The New York Times must have been feeling a Trump arrest hangover, running a ‘guest essay’ Friday headlined, “Trump’s Prosecution Has Set a Dangerous Precedent.” The essay was penned by former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori.
Mr. Khardori first mused about how little it actually took to shatter the longstanding 230 years of respect and precedent in protecting former U.S. presidents and not endlessly torturing them with political lawfare for the rest of the their lives. After all, this is not a case about national election interference or fomenting insurrection or even any federal charges at all, for that matter. As far as anyone knows, the case against Trump boils down to mischaracterizing a payment on a state tax form, having deducted a settlement payment as an expense for “legal fees” when it should have been marked down as a gift or something.
The pending charges against Trump are all under STATE law. Do you have any idea just how many state criminal laws there are? Too many to count.
All the salacious details about Stormy Daniels’ so-called occupation — or her alleged relationship to the former President — are just that: salacious details. They aren’t relevant to the legal charges at all. It could just as easily have been a payment to settle a dispute with a wedding venue or something.
Mr. Khardori splashed right past the frivolity of this historic prosecution to its guaranteed outcome; in other words, Katie bar the door:
But at least one thing seems clear: Mr. Bragg may have been the first local prosecutor to do it, but he will probably not be the last. Every local prosecutor in the country will now feel that he or she has free rein to criminally investigate and prosecute presidents after they leave office. Democrats currently cheering the charges against Mr. Trump may feel differently if — or when — a Democrat, perhaps even President Biden, ends up on the receiving end of a similar effort by any of the thousands of prosecutors elected to local office, eager to make a name for themselves by prosecuting a former president of the United States.
As Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson tellingly observed over 80 years ago, “It is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it; it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books or putting investigators to work to pin some offense on him.”
Khardori wondered about Hunter Biden, and speculated whether some intrepid Red State prosecutor might soon find a creative way to charge Biden’s son and even other Biden family members. Maybe Hunter didn’t account for all HIS expenses the right way, or fill out all HIS state forms correctly either.
One can only hope. As Khordori helpfully suggested, both Florida and Texas have broad criminal laws prohibiting financial and business improprieties, like criminal fraud statutes prosecutors could allege were violated if there is even a suggestion that a president financially misled someone in the state, or that a president used any financial institution in those states for dealings that could possibly be characterized as questionable.
For example, say a former president opened a business or nonprofit in Florida or Texas that arguably inflated its financial condition on an application to rent some office space. That could trigger a criminal investigation into whether that former president committed a crime by “fraudulently obtaining property or credit.” It’s limited only to the prosecutorial imagination.
Not only that, but last year, the Democrat National Committee and Hilary Clinton’s campaign were both fined for charges similar to Trump’s. They had obscured reporting some payments to former British spy Christopher Steele for his third-grade-level work on a salacious dossier falsely alleging Trump colluded with Russia. Instead of reporting the expense as dirt-digging or scandal-mongering, Hilary’s campaign claimed the fees were for “legal services” and “legal and compliance consulting.”
But Hilary got a FINE. Not arrested.
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