The rule of law is considered one of the central pillars of a liberal democracy. The latter requires a free and independent judiciary and that every citizen is equal before the law. Donald Trump, (as has Ron DeSantis by the way), has made it abundantly clear that he does not believe in the concept. Trump is of the opinion that all is transactional and that the current pending litigation against him is a “witch hunt”. If he was in power then the Justice Department would be his Justice Department answerable to him and these circumstances would be unthinkable. He is on track to get back into the WhiteHouse where all his legal problems would go away.
The burning question in America at this point in time is whether Trump is above the law as his gross behavior in every sphere of life to this very day it appears to go unchecked. Currently he has been indicted for business fraud in the State of New York, about to be indicted under what could be racketeering charges, as used against the mob, in Georgia and is the target of two Federal Special Counsel probes, one for “stealing” classified documents and obstructing justice in the investigations and secondly for seditious conspiracy in the January 6 insurrection. None of this is weakening his leadership as the Republican nominee for the 2024 Presidential election. His main contender being an uninspiring sickening clone trying to outflank him from the right.
But Jay H. Ell digresses so before we begin, what is “The Rule of Law”?
THE RULE OF LAW IS ASPIRATIONAL AND NOT A REALITY
The rule of law that maintains that justice applies equally and to all is an aspirational concept rather than a reality. There is virtually no one who hasn’t a story of how the system failed them. Notwithstanding the latter reality, America has a love affair with the rule of law with interminable TV series and movies. All of these celluloid dramas fantasize how justice always triumphs. Very rarely does the entertainment medium reveal the incredibly high cost of litigation or that contingency lawyers take on cases that they can win not to right injustices. The imperfect legal system can be manipulated in favor of the powerful, rich and politically well connected. Trump is a living example of this distortion of this essential pillar of a liberal democracy.
TRUMP AND THE RULE OF LAW
Trump has weaponized the process of the law while utilizing his money and power to ensure that he is not subject to it. The Forty Fifth President is facing far reaching indictments of his disregard not only of the rule of law but another pillar of democracy - free and fair elections. Trump is exhibiting every behavior to subvert the consequences of breaking the law to the extent that even if convicted he could circumvent Federal Convictions since if elected President he could pardon himself. Currently his objective is prolonging the current litigation against him till he is President and then that would be presumably stopped.
The very fact that every TV host is reminding their viewers that that prosecutors have to have a watertight case before proceeding is implicit acceptance that the blindfold in all those depictions of justice has been taken off.
IT ALL GOES WAY BACK
Donald J. Trump has a life long history of weaponizing the legal system to further his business and political career. His initial mentor was the infamous lawyer Roy Cohn who advised doubling down, delaying, attacking, deflecting, evading and lying when confronted with litigation of any sort. Cohn has been characterized as an “intimidator and a bluffer”. He taught Trump to counter sue and never concede defeat. All this has added up to Trump, according to USA Today, being involved in over 4000 litigations either as a defendant or as a plaintiff. Trump with his army of lawyers has forced employees, contractors and those he has been involved within business to bow out as litigation is a very expensive business. When in an impossible situation he “settles” as he did with his fake University to the tune of 25 million dollars. He then bragged what a bargain that was.
Where Trump has finally run up against his own legal interests is when they have clashed with his political objectives. Also the magnifying glass that the Presidency has brought him under has resulted in scrutiny that has made it more and more difficult to escape his proclivities to ride roughshod over the normal parameters of morality and the law.
TRUMP THE RULE OF LAW AND HIS PRESIDENCY
One of the key clashes Trump had as President was that he demanded that the Attorney General and lawyers that represented the White House per se represent him and not their respective offices. The most public of his early clashes was with his Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The latter had to recuse himself from the investigation initiated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation into the Russian influence on Trump’s behalf in the 2016 Presidential election. Sessions had had contact with Russian operatives and had been advised by the Ethical Division to recuse himself from the Mueller probe. The latter produced thirty four convictions all of whom had connection to Trump including members of his administration. Trump subsequently pardoned several of his allies including Michael Flynn and Roger Stone both of whom played a role in his attempt to overthrow the Biden election.
So Sessions was axed as a result of the fact that he refused to close the Mueller probe. His successor Attorney General Bill Barr then rubbished the Mueller report that produced evidence that Trump had at the very least obstructed justice. Barr did what he had promised, having literally auditioned for the job, thereby letting Trump off the hook.
Mueller had followed the Justice Department dictum not to indict a sitting President. The latter raises the question as to who the hell gave the Justice Department the right to decide that a sitting President was above the law? What happens if he kills his wife live on TV? The rationale supposedly being that any Presidential illegality has to be decided by the political process of impeachment. But that is by the way. Barr accepted his role as being the servant of the President. He instituted a Special Counsel to investigate why, who and how the FBI probed the Russian involvement in the 2016 Presidential election Barr finally called it quits finding it a bar too high to lie that there had been fraud on the 2020 Presidential Election after having investigated the charge at Trump’s request. (Incidentally candidate DeSantis has made it quite clear that in the event of his elevation to the Presidency the Attorney General will report directly to him and he will not hesitate to fire him or her should they not carry out his orders).
One of the ironies of Trump’s total disregard of the rule of law is the manner he uses the institutions and the officers of the court, namely lawyers, to spearhead his political aims. In so doing he creates an aura of legality in addition to an illusion of authenticity. His attack on the integrity of the 2020 Presidential election involved sixty - one legal challenges. Only one, which was reversed on appeal, succeeded. However he used another set of lawyers to perpetuate the illusion that the election had been stolen from him with bizarre conspiratorial theories. The four lead counsel in this latter effort have faced disbarring or sanctions from their professional bodies. Also they are the targets of criminal investigations for their trouble.
FLOODGATES OPEN AFTER TRUMP EXITS THE WHITE HOUSE
Trump continued his crusade against the rule of law after leaving the WhiteHouse and added yet another attack on the liberal democracy - the very core of it - free and fair elections. To this day he claims that he won the 2020 Presidential election.
The gloves however were off as out of office the Forty Fifth President was subject to the rule of law both civil and criminal. As he had done all his life with his army of lawyers he attempted to delay, appeal and generally jam up the ponderous process of the judicial system.
A long awaited civil case where Trump was found culpable of sexually battering a woman and defaming her inter alia calling her a “whack job” was finally concluded. Damages were awarded against him to the extent of five million dollars, a decision he immediately appealed. He then proceeded to defame her again on national TV resulting in him being sued again for double the amount.
He has been indicted by the New York State attorney for falsifying business records and faces 34 felony charges. He allegedly committed these crimes in the payment of hush money to a porn star with whom he had an affair with. The judge held a separate hearing to warn Trump about what evidence he was not to discuss prior to the trial. The hearing is scheduled for March next year which is in the middle of the Primary Season. Trump made it quite clear to observers that he was angered about this directive, This ia a State case where the President couldn’t pardon himself as is in the far more serious Georgian charges which are shaping up to be a doozie.
The Fulton County AG in Georgia has announced to the world to clear the decks for next September. She has even warned law agencies for possible violence. She is expected to announce blockbuster charges against a number of defendants including Trump for attempting to overturn the result of the Georgia Presidential election. She is rumored to be using a racketeering charge which was commonly used against the mob to charge the ex President. Trump has several motions to delay or deflect this threat including a motion to remove AG Fani Willis from the case.
However the most publicized threat to Trump is emerging from the Special Counsel's investigation into Trump’s purloining of classified documents and the obstruction of justice that followed. Trump has conducted open warfare on the Special Counsel’s probe. In so doing he has incriminated himself to the extent that a first year law student could successfully prosecute him for obstruction of justice. This has thrown his legal representation which is the size of a medium sized law firm into chaos.
TRUMP AND HIS LAWYERS
Trump’s manipulation of the legal fraternity in addition to conducting his own defense in the court of public opinion has created pandemonium on a scale rarely witnessed before. He has compromised his defense counsel to the extent that nine of them have appeared before Justice Department investigations.. A lead counsel in the investigation of obstruction of justice in Trump’s retention of classified documents was forced by a judge to break attorney client privilege because the Special Counsel had enough evidence that the lawyer may have been lied to by his client and as a result had provided false information to the investigators.
Trump’s different teams of lawyers are at loggerheads because Trump by not playing with an open deck of cards is playing one off against the other. Because of the paranoia he engenders there is the fear that there is a snitch among them. They are all up in arms against Trump’s coordinating, “in house” lawyer, Boris Ephstyn, who has never practiced law, but calls all the shots. A key member of the team defending Trump in the documents’ probe resigned as a result of Ephstyn’s control.
Just to keep some sense of the Trump world about all of this. Trump has a history of not paying his lawyers. So some publicly demanded payments before starting. In addition all his legal bills prior to him declaring his candidacy for the 2024 Presidency were paid for by the National Republic Party. There is also widespread speculation that the tab since then has been picked up by online small donations.
The system is always being gamed. In the first criminal indictment where trial date is set for March 2024 he has filed a motion for the judge to recuse himself. In the civil case which the jury found that he had caused 5 million dollars in damages he merely repeated the defamation on national TV and damages were filed for ten million dollars. Appeals were duly lodged.
MEANWHILE BACK ON THE PRESIDENTIAL TRAIL
Trump thrives on this chaos. He campaigns against the “witch hunt” and is favorite to win the Republican Presidential nomination. The best one of them can hope for is that his legal woes will force him out of the race. With each revelation he raises money for “his defense” and his woes to date have not resulted in any slow down of electioneering pace.
The burning question is what will happen if he is sentenced to jail time? He can’t physically go to prison as he has a large security detail. He can still run for office unless he is found guilty of an insurrection. What can stop him from being President if convicted wherever his physical location may be?
AT THE END OF THE DAY
Donald J. Trump is a law unto himself!
If Trump wins the nomination the other “Republican” candidates should not have to sign a pledge to support him rather they should pledge to back Biden.
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