Justice is supposed to be blind. The legal jihad against anyone who ever did political business with Donald Trump has many wondering whether that’s still true. The list of Trump associates targeted by Justice Department special counsel investigations and Democratic prosecutors around the country is astonishingly long. It’s total lawfare.
The Robert Mueller investigation was supposed to uncover evidence of collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia. It found no such thing, but it did result in indictments against a roster of Trump allies and campaign officials on charges ranging from financial fraud to obstruction of justice and lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Among those caught in Mr. Mueller’s web: Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates and Michael Flynn.
Never prosecuted? Anyone at the FBI who actually did meddle in the 2016 election.
Jack Smith’s dual mandate is to investigate Mr. Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and his alleged mishandling of classified documents. In addition to three dozen felony counts against Mr. Trump, Mr. Smith has also obtained indictments against Walt Nauta, an assistant to Mr. Trump, and Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager at Mar-a-Lago. The message is clear: Even the small fish in Mr. Trump’s pond should expect to get fried.
Never indicted? Anyone associated with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s infamous home-brew email setup or her campaign’s cover up of its payment for the Steele dossier by falsely characterizing it as a legal fee—which, unlike Mr. Trump’s payments to Stormy Daniels, earned a civil fine from the Federal Election Commission.
In Atlanta, District Attorney Fani Willis persuaded a grand jury to indict Mr. Trump and 18 co-defendants for allegedly participating in a criminal conspiracy to alter the outcome of the 2020 election. Those charged include Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Ray Smith III, Kenneth Chesebro and Jenna Ellis as well as Mark Meadows, a former White House chief of staff. Messrs. Giuliani and Meadows have also pleaded not guilty to similar charges brought by Kris Mayes, the Democratic attorney general of Arizona.
Michael Cohen is a hero to the left now, but in a past life federal prosecutors brought the hammer down for his work on behalf of Mr. Trump. In 2019 Mr. Cohen received a three-year prison sentence for what the judge in his case described as a “veritable smorgasbord of fraudulent conduct.” Allen Weisselberg was once chief financial officer of the Trump Organization. He is serving a five-month sentence at Rikers Island for lying under oath at the civil fraud trial brought against Mr. Trump by Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Peter Navarro, who directed the White House National Trade Council for Mr. Trump, is serving a four-month sentence in federal prison in Miami for refusal to comply with a subpoena from the Jan. 6 congressional committee. Trump whisperer Steve Bannon is headed to prison next month for the same reason.
Recall that during the Obama administration, Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner managed to avoid the slammer for contempt of Congress. I guess some people can’t help being lucky.
You can read the lamentably long list of Trump-world legal woes as evidence that no one is above the law, which is the view of most Democrats. Or you can read it the way half of Americans and 83% of Republicans do—as clear evidence that a politicized justice system went after Mr. Trump and his associates because of who they are. Democratic prosecutors are contorting the law beyond recognition to punish their opponents for their politics. That isn’t the American way.
Mr. Bragg campaigned on an explicit promise to prosecute Mr. Trump. His goal was to become a progressive folk hero. Ms. Willis, Ms. James and Ms. Mayes are probably hoping for the same. That alone is a problem for blind justice. But a bigger problem lurks at the heart of Mr. Bragg’s case: the idea that normal political calculations can, through prosecutorial abracadabra, become unlawful election interference.
Democrats worry about a vengeful President Trump siccing the Justice Department on his political foes in January 2025. They should perhaps be more worried about ambitious partisan prosecutors in red states going after political enemies for the novel “crime” of trying to win elections. What’s to stop a district attorney in Texas from indicting President Biden’s inner circle for conspiring to hide the commander in chief’s mental decline from the American people? Why couldn’t some ambitious Republican take a shot at prosecuting White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre for her daily testaments to Mr. Biden’s sprightliness? Turnabout is fair play. That actually is the American way.
If Republicans fed up with Democratic lawfare start pursuing those kinds of cases, the American legal landscape will be an ugly scene indeed. Lady Justice may wish she’d kept her blindfold on.
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