back to the late 1950s, though the phenomenon – using and abusing the law in order to conduct political warfare – has come into its own only in the past couple of decades. The fact that there is now an eponymous website devoted to the subject is but one patent of its currency.

One of the outcomes of November’s election is that Americans can once again trust their own eyes and call out the obvious when they see it. President Biden long ago lost the mental acuity to serve as the nation’s chief executive. Progressive causes like climate change, diversity hiring and transgender men participating in women’s sports are ridiculous. And highly dubious prosecutions seemingly launched as political weapons are exactly what they appear to be. In a Friday morning double-header Americans witnessed in real time the crumbling of the last two vestiges of the lawfare campaign against former and future president Donald Trump. What were once touted as a dream of the left to bring down a king will at best be reduced to obscure footnotes in the annals of history.

The effort to bankrupt, disgrace and banish Donald J. Trump to a jail cell in Riker’s Island has instead helped pave his road right back to the Oval Office. The unprecedented abuse of the American legal system fueled plenty of cable news coverage, but it also alienated the electorate. As with President Joe Biden’s mental decline, voters trusted their own eyes over the tale being told on their screens and delivered a decisive verdict against an eight-year politically-motivated lawfare campaign — exit polls showed that Trump voters were more likely to say democracy was under threat.

According to President Biden, not since the Civil War has American freedom and democracy been so under assault. In his State of the Union address, Biden characterized January 6 as a day when “insurrectionists stormed this very Capitol and placed a dagger at the throat of American democracy.” With this kind of rhetoric emanating from the White House, it is no wonder a good portion of the country believes that any use of the legal system is justified to protect us from a second Donald Trump administration.  Except... that is not how the law works. By stretching their prosecutorial powers to the breaking point, Democrats are perverting the very system they are claiming to protect.  Take the charade in New York.

The barbarians — along with a $464 million judgment against Donald Trump —are at at the gates of Mar-a-Lago. On Monday, Trump's attorneys in his civil fraud case said securing a large enough bond is a "practical impossibility."  Despite bragging about the depths of his pockets, Trump doesn’t have the money on hand to post bond, nor can he use his properties as collateral. According to his lawyers, nearly thirty insurance companies have already declined to underwrite a bond backed by real estate. Whatever stockpiled cash Trump does have on hand has already taken a hit. Last week he posted a $91 million bond in the second E. Jean Carroll defamation case.

Welcome to Thunderdome. The Republican Party has new leadership, with North Carolina GOP chairman Michael Whatley and daughter-in-law of the former president Lara Trump taking over an organization that will, in reality, be run by Chris LaCivita. They’ve already made one controversial but wise decision in demurring on the hiring of Scott Presler, a ballot harvester popular with the MAGA crowd. But they now confront the harsh reality of the RNC’s fundraising woes: they’re well behind the Joe Biden campaign and the DNC. The Democratic president’s campaign account officially reported taking in $21 million in February, according to its report filed with the Federal Election Commission late Wednesday, ending the month with $71 million cash on hand.

I want to talk about two things in this column: bills of attainder and kangaroo courts. The two often go together. What is a “bill of attainder?” We get the term from English law. A person or persons whom the people in charge don’t like is “attainted.” Forget about due process, presumption of innocence, or any such quaint ideas. Bills of attainder worked through the untrammeled deployment of state power. To be accused was tantamount to being found guilty; common penalties included the abrogation of the right to own property, and, not infrequently, the right to life itself.

Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis might reflect on the proverb, “Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion.” She will have ample time to reflect as she watches her career decompose in a Georgia courtroom and state Senate hearing. The old saying is directly on point. The spotlight searches out prominent people and their entourage. If they are caught cheating, they will shrivel under the glare. If they are caught lying under oath, their troubles will be far worse. That is exactly what is happening in an Atlanta courtroom to Willis, as well as her paramour, Nathan Wade, and Wade’s former law partner, Terrence Bradley, who was also briefly his divorce attorney. The spotlight is on Willis because she is prosecuting Donald Trump and a busload of co-defendants.

While Donald Trump’s excessive rhetoric often evokes eye rolls, in the case of Friday’s record-setting $350 million judgment against the Trump Organization, he is spot on. “Disgraceful.” “Lawfare.” “Banana republic.” All three apply.  It’s hard to imagine a more perverse and vindictive misuse of the justice system than that which New York attorney general Letitia James has committed. While campaigning in 2018, James promised to vigorously investigate Trump and his business. True to her word, once in the office James spent three years seizing and scouring through Trump’s tax and financial records for anything she could use as the basis for legal action.

Everything from the flintlock rifle to the dialogue was planned — somehow people often don’t realize that, even when there’s a Hollywood actor on stage. When Charlton Heston raised the prop above his head at the 2000 NRA convention and bellowed, “from my cold dead hands,” those gathered in Charlotte reacted just as the ghostwriters thought they would. It didn’t matter that the line in question had been a bumper sticker for decades, or that the septuagenarian Oscar-winner was reciting a phrase Vincent D’Onofrio had parodied just three years earlier in the blockbuster Men in Black. Viewers of the film today won’t realize the cart is pulling the satire horse until they check IMDb.

New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against former President Donald Trump, three of his adult children, and other senior members of the Trump Organization on Wednesday. Her suit alleges business and insurance fraud as well as conspiracy for the same, and marks the end of a three-year investigation into Trump and his business. The civil suit is basically a civil version of the criminal indictments the Southern District of New York (SDNY) and the Manhattan and New York State attorneys general have failed to generate at the federal and state levels.