Warning: I am not endorsing Donald Trump for any political position.
Some Democrats have weaponized the law, with the trial of former president Donald Trump. Federal officials declined from prosecuting Trump, mainly because of the statute of limitations, which had run out. The New York district attorney decided that if the crimes were raised to felonies, the violations of law were still within the range of prosecution under New York law.
While I’m not a lawyer, it seems that most prosecutions need to have a victim. Trump’s prosecution didn’t seem to have any. One of the “witnesses” former porn star Stormy Daniels, mostly testified that she was paid to have “relations” with Trump, and that she was paid to keep quiet about it.
Trump had bodyguards at the time, and none of them were available to verify her testimony. It seems to me that one of those bodyguards could have been subpoenaed by the prosecution to verify this tryst. There was no point in Trump calling the bodyguard in question, because, logically, it is difficult, if not impossible, to verify something that didn’t happen. You can’t verify a negative very easily, if at all. Perhaps Trump’s lack of presenting the testimony of one of his bodyguards proves his guilt, but then, again, verifying something didn’t happen is quite difficult. You can only prove what happened, not what didn’t happen. (Proving something didn’t happen is a logical fallacy, by the way.)
Interestingly enough, Stormy Daniels was interviewed by Bill Mahr in 2018, and her description of that encounter in that interview resembled nothing like what she testified at the trial.
It seems odd Trump’s defense council didn’t recall her, show the Bill Mahr interview to the jury, and ask what story was the truth. Such a move would have destroyed her testimony. The other significant witness against Trump was Michael Cohen, who has a spectacular history of lying to almost everyone, and has done time for just such behavior. If Cohen had been called to refute testimony, there is no doubt that the prosecution would have brought up all of the times Cohen has lied, in order to crumple his testimony.
Don’t think that in American history, the law has never been weaponized, it has. Consider how many black American citizens were prosecuted during the time of the “Jim Crow” laws, which remained in place up until 1965. Threats of prosecution in order to harass U.S. citizens have long been the proclivity of those in power who disapproved of the behavior of a citizen.
Trump’s conviction will be appealed, and apparently it is scheduled to go before the Supreme Court of the United States. My prediction is that the Supreme Court will not rule that former presidents have some kind of legal immunity, because that would lead to a very slippery slope indeed.
At this point time, (June, 2024) the prosecutions of Trump are only strengthening his political position, and proving almost indisputably that those in power are afraid of him and the policies he is proposing. Donald Trump is not a politician, and never has been. The American politicians who are resorting to weaponizing the law are setting a very dangerous precedent. Again, not that this hasn’t been done before, but now the slippery slope is opened to anyone, and there are many Republicans who will retaliate in the same comportment. Politics as usual are gone in the U.S. The only question is who will be the first victim of the Republicans. As for American politics of the year 2024, the bigger question is how in the world two old white men in the later years of their lives were the only choices to be their leader. That, of course, is another essay.
