The famous social scientist tells a remarkable story in Charles Murray’s excellent book, By the Individuals: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission, which immediately seems very prophetic:
A former part of the US Attorney’s Office in New York has written about a famous training workout among the staff: Brand a famous person and then inform the young prosecutors to figure out a realistic crime that could be pinned on him. The young prosecutors succeed in their search for the most mysterious offense that best fits the celebrity’s personality and carries the most severe sentences.
Certainly, Murray goes on to note that this is n’t merely a game — there are many notable example of how prosecutorial discretion is indistinguishable from violence and that this seems to be particularly evident when America’s law enforcement machine gets involved in cases involving artists or high- report goals. In Michael Milken’s notorious scenario:
The judge threw out the only true criminal charge, inside trading, leaving charges of violating fiscal rules that, as the attorney in the case after acknowledged, amounted to” criminalizing professional offenses”. The regulations in question have never been charged with crimes before, and neither have they ever been.
By the People was published nine years ago, and with the Trump conviction in New York, we may well have just witnessed the nadir of abuse of prosecutorial discretion. Not just that a former president and the front-runner to become the next president were found guilty of a crime on untested and dubious charges.
For all of the demands that we respect “rule of law” in the wake of the Trump verdict, it has become patently obvious that prosecuting corruption is not bound by law or principle — it’s about gatekeeping. Those who favor our firmly established institutions get away with it, but those who threaten unjustifiable power do not.
The Washington establishment has kept its Sauron- like gaze fixed on Trump in the hopes that you wo n’t notice that nearly our entire political class is corrupt in ways that threaten the country far more than paying off a mistress and classifying it as “legal services”.
It is important to compare Trump’s various court battles to his political rivals to understand how distorted the system has become.
Donald Trump Paid ‘ Hush Money’ to a Woman to Influence an Election!
It’s difficult to begin unraveling the crazy, never-before-charged legal theories that led to Trump’s most recent felony conviction. But in short, Trump was charged by the New York district attorney with misclassifying a payment to silence his alleged tryst with a pornographer as “legal services”, normally a misdemeanor. However, that charge was later reduced to a felony because it was allegedly used to advance a second crime, which is ostensibly ( I say ostensibly because the outrageous jury instructions on this matter were basically a” choose your own adventure” ) violating federal election law with the aim of trying to influence the outcome of an election.
How then do we square this with the fact that in 2016, Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Party hired a foreign spy to concoct a demonstrably false dossier claiming Trump was a Russian spy, which they then circulated to the media and law enforcement while concealing the partisan origins of the report? Clinton, whose campaign was based in Brooklyn, and the DNC were ultimately fined$ 113, 000 for labeling the Steele dossier as a legal expense, which is the exact same pretext as the accusation made against Trump. And unlike Trump, the dossier was absolutely created with the intent of influencing the election.
In contrast, it is absurd to say that Trump purchased the silence of a woman he allegedly had an affair with in order to allegedly sway the election, and Bradley Smith, the country’s leading campaign finance expert, insists that Trump’s payment did n’t violate federal election law. ( Judge Merchan, who presided over the trial, refused to let Smith testify in Trump’s defense for his own highly indefensible reasons. )
And for the kicker, according to Matt Taibbi, the fictitious Steele dossier sparked a feeding frenzy for law enforcement, which resulted in the Mueller investigation and an endless inquest into Trump.
” Joe Biden’s post- verdict address insisted’ this is a state case, not a federal case,’ omitting the minor detail that original evidence came from an FBI raid conducted after Special Counsel Robert Mueller referred the matter to the Southern District of New York. Remember, Mueller’s investigation was the result of the FBI’s questionable Crossfire Hurricane investigation, Taibbi says. So this entire case against Trump is the fruit of Hillary Clinton’s poison dossier tree in the 2016 election.
There is no denying that New York prosecutors could have charged Hillary Clinton with a far worse crime than the one they just found guilty of Trump with. But she paid a mere fine, and Trump is a convicted felon.
Donald Trump was convicted of sexual assault!
It’s hard to know where to begin except to say that most Americans wish to be ruled by moral people, let alone ones that are not sleazy. Given his public history with women, it is true that Trump was convicted of sexual assault in a case orchestrated by prominent members of” the resistance,” which only came to fruition after the New York Legislature passed the remarkable step of passing a law to reinstate the expired statute of limitations specifically so that Trump could be sued.
Even then, he was convicted in civil court despite the fact that his accuser could not remember when the alleged assault took place. Despite being falsely identified as “liable for rape,” the verdict only implies that the jury found Trump guilty of the ambiguous crime of” sexual assault,” which could include anything but unintentional touching.
Now, Bill Clinton, who has appeared at multiple fundraisers with Biden in recent months, has been publicly identified by Virginia Giuffre, one of the women sex- trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein, as having been at Epstein’s private island. She has testified in testimony that she once witnessed Clinton with” two young girls” from New York on Epstein’s infamous island.
Another victim of Epstein’s has said Epstein told her” Clinton likes them young“. The fact that virtually no law enforcement has been known to be interested in pursuing any investigation or prosecution of anyone involving Epstein has turned into a tragic national joke at this point. And this is on top of decades of other questionable sexual affairs, such as the Paula Jones incident and Lewinsky affair, as well as perjuring himself trying to keep evidence out of a civil lawsuit involving an affair.
Additionally, it should be noted that federal law enforcement looked into prosecuting Hunter Biden for engaging in sex trafficking and bringing prostitutes across state lines. Yet none of these charges were brought. Instead, his father’s own Department of Justice allegedly attempted to elude the most extraordinary immunity deal ever, deliberately allowing his tax crimes to expire, and persecuting IRS whistleblowers who had called them out for ignoring it. ( Hunter’s money laundering and acting as an unregistered foreign agent are also mysteriously being ignored. )
There is no point in even examining the outrageous Kavanaugh accusations or the sexual assault accusations made against Biden by a former staffer, both of which are at least as credible as the sexual assault accusations Trump was incredulously found guilty of in New York’s civil court. Not that this means much in either case. The fact is there’s no principled concern at all here about the alleged abuse of women involving politicians. The establishment seems to let you do it when they like you.
Trump Illegally Retained Classified Records!
Trump’s alleged eluding of classified documents to Mar- A- Lago is the most recent instance of what appears to be a typical legal battle involving a defamatory crime. However, the case has been aggressively prosecuted with yet more novel legal moves in an attempt to rush a conviction before the election. The prosecution allegedly made egregious leaks to the press that made false statements about the seriousness of the threat to national security. The judge, assisted by the prosecution’s own incompetence after screwing up the chain of custody on the documents, has kept the case from getting out of control or moving on a rushed timeline. However, the prosecution’s political motivations are unmistakable: they wanted a conviction in time to sway the outcome.
Meanwhile, we’re still dealing with the fallout of then- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton running her own email off of a server in a closet in her private home, a server with top- secret information on it. In fact, the FBI has “assessed ] that it is possible that hostile actors accessed Secretary Clinton’s personal email account.” When this private server became an issue, Hillary Clinton destroyed the evidence. Despite this outrageous violation of the law, James Comey addressed how everything she did was completely wrong before announcing she would not be held accountable.
Similarly, Biden has also been caught retaining classified documents going back decades, even from his time as a senator when he had no right to remove the documents from where he viewed them. He has given these documents to third parties, including his ghostwriter. Yet he was not charged by the DOJ because” Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well- meaning elderly man with a poor memory”.
What does it tell us, in fact, when three politicians are guilty of the same crime but only one man is prosecuted while it is publicly acknowledged that his electoral opponents have committed the same ( or worse ) crimes and do not face charges? Indeed, it’s particularly noteworthy that Trump publicly declined to pursue charges against Clinton after he defeated her because he recognized “it would be very, very divisive“.
Donald Trump Is A Corrupt Businessman!
You might also recall that Trump, whose business is real estate, was ordered to pay a$ 454 million bond as the result of a fraud trial earlier this year. ( The bond was later reduced to$ 175 million. ) Trump’s crime? Everyone made money when Trump requested a loan from a bank, which the bank granted him, and he paid the interest on top of it.
The supposed criminal element of this is Trump inflating the value of his assets on the loan paperwork, never mind that the bank did its own thorough due diligence and concluded Trump was loan- worthy. Even the media could n’t agree with this statement:” Trump’s case stands out: It’s the only big business found that was threatened with a shutdown without a showing of obvious victims and major losses,” according to an Associated Press analysis of nearly 70 years of similar cases.
Let’s look at some other real- estate deals from politicians, shall we? Barack Obama only was able to purchase the Chicago home when a developer named Tony Rezko purchased the property directly across the street from the house for$ 625,000 under his wife’s name. The common owner insisted on selling both properties as a condition of the sale, which was the only way the Obamas could purchase the house.
Of course, Rezko was at the time being investigated by the FBI, and he bought the property for the Obamas in his wife’s name to try to conceal what he was doing. Rezko later went to jail on a smorgasboard of public corruption charges involving some of Illinois ‘ biggest politicians. Although it was never determined whether Obama had a quid pro quo relationship, this is Chicago, and there has never been a serious investigation either.
Then there’s the Whitewater controversy, a land development deal in Arkansas that went south. The case is complicated, but Jim Guy Tucker and Jim McDougal, the Clintons ‘ partners in the deal, both went to jail for their roles in the collapse.
As governor, Clinton was accused of using political pressure to force a$ 300, 000 loan from a failing savings and loan to fund the deal. Even though the Clintons were never charged, we should n’t assume that they did n’t do anything illegal because this deal was once thoroughly investigated. Susan McDougal spent 18 months in prison for contempt of court because she refused to answer any questions about the matter. And, would n’t you know it, Clinton pardoned her as he left the White House.
Now which of these three real- estate deals seems the most damning as a potential criminal matter, let alone worthy of a$ 454 fraud judgment?
Follow the Money
In general, when it comes to politicians and money, ask yourself why leaders such as Obama and the Clintons are worth hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of their political careers. What did they actually do to make this money? Why is Nancy Pelosi one of the most profitable stock traders in America?
We know at the heart of it all that Trump has inherited millions of dollars, despite his touting of his business acumen and questions surrounding his various major business deals.
Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs and major corporate interests do n’t pay politicians$ 300, 000 for a speech or give millions to their foundations because they value their counsel that much — they do it for favors to be named later.
America’s current system of government is intended for the benefit of a select few people. Even if you took the worst, most narcissistic reading of Trump’s personal motives, the threat of his personal corruption would n’t amount to much of anything relative to the size of the corruption in the system he threatens to disrupt. His mere presence in the White House presents the threat of putting a large number of D.C. insiders who make a living by advancing unpopular ideologies and looting the Treasury in the absence of the corrupt system they currently control.  ,
Now ask yourself why so many other politicians have never been held accountable. Are we supposed to believe the Clintons escaped criminal charges because, relative to Trump, their decades of public service have n’t been marked by constant scandal and moral turpitude? Is it true that Biden, who had dinner with his son’s cheesy foreign business partners and allegedly made phone calls with them, was not personally benefitted by the elaborate series of shell accounts he received from various members of the Biden family? That there’s no untoward reason Nancy Pelosi, despite spending decades in public service, now has a net worth of over$ 100 million, primarily as a result of expertly timed stock trades?
Between now and November, you will hear a lot about why Trump has been convicted of felony. But you should really ask yourself why no one is much interested in the more obvious corruption of so many of America’s best- known politicians.
