Trump Arraigned Again
Former President Donald Trump was arraigned moments ago at a federal courthouse in Washington, D.C. The were demonstrators on the streets outside the courthouse both for and against Trump. But reports suggested that media personnel outnumbered them.
There was no mug shot taken of the former president. As expected, Trump entered pleas of “not guilty” on all four charges filed by Special Counsel Jack Smith. The judge set an initial hearing for August 28th.
We provided some analysis of Smith’s indictment in yesterday’s “End of Day” report, which you can read here in case you missed it, and there is additional analysis below.
By the way, if you’re listening to news coverage tonight about these charges related to the “January 6th insurrection,” it was not an insurrection. It was a mini-riot. And it was nothing compared to the “mostly peaceful” riots we suffered through during the summer of 2020.
Smith’s “Novel Approach”
The left-wing New York Times weighed in today with an analysis of the latest indictment against Donald Trump. For the Times, it was remarkably balanced, and perhaps even somewhat critical of Jack Smith’s prosecutorial overreach. Consider these excerpts:
“Trump’s behavior on Jan. 6 did not violate any laws in obvious ways. He never directly told those at the Jan. 6 rally to attack Congress. During his speech that day, he even said he knew the protesters would behave ‘peacefully and patriotically. . .’”
“As for Trump’s broader effort to overturn the election result, no federal law specifically bars politicians from attempting to do so. Without such a law, Smith has relied on a novel approach. He has charged Trump with . . . laws that were not written to [do what Smith is attempting].”
“Trump’s defense lawyers are likely to argue that . . . he was exercising his right to free speech. . . Legal experts are divided over the strength of the evidence on intent that Smith has presented.”
The article goes on to suggest that these latest charges are “less solid” than Smith’s previous indictments because “it remains unclear whether [Trump] broke any specific law.”
As I noted yesterday, plenty of Democrats have challenged and questioned the results of our elections, and none of them were ever prosecuted by a rogue Justice Department using “novel approaches.”
And, as former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker put it, why wasn’t Bernie Sanders prosecuted for the attempted assassination of Rep. Steve Scalise? Why wasn’t Chuck Schumer prosecuted for the insurrection against the Supreme Court and the attempted assassination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh?
Of course, the Times won’t admit it, but this is yet another example of the weaponization of the legal system and the double standards of justice in America today.
Lowering The Barr
Former Attorney General Bill Barr is certainly no fan of Donald Trump. He’s made that clear on multiple occasions.
During an interview with CNN yesterday, Barr defended Biden’s Justice Department (as establishment institutionalists are prone to do), but he also expressed serious concerns about the dangerous precedent being set.
Barr said this is a “complicated case” that suffers from “issues of proof.” He added that there are “some downsides to it” and “reasons to not bring it,” not the least of which is “the slippery slope of criminalizing legitimate political activity.”
Echoing that concern was former federal prosecutor Katie Cherkasky, who told CNN, “Ultimately this case is unprecedented in terms of the constitutionality of it, and I think that is something that is really going to be potentially a showstopper. . . The idea of a prosecution here, I think, is very tenuous.”
In addition, Barr expressed fears about “the divisiveness” of the case, saying it “highlights the double standard,” because the Biden Justice Department “dropped the ball on the Hunter Biden investigation” at the same time Jack Smith is coming up with “novel approaches” to put Donald Trump behind bars for hundreds of years.
Those are all definitely valid concerns, which is why it was so disappointing to see Barr lowering the bar by defending Biden’s out-of-control bureaucrats.
The neo-Marxist left is clearly criminalizing legitimate political activity – whether it’s targeting pro-life activists, harassing parents at school board meetings, spying on conservative churches or violating the former president’s free speech rights!
Left-wing Lunacy
Unfortunately, many utterly unhinged leftists have been spouting off total nonsense over the past 24 hours. Let’s start with MSDNC, I mean MSNBC.
Here’s what so-called “presidential historian” Michael Beschloss had to say:
“Jack Smith delivered that indictment with the help of a courageous grand jury, how does this fit into the larger American story? . . . From time to time, America faces threats from monsters who want to destroy our democracy.
“That happened in 1861 with the Confederacy. . . Pearl Harbor, 1941, we were bombed. Our system was very much in danger. . . many people were giving it up and saying the democracy had seen its last days. . . 9/11, Osama bin Laden hated our democracy, tried to destroy it. You see where I am going.”
Beschloss wasn’t alone. Here’s what one left-wing commentator told the “Clinton News Network,” otherwise known as CNN:
“When I first learned about the indictment . . . I told [a friend] how proud I felt to be an American at that moment. Much in the way that I did when I learned that our military had killed Osama bin Laden. . .
“Osama bin Laden was a terrorist who committed a horrific act against American people and against our republic. And I believe that Donald Trump is a terrorist who committed horrific acts against the American people.”
Just to be clear, leftists are comparing the former president to jihadist terrorists -- men armed with airplanes who attempted to decapitate the United States government and who brutally murdered 3,000 Americans.
They are comparing that to grandmothers, veterans and political dissenters exercising their right to assembly and protest, just as hundreds of mostly left-wing groups have done throughout our history.
It is worth remembering that after 9/11, the left-wing of the left-wing party blamed George W. Bush for the attack. Some even pushed the conspiracy theory that President Bush knew the attack was going to happen and that he wanted it to happen. (Here, here and here.) None of them were charged with conspiracy.
Defending Faith, Family & Freedom
In this week’s “Defending Faith, Family, and Freedom” podcast for the James Dobson Family Institute, I look back on the prophetic warnings for America from a 1964 commentary by the late Radio Hall of Fame inductee Paul Harvey, “If I Were the Devil.”