Here we go again. The latest attempt to frame President Trump came late last week. This time it’s in the form of an indictment by a federal grand jury investigating Trump’s handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. It marks the first time in history that the federal government has brought charges against a former president – a former president who is currently the front-runner in the 2024 presidential elections against the current president.
The charges levelled against Trump by special counsel Jack Smith, reporting to Attorney General Merrick Garland, in turn reporting to President Biden, relate to his handling of classified documents since he left the White House. Without mentioning the right of a president to have access to documents after leaving office under the Presidential Records Act (PRA) and the broad authority to declassify information, the indictment accuses the president of violating the Espionage Act, an anti-spy law enacted by Congress back in 1917.
Prosecutors have charged Trump with violating a section of the act, which applies to someone who has “unauthorized possession” of national defense information. The crime is in “willfully” retaining the information and failing to return it. Two instances were cited where Trump allegedly shared the classified information with a writer and an associate. In typical Trumpian fashion, it seems boasting of the documents to these individuals got the better of him.
If there exists such a person who is unfamiliar with the years of Trump persecution that began from the moment he descended the escalator in Trump Tower announcing his candidacy back in 2015, such accusations might sound dire indeed. But put in context of the relentless harassment against him from Democrats and the media ever since, including impeachment for what proved to be a Russia hoax, this newest move to defang Trump will probably elicit not much more than ho hum. And a bump in the polls and campaign contributions for the former president.
The American public seems to be suffering from Trump indictment fatigue. And rightly so. Unsurprisingly, a CBS News poll revealed that Republican primary voters are far more concerned with the political motivations behind Trump’s indictment than his alleged conduct being a national security risk. After all, retaining classified documents longer than Mike Pence did when he was similarly caught and not charged is more tenable when one has a bullseye on his back.
The Smith indictment follows on the heels of the Bragg indictment, whose absurdity only served to increase Trump’s popularity. That followed the release of the Durham report, which exonerated Trump from even more absurd allegations against him. And that followed the discrediting of a letter signed by 51 former top intelligence officials saying that Hunter Biden’s laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation”, in an attempt to aid Biden in the 2020 presidential campaign.
This fatigue is augmented by cynicism against the backdrop of stunning double standards. If the above-mentioned examples of victimization are not oppression enough of their own accord, they are made exponentially worse in contrast to Democrats’ treatment of Democrats. While a sitting president cannot be criminally prosecuted, there seems to be no talk of indicting Biden post-presidency for illegally keeping classified documents in his possession, suspiciously kept from the public before the midterm elections.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was not indicted for her handling of highly sensitive classified information on a private email server, including some that were “top secret”. Despite having destroyed 30 thousand emails, then-FBI Director James Comey did not recommend charges against her but rather described Clinton as having been “extremely careless”. He said, “Although there is evidence of potential violations…our judgement is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”
Where Trump is concerned, however, there seems to be no such thing as “reasonable”. And who even remembers the botched Operation Fast and Furious under President Obama? But such is justice in America’s two-tiered justice system. A rap on the knuckles for a Democrat, the strictest interpretation of the law for a Republican, and a witch hunt for Trump.
Even Trump’s political challengers are calling it for what it is. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who announced his presidential candidacy only a few weeks ago, came to his rival’s defense and condemned the indictment. He called out the “political bias” and “weaponization” of the Department of Justice.
Conservative political pundits are decrying the indictment and asserting that it will interfere with the 2024 election and cause the election to be a referendum on Trump instead of on Biden’s failure as a president and low polling numbers. That is always a possibility. And it is certainly the possibility that Democrats are hoping for in order to deflect from record inflation, the destructive explosion of illegal immigrants into American communities, chaotic foreign policy and cities plagued by crime and homelessness.
But as the hypocrisy of the left becomes more and more apparent, a greater possibility is that the Americans will have had enough. Years of duplicity might have inured the public to the phenomena but cynicism doesn’t always lead to apathy. It can also lead to resentment. That the FBI, CIA and DOJ are now political tools of the left is no longer a hypothesis is a galling pill for the public to swallow.
The very day that news of the indictment broke, another piece of news broke that got buried under the headlines of Trump accusations. Threatened to be held in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena, FBI Director Christopher Wray finally granted House Oversight committee members access to an FBI document that revealed that during his time as vice president, Joe Biden and his family received a $5 million bribe from the head of Ukraine’s Burisma.
What better timing for Democrats to divert attention from the corruption within. However, Democrats might want to consider that the best defense is not always an offense. The stereotypical “dumb American” is not that dumb and there is still some decency and common sense left in America. Recent successful pushback against Anheuser-Busch and Target for going too far in embracing an immoral culture that is now targeting children proves that the fighting spirit has not yet been extinguished on the right.
The victimization of Trump has become the symbol of the left’s victimization of traditional America. It’s time for that endangered America to borrow a page from the left’s handbook of woke ideology, which reduces all problems to oppressor versus victim, and push back against their oppressors.
This article first appeared in Hamodia.
