June 9, 2023
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
Lock ‘em up? After Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, Americans remain deeply divided over political prosecutions.
By Robert Romano
David Petraeus had a classified documents case. So did Hillary Clinton. Now so does Donald Trump, who is being indicted by Special Counsel Jack Smith. And so does Joe Biden.
All would be and actual presidential candidates and presidents, with varying degrees of popularity, but all were humbled or are being humbled by the prospect and fact of U.S. Justice Department investigations over their handling of classified documents during and after their times in office.
Despite the publicness of these cases, they were not result of a groundswell of public sentiment against these public figures and candidates — Trump supporters popularized the “Lock her up!” chant in 2016 against Clinton for keeping classified documents on her private home-based email server — but rather internal decisions made at the Justice Department to, one by one, show who’s really boss in Washington, D.C.
In fact, when it comes to prosecuting presidential candidates, hereafter political prosecutions, the American people remain deeply divided.
In 2016, when the Justice Department opted not to bringing charges against Hillary Clinton, 56 percent of Americans in a July 2016 ABC News-Washington Post poll disapproved of the decision not to charge her. 35 percent supported the decision. Broken down by party, unsurprisingly, 9 out of 10 Republicans disagreed with not charging her, while two-thirds of Democrats agreed with it. Independents slightly went with Republicans, with 6 out of 10 disagreeing with the FBI’s decision.
So, while there was some majority support for prosecuting Clinton, it was by no means unanimous or near unanimous over her handling of classified documents. The public was divided. Which, no surprise, it was the middle of the presidential election. Hillary Clinton was the Democratic Party’s nominee. What would have been strange—and unprecedented—would have been if she had been prosecuted.
Fast forward to 2023, where former President Donald Trump is the Republican frontrunner for president in 2024 to square off against President Joe Biden. Trump is now to be indicted by the Justice Department over his own handling of documents he says he declassified on his way out of office.
When the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Fla. in Aug. 2022, the public was similarly divided about the prospects of a criminal case being brought against Trump on this basis. In a Harvard-CAPS Harris poll taken Sept. 2022, 51 percent of voters thought that the FBI raid was politically motivated, while 49 percent thought it was required by Justice Department protocols. Broken down, unsurprisingly, 77 percent of Republicans thought it was politically motivated and 77 percent of Democrats thought it was not. Independents were more divided, with 53 percent saying the FBI raid was politically motivated, and 47 percent saying no.
Assuming a similar breakdown will arise from the Justice Department’s indictment of Trump—the former president’s poll numbers have actually improved after New York City District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted him over alleged “hush money” to adult actress Stormy Daniels—the country simply lacks any workable consensus around prosecuting and imprisoning prominent political figures.
For similar reasons, no president who has been impeached — Biden might be impeached for allegedly taking a $5 million bribe from a Ukrainian businessman when he was Vice President, or perhaps for prosecuting his political rival, Trump, or both — has ever been removed from office. The process requires two-thirds of the Senate to convict, because the Framers sought to make it very difficult to achieve. They were aware of how factions would seek to topple one another with the prospect of using the law to take down political opponents.
In this case, the Justice Department and various city district attorneys appear determined to show how easy it is to bring charges against whomever they please, especially prominent political officials, without any consideration to the legitimacy of their actions and the consent of the governed, key underpinnings to how the civil society is able to continue functioning. The reasons could be related to policy, that is, with these Swords of Damacles dangling over elected leaders’ heads, maybe they’ll listen to the intelligence being pushed by their advisors. Start this war, end that one, and so forth. It could be leverage.
President Joe Biden had a special counsel appointed to over his handling of classified documents. A few weeks later he was sending Abrams tanks to Ukraine he had previously stated he would not for fear of escalating the conflict even further after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. You’ll do what you’re told, Mr. President.
But perhaps this is just standard procedure and it’s about the rule of law. David Petraeus, who might have run for president in 2016, Hillary Clinton who did, Donald Trump and Joe Biden all have had classified documents cases brought or threatened to be brought against them.
The problem the Justice Department will run into, of course, is that their legitimacy and public support for taking down a candidate or a president is only supported by a faction that opposes that candidate or president. This will create an incentive for the other faction to support doing the same thing, a vicious cycle of political prosecutions that similarly brought down the Roman Republic two millennia ago. In fact, of all the ways to weaken a constitutional republic, this is one of the most well-documented ways to do it. Maybe they’re foolish, or perhaps it’s on purpose.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2023/06/lock-em-up-after-hillary-clinton-and-donald-trump-americans-remain-deeply-divided-over-political-prosecutions/
Video: Trump’s New Ad Goes Scorched Earth
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqptDCRDnMw
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Visits Border in Arizona - States Open Borders are ‘Unsustainable’
By Bill Wilson
You wouldn’t know it from the mainstream media blackout of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but the Democratic primary contender made a trip to the southern border Tuesday, visiting Yuma, Arizona where thousands of migrants enter the U.S. illegally each week.
Kennedy documented the trip on Twitter, posting a video of himself at the border near Yuma where he said he personally watched nearly 150 migrants enter the U.S. illegally within an hour.
After meeting with Yuma County Sherriff Leon Willmot, Kennedy expressed his willingness to learn about the reality of illegal migrants crossing into the U.S., Tweeting, “I’m at the border learning about the crisis here. So many heartbreaking stories.”
Kennedy stated in a follow up Tweet that the migrant population in Yuma has grown so significantly through the city’s proximity to the border that the local maternity ward had nearly no beds for local mothers, leaving them to delay induced births by weeks.
“200,000 residents in Yuma. 310,000 migrants last year”, Kennedy Tweeted Tuesday. “Migrant Moms occupied 32 of 36 beds in Yuma hospital maternity ward so that local moms had to delay induced pregnancies for two weeks”.
“This is a humanitarian crisis”, Kennedy said in the video posted to Twitter. “Because of the understanding across the globe that we now have an open border here, there are people being drawn here, they’re being abused, there are all kinds of, just horrific stories, and this is not a good thing for our country. It’s not a good thing for these people, and it is unsustainable.”
Kennedy has yet to definitively state his immigration and border security stances, but at minimum the Democratic contender is not shying away from the issue.
Americans for Limited Government Foundation President Richard Manning remarked, “the border is not and should not be a partisan issue. Any candidate purporting to represent the American People needs to recognize the crisis that open borders has caused and put an end to it.”
The border crisis under the Biden Administration is far from solved. As the New York Post reported recently, Biden’s strategy appears to be less about securing the border and more about creating legal loopholes for those who break U.S. law. Todd Bensman recently reported for the Post that families of illegals are heading into Texas and being admitted “no questions asked”.
Mark Krikorian, also for the Post, indicated part of the Biden Administration’s solution is to allow thousands of illegals to enter the United States without legal status using the Custom and Border Protection’s CPB One app.
This is an issue on which Americans’ patience is growing thin. A Gallup report from February of this year found a significant rise in dissatisfaction with immigration over the past two years, with the bulk of those who are dissatisfied saying they want immigration levels curbed. Two-thirds (63%) of Americans are currently dissatisfied with immigration, the highest share in over a decade.
The Gallup report found that among those who are dissatisfied, a full 64% (which is equivalent to approximately 40% of Americans) want less immigration into the U.S., while just 8% want more, and 15% aren’t sure.
The border is once again a focal point, and it is likely to continue to be one leading up to the 2024 election. Americans are clear in their desire for immigration levels to be curbed, particularly in light of the recent border crisis. With Kennedy’s visit to the border and statement that open borders are unsustainable it is possible border security will become a bipartisan issue.
But whether it returns to a true bi-partisan issue, the public was motivated in 2016 to an extent that it propelled Donald Trump to the White House. Things have only gotten worse and more abusive to the American people. History is going to repeat itself one way to the other – either the issue is addressed by all parties in the government or the People will elect those that will.
Bill Wilson is the former president of Americans for Limited Government.
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2023/06/robert-f-kennedy-jr-visits-border-in-arizona-states-open-borders-are-unsustainable/
Trump indictment a threat to constitutional governance, Biden should be impeached
June 8, 2023, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement blasting President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland for indicting former President Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner in 2024, and urged the U.S. House of Representatives to immediately begin impeachment proceedings against Biden and Garland for this unprecedented abuse of power:
“Major allegations related to Joe Biden’s taking a $5 million bribe in exchange for getting a Ukrainian prosecutor fired just hit American news outlets today. Just an hour and a half after this bombshell, very credible allegation of bribery, the Justice Department leaped into action and indicted former President Donald Trump for having classified documents that any reasonable reading of the law and Constitution indicates he had every right to have because they were declassified. Joe Biden over the past four years has repeatedly stated that his presidency is about the soul of the country. If what’s happened on June 8, 2023, with this massive abuse of power for a sitting president to imprison his political opponent doesn’t convince you that our nation’s soul is at stake, nothing will.
“The Trump indictment represents a threat to constitutional governance. We are in a battle over whether the Constitution and Declaration of Independence even matter anymore, and it is incumbent upon the House to exercise its Article I responsibility to rein in an out of control executive and begin impeachment proceedings against both Biden and his Attorney General immediately.”
To view online: https://getliberty.org/2023/06/trump-indictment-a-threat-to-constitutional-governance/