By John J. Duncan Jr.
duncanj@knoxfocus.com
CORRECTION: The article from which I wrote part of my original August 22 column had wrongly attributed a quote criticizing the Trump raid to Neama Rahmani, president of West Coast Trial Lawyers. That quote was actually from another person, a former Trump lawyer. While the other lawyers quoted in that section were not Trump supporters, Mr. Rahmani has never stated publicly for whom he voted for president. I apologize. Edits have been made to the column to correct the errors.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland must be one of the most bitter people in the world today.
There is a very old saying that “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Garland has shown that that saying can apply to men just as well.
He was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Barack Obama during Obama’s last year in the White House.
But Republicans in the Senate refused to hold a hearing on Garland’s nomination, and he has never been able to get over his bitterness for the denial of his dream.
So he has weaponized the “Justice” Department to prosecute Donald Trump and some of Trump’s most high-profile supporters.
Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani said the raid on Trump’s home on August 8th showed that “We don’t have justice in America anymore. This is the Biden police state. A sad night for America.”
He added that he was “ashamed of the leadership of the FBI and the Department of Justice, ashamed of two great institutions. They will go down in history as probably the two worst attorney general and FBI directors.”
Lawyer Alan Dershowitz said, “Based on what we know now, it was totally unjustified, even one FBI agent would be too many.” There were 30 agents in this raid.
He also said, “This administration has used the weaponization of the justice system against its political enemies. It’s arrested people, denied them bail, put them in handcuffs – used all kinds of techniques that are not usually applied to American citizens…”
Jonathan Turley, a professor at the George Washington University Law School said, “The Presidential Records Act is not commonly a subject of criminal prosecutions in the most egregious cases. These incidents have generally been handled administratively.”
Former FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe both did things concerning classified material that many experts said were illegal, yet neither was prosecuted.
Hillary Clinton destroyed 33,000 emails that had been subpoenaed by Congress. She gave special treatment as Secretary of State to countries and people who had contributed millions to the Clinton Foundation. She was never prosecuted.
The New York Post has reported that Hunter Biden has done all sorts of illegal foreign deals and used all types of illegal drugs. Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa was contacted by whistleblowers at the Justice Department saying the potential prosecution of the president’s son was being deep-sixed.
Trump supporters, on the other hand, have been subjected to totally unnecessary pre-dawn raids to make them look guilty of something.
Presidential aide Peter Navarro was arrested while boarding a domestic flight, handcuffed and placed in leg irons for two misdemeanor charges – all totally unnecessary.
Trump’s lawyer Jeffrey Clark was subjected to a pre-dawn raid at his home, placed on the street in his pajamas, and his phone and other electronic devices were taken, totally against attorney-client privileges and also totally unnecessary.
Our grand jury system is a joke. Only the prosecution side is presented. There is an old saying that a zealous prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich.
Boston lawyer Harvey Silverglate wrote a book called “Three Felonies A Day: How The Feds Target The Innocent.” He has pointed out there are so many millions of federal laws, rules, and regulations now, and they are so vague and broad that almost everyone has violated some or several federal statutes. The U.S. Justice Department is so big and filled now with liberal left-wing lawyers who can easily go after anyone who has political views they do not like.
They will be treated as heroes if they indict Trump and he could never get a fair trial in Washington, D.C., a city that gave him only 5.4% of the vote in the 2020 election.
The judge who signed the Trump search warrant was an Obama contributor. It is now very clear there are two standards in the Justice Department. Democrats can get away with anything. Republicans will be prosecuted for their political beliefs.
