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The coming fireworks in the case of U.S. v. Donald Trump, among the most fraught legal cases in the history of the republic, ought not to distract us from the judgment already handed down by dint of the case being brought in the first place: the consignment of the United States to a place among the nations of the Third World.
Don't let the material trappings fool you. We are not in the Old America any more.
The proof is in the pudding of the 37-count case, brought by a Justice Department that has been waging jihad against former president Donald Trump almost from the time he descended the escalator in his eponymous tower. That effort, now under the control of Joe Biden, whom Trump is the leading candidate to unseat, threatens to leave the 45th president of the United States in jail for the rest of his life.
This is the first such prosecution ever brought, on grounds never before brought and which may not even be applicable for presidents, emerging from a glorified document dispute, pursued in the most dubious fashion, further riddled by a level of prosecutorial chicanery that might even imperil the entire case.
In the America in which we once lived, we didn't try to lock up political opponents.
We certainly didn't try to lock up a political opponent by bringing novel cases against him—cases never made when those on the other side engaged in similar conduct—in the middle of an election cycle in which the opponent was running.
In the Old America, authorities would think two or three times about pursuing such an investigation, let alone bringing a case, if the law enforcement apparatus had previously pursued frivolous investigations of the opponent. They might have had more self-awareness if the depths of that weaponization and politicization were being exposed in real time as the investigation advanced, and if, in the face of that weaponization and corruption, federal prosecutors engaged in all manner of acrobatics to avoid bringing charges against far lesser government officials engaged in far more clear-cut, corrupting, and criminal acts.
In the Old America, should authorities have pursued any such investigation of a political opponent, they would have taken myriad steps to ensure the probe was kept completely quiet—without public spectacles or leaks—so as to avoid any appearance of impropriety or politics.
Certainly authorities wouldn't have raided the private home of the opponent in shock-and-awe fashion after he had previously given them access to it—in a process which began because of an apparently politically biased archivist's gripes.
Certainly authorities wouldn't have gotten a magistrate judge to sign off on a fishing expedition search warrant—a magistrate judge who had had to recuse himself just weeks earlier from a lawsuit involving the opponent. Certainly authorities wouldn't have also leaked pictures from that fishing expedition.
If the investigation did by some chance happen to become public, authorities would be totally open and transparent about what they were doing and why.
Those authorities probably wouldn't have brought a case originating in one locale in front of a grand jury impaneled in another—one notoriously hostile to the opponent, where pivotal elements of the case would be decided by judges who seemingly loathe that opponent and his supporters.
Those authorities would have avoided dramatic acts like piercing attorney-client privilege; or repeatedly using tactics that under other circumstances could get a case dismissed; or allegedly holding out a judgeship for a lawyer as an enticement for having him and his client cooperate against the opponent.
Such prosecution certainly would not have been trusted to a special counsel previously slapped down by courts for bringing flashy prosecutions against high-profile political figures; or who had a history of harassing defendants in Espionage Act cases; or whose wife donated to the campaign of the president whose Justice Department is pursuing the case.
Prosecutors wouldn't unseal the indictment of the opponent literally one day after allegations emerged that the president, to whom the prosecutors ultimately answer, had taken millions in a bribe from a foreign oligarch—and that authorities had seemingly buried that allegation, continued to cover it up, and stonewalled Congress over it.
For any such case to be brought in the Old America, it would have to be so open and shut, the conduct so dangerous, and the imperative to deter such action in the future so strong, that no American could challenge it.
If even a hint of doubt existed about the strength of the case, or the integrity of the probe on which it was based, or that it would be brought against someone with diametrically opposed views to the accused, then such a prosecution would never have proceeded.
U.S. v. Trump could get dismissed. The government could lose in Florida or elsewhere on appeal. But the damage to our republic will have been done, even if Trump walks free.
The brazenness of the overtly political prosecution is the point.
This is in effect an information operation using lawfare—an explicitly political indictment, irrespective of the legal merits of the contrived case.
It is meant to shock the conscience.
It is meant to eviscerate norms.
It is meant to serve as an announcement that this is what our institutions have become: expressly political apparatuses wielded as weapons against opponents—even to the point of locking a leading presidential candidate behind bars, on sentences that could total hundreds of years.
Ben Weingarten is editor at large for RealClearInvestigations. He also contributes to The Federalist, the New York Post, The Epoch Times, and other publications. Subscribe to his newsletter at weingarten.substack.com, and follow him on Twitter: @bhweingarten.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
