The Republicans love to say that there is a double standard of justice in this country.
Poor, poor Donald J. Trump. Victimized by a partisan judicial system that has coordinated its timing of the various civil trials, and state and federal criminal trials involving Donald J. Trump to ensure that he would be mired in legal matters and unable to successfully campaign for reelection.
The fact is that this concept of a politically based double standard of justice never existed before Donald J. Trump. There is no evidence that any other Republican has been victimized by the alleged partisan weaponization of the Justice Department.
This is because this concept of a double standard of justice is a singularity that applies only to Donald J. Trump.
Therefore, whether or not there is a double standard of justice can only be debated with respect to Donald J. Trump, he and he alone. Without Donald J. Trump, there is no alleged double standard of justice.
So, did Donald J. Trump’s actions actually warrant the charges that have been brought against him? Let’s consider the cases one by one.
E. Jean Carroll vs. Donald J. Trump
If there is one case where Donald J. Trump deserves sympathy it would be this one.
It seems clear that something happened between E. Jean Carroll and Donald J. Trump in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room over 25 years ago.
Photographs show that E. Jean Carroll and Donald J. Trump had some minimal social contact prior to the alleged dressing room encounter. This contact was probably more significant to her than to him. Donald J. Trump stated that he had no recollection of meeting E. Jean Carroll at that earlier time, which is believable.
Back in the day, however, E. Jean Carroll was an attractive woman, and it is hard to believe that she would not have been Donald J. Trump’s type.
Whether or not the alleged dressing room encounter was consensual or not is clearly one of those he said/she said situations. Donald J. Trump has a history of making comments and acting in a manner that was insulting and demeaning towards women, which made it easy for the jury to believe that he was a sexual predator, and that is probably why the jury chose to believe her instead of him.
Given the quirkiness of E. Jean Carroll that has come to light since the verdict was handed down, it is fair to question whether her recollection of events that happened over 25 years ago is accurate.
According to published reports, E. Jean Carroll is a strange woman given to bizarre behavior and has expressed opinions about rape that are not commonly held by the public at large, i.e., that every sexual act between a man and a woman is rape.
In addition, her complaint that Donald J. Trump’s continued denial of guilt has somehow damaged her reputation is highly questionable, as relatively few people knew of her prior to her allegations, so what and how her reputation has been damaged is a fair question to ask. She initiated this entire case by publishing a book that accused Donald J. Trump of rape, and now she is set to receive the most incredible payday of her career.
It is easy for many to conclude that Donald J. Trump is a disgusting pig when it comes to women, given his history of comments and actions. But this does not justify an $88 ,000,000 award to a 78-year-old woman for something that may or may not have happened over 25 years ago. This is a woman who seems to have deep psychological issues with men and sex.
Who knows what really happened in that dressing room? Neither Donald J. Trump’s wholesale denial or E. Jean Carroll’s claims of rape and sexual abuse ring true.
The financial award is grossly excessive and will more than likely be significantly reduced upon appeal, but this entire case was made possible by Donald J. Trump’s history of misogynistic treatment of women and the opportunistic actions of one of them. Politics does not seem to have had anything to do with it.
Stormy Daniels/New York City vs. Donald J. Trump
This is another legal case against Donald J. Trump that stretches the limits of credulity and appears to be based upon tenuous legal theory rather than common sense. It is also a case that Donald J. Trump has brought upon himself by his decision to have a one-night stand in a Las Vegas hotel room with a porn star while his wife was recovering from giving birth to his fifth child.
This case required that misdemeanors be upgraded to felonies through legal sleight-of-hand in order to circumvent the applicable statute of limitations. This case was brought by a New York City district attorney for what appears to many to be motivated by personal political ambition and not any actual injury to the public.
Again, Donald J. Trump insists that nothing ever happened between him and Stormy Daniels despite evidence to the contrary, which exhibits an impressive level of denial and wishful thinking. There is no conceivable reason why Donald J. Trump would have paid Stormy Daniels $135,000 in hush money for nothing.
Even so, whether Donald J. Trump paid Stormy Daniels hush money in order to avoid his wife Melania’s wrath, or to avoid yet another public display of his immoral behavior that could have lost him the presidential election – these payments were not against the law.
This case against Donald J. Trump seems to be an exercise in the abuse and manipulation of our judicial system by a local district attorney who should be censored for his behavior and voted out of office. Donald J. Trump should be sentenced to humiliation served.
New York State vs. The Trump Organization
This case against the Trump Organization has nothing to do with Donald J. Trump the presidential candidate, but instead appears to have everything to do with a state attorney general out to make her reputation as the woman who brought down Trump.
Even now that the case has concluded and a huge financial penalty has been levied against the Trump Organization, it is still unclear who was victimized in this case. It is understood that the Trump Organization systematically overvalued properties to obtain larger loans, and systematically undervalued properties to pay lesser taxes.
It seems like this should be a crime of some sort, having two sets of property values, similar to having two sets of financial records. But this does not appear to be the basis of the civil penalty. Instead, there seems to have been some sort of convoluted evaluation of additional profit made possible because of the larger loans obtained due to the overvaluation of properties.
The banks who made the loans were apparently paid in full, principal and interest. The Trump Organization was able to leverage the larger loans in some way so as to make itself more money. No victims here.
Were the victims the people of the State of New York who lost out on taxes that would have been much higher if the same property valuations had been used as the tax basis that were used to obtain the loans? Probably, but it is difficult to follow the reasoning used to compute the civil penalty, which on the face of it seems punitive and excessive.
The apparent fact that Donald J. Trump manipulated, i.e., cheated the system to his financial advantage should come to no surprise to anyone. This is, after all, the man whose companies declared bankruptcy five times, dumping substantial debt on those who had believed in Donald J. Trump’s smoke and mirrors.
Fulton County, Georgia vs. Donald J. Trump
Finally, we arrive at a legal indictment that involves the actions of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States and not does not involve his personal immorality or his unethical business practices.
It has been alleged that Donald J. Trump engaged in a conspiracy with a number of acolytes to interfere with the presidential election proceedings and to change the outcome of the presidential election in Georgia from Biden to Trump, thereby allowing Donald J. Trump to win the election and retain the presidency.
Again, it is a local district attorney who is at the center of this case. She seems to be acting in a righteous and imperious manner, and has apparently gotten herself in over her head by trying to address this case as a grand criminal conspiracy. The fact that she had an affair with an independent attorney retained by Fulton County who was involved with this case has served to taint the legal validity of the indictment.
However, the indictment of Donald J. Trump still stands. The efforts of Donald J. Trump’s legal team to paint Donald J. Trump’s actions as legitimate presidential actions taken to safeguard our democracy are unpersuasive, to be overly generous. In addition, their efforts to use the unbelievably stupid personal behavior of the district attorney as evidence that Donald J. Trump cannot receive a fair trial and as justification that all charges should be dismissed are without legal merit.
It seems apparent that Donald J. Trump’s alleged actions have been nothing more than a blatant attempt to prevent the legitimate results of the election in Georgia from being ratified through veiled threats and other forms of intimidation. There is nothing presidential about Donald J. Trump’s abuse of power. Donald J. Trump’s actions are an insult to the office of the presidency.
U.S. (Mara Lago Documents Case) vs. Donald J. Trump
This is the first of two cases where the alleged actions of Donald J. Trump are most egregious and disturbing.
The presence of boxes and boxes of presidential and non-presidential documents stored in multiple locations in Donald J. Trump’s residence in Mara Lago is irrefutable. The fact that many of these documents were marked as “Classified” or “Top Secret” because they contained information related to national security and strategic interests of the United States is irrefutable.
The fact that Donald J. Trump and associates removed these documents from the White House instead of sending them to the National Archives is irrefutable. The fact that Donald J. Trump shared a “Top Secret” document with a friend/business associate on at least one occasion, apparently in an ego-driven manner, is irrefutable.
There is evidence to show that Donald J. Trump refused to return all of the presidential documents in his possession to the National Archives when legally requested to do so, ultimately resulting in an armed raid by the FBI of Donald J. Trump’s Mara Lago residence to obtain these documents. There is evidence to show that Donald J. Trump and associates made efforts to conceal these documents from the FBI during its search of his residence.
There is evidence to show that Donald J. Trump knowingly and purposefully violated Federal law in the removal and retention of these documents and made efforts to conceal these documents from discovery.
Donald J. Trump’s statement that he had the power and authority to declassify documents in his mind without the need of protocol or records thereof is in and of itself a ridiculous claim.
Fortunately for Donald J. Trump, this legal case is being presided over by a Federal judge whom he appointed, who was advised by colleagues to recuse herself from the case due to concerns regarding her apparent conflict of interest and refused, who has limited experience on the bench, and finally, who by all appearances has made repeated efforts to delay this trial until after the Presidential election under the guise of having to consider a never-ending series of motions brought by Donald J. Trump’s legal counsel.
Ultimately, this Federal judge decided to dismiss this case entirely on the basis that the Special Prosecutor was improperly and illegally appointed by the Justice Department. This belated and highly questionable dismissal of the case based upon a dubious legal technicality may very well be overruled by the U.S. Court of Appeals, and the case may yet go forward.
In any event, a compelling argument can be made that this Federal judge has been acting as an agent of Donald J. Trump, grossly misusing her judicial authority to ensure that Donald J. Trump will never stand trial for his alleged crimes.
If this Federal judge receives an official rebuke, censure, or removal from the bench due to her blatantly biased actions, she will simply become yet another victim of Donald J. Trump, another acolyte who sacrificed career and reputation to protect a false idol.
U.S. (Election Interference) vs. Donald J. Trump
This final legal case is the most important case of all, as it involves the very basis of our democracy, which is the peaceful transition of power.
This case highlights the way in which democracies around the world have devolved into quasi-totalitarian governments run by leaders who have chosen to abuse their elected positions for personal gain. It is proving to be very difficult for the people in these democracies to regain their right to self-determination.
Their experience should be a cautionary tale for all Americans who have been complacent and complicit in Donald J. Trump’s efforts to retain power following the 2020 presidential election, but many Americans still refuse to acknowledge the threat that Donald J. Trump’s behavior represented at that time, a threat that may very well influence the upcoming 2024 presidential election.
It is troubling how many people support Donald J. Trump’s accusations of voter corruption, election tampering, his veiled threats to elected officials, and his complicity in the January 6th riot/insurrection that nearly resulted in the assignation of then Vice-President Pence, Speaker of the House Pelosi, and other elected leaders.
Following the 2020 presidential election, there was an extraordinary number of legal challenges to the results of the election. Even though none of these legal challenges, not a single one, were deemed to have legal merit, many Americans continue to believe that the election was somehow stolen from Donald J. Trump.
Following the election, Donald J. Trump made repeated claims of election wrongdoing, primarily in the swing states that he needed to carry to win the election. He accused election officials, Democratic politicians as a whole, some Republican politicians, and many judges of bias and error and disloyalty.
Political pressure was brought to bear on elected officials in Arizona and Georgia to somehow find additional votes and to prepare alternative slates of electors that would be favorable to Donald J. Trump.
Political pressure was brought to bear on Vice-President Pence to reject certified slates of electors during the election ratification proceeding, which would have been in blatant disregard of the limitations to his Constitutional authority. Vice-President Pence resisted this pressure in order to preserve the integrity of our democracy, to the detriment of his political future.
On the day of the ratification of the presidential election, Donald J. Trump coordinated a rally on the Ellipse, where he gave a speech attacking the election results. He called on his followers to march peacefully to the Capital and to protest the theft of the election. Once he saw that his followers had begun to march, Donald J. Trump returned to the White House where he watched the results of his speech unfold.
It is unlikely that Donald J. Trump expected that his followers would turn into a mob and engage in a riot and insurrection that resulted in the Capital building being breached and the election ratification proceeding disrupted for hours. However, first-hand accounts suggest that Donald J. Trump reacted favorably to the insurrection and resisted suggestions that he address this situation by calling for his followers to cease and desist.
The actions of Donald J. Trump are unprecedented in the history of the United States. Never before has there been such widespread rejection of the results of a free and fair election. Never before has there been such a violent mob that attempted to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.
If Donald J. Trump did not intend to make one final attempt to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, why would he have chosen this date, this place, and this time to hold a rally where he would insist that the election had been stolen from him?
There appears to be ample cause to warrant an indictment and hold a trial to examine the evidence that Donald J. Trump intended to interfere, in a multitude of ways, with the peaceful transfer of power.
Again, the Federal judicial system has acted to subvert this legal proceeding. The Supreme Court rendered an opinion that the President has immunity for any and all acts that could conceivably be considered to be acts carried out in the normal course of presidential duties. Donald J. Trump argues that everything he did was done in the normal course of his presidential duties. This presumably includes attempting to subvert the Constitution and incite a riot.
In Conclusion
All of the legal cases that have been brought against Donald J. Trump have one thing in common. It has been his actions and his actions alone that have resulted in these legal cases.
There has never been a public figure before Donald J. Trump that has allegedly behaved so badly in so many different ways. Whether it has been his self-serving arrogance, his personal immorality, his unethical business behavior, or his rejection of political norms and decorum, Donald J. Trump has created a world for himself where many people hate, fear, and despise him. He is a lightening rod for people who want to even the score or see justice done.
This attempt by Donald J. Trump to dismiss all of his legal cases as a witch hunt lead by the Democratic Party has been somewhat successful, but none of these cases would have been brought if Donald J. Trump had not made it a life-long practice to behave so badly, with such disregard for and such willingness to abuse so many other people.
So, to answer the original question, is there a double standard of justice in this country that has resulted in Donald J. Trump being treated unfairly?
No, if anything, there is a double standard of justice that has benefited Donald J. Trump.
The unrelenting deluge of motions brought by Donald J. Trump’s legal team has prevented the most important legal cases from moving to trial before the election and has deprived the voting citizens from knowing if Donald J. Trump did anything wrong. The decisions by a Federal judge and the Supreme Court regarding these cases appear to have been intended to help Donald J. Trump by limiting the extent to which his actions can be used as evidence, or to avoid trial altogether.
In time, this may very well be seen as an extraordinary abuse of judicial authority and a gross manipulation of the justice system, but for now, it all serves as one more example of the corrupt soul that is Donald J. Trump.