There are 27 Republican attorneys general in the U.S., compared to 23 Democrats. But you’d hardly know it these days. Today, all the celebrity prosecutors are Democrats. The left has an entire caste of politicians who make their careers by loudly hunting down supposed “wrongdoers,” using whatever excuses they can manufacture.
This cabal of prosecutors has existed for a while. In New York, for instance, the attorney general’s office has spent years neutering the National Rifle Association with a legal offensive meant to shut it down or at least entirely disable it as a national political force — an offensive that has mostly succeeded.
But the Democrat effort to criminalize their political enemies has reached its climax in 2023. Republicans have sat and watched as four separate indictments have come down from three separate prosecutors, all with the same purpose: imprisoning Donald Trump and as many of his political allies as they can get away with. Monday’s indictment out of Fulton County, Georgia, is the most extreme yet, seeking to ensnare not just Trump but 18 of his associates for the “crime” of contesting the 2020 election through the courts and legislative process.
The goal of all these indictments is simple: rig the 2024 election in the court system before a single ballot can even be cast, and criminalize the MAGA political movement Trump has built.
As our founders knew, and as Ben Franklin famously warned, maintaining a republic is not easy. The temptation is always there for tyrants to abuse their powers to nullify elections and make their hold on power permanent. One of the crucial checks on that abuse of power is that when there is overreach, other branches of government can push back. We understand this intuitively at the federal level. A president who grows too ambitious can be checked by Congress or by the courts.
But that is not the only balancing force in the American system. There is another: When politicians are tempted to prosecute their political enemies, for political reasons, they must fear the same thing happening to them.
Right now, the left does not have that fear, because conservatives have sat idle, refusing to act. That must change.
Of the four indictments brought against Trump, three are completely legally unprecedented in nature. Jack Smith’s J6 indictment and the new Fulton County case are both attempts to criminalize previously completely legal efforts to contest disputed elections through the courts and legislative bodies. Alvin Bragg’s case in New York, meanwhile, is a surreal effort to prosecute Trump for “covering up” a federal crime he has never even been charged with.
For the sake of rigging an election and imprisoning its enemies, the left got creative. For the sake of defending our system of government from this outlandish attack, we may have to get creative too. I offer the following examples as a starting point, but by no means an endpoint.
Hunter Biden
If Trump can be harassed everywhere from Fulton County to the Financial District, why can’t any state prosecutors take aim at Hunter Biden, whose lifetime of sordid criminal behavior has been released for the entire planet to see?
Biden has written in his memoir about a four-day crack bender he went on in Nashville in October 2016, part of a “crack-fueled, cross-country odyssey.” His infamous laptop, meanwhile, has damning proof of Biden buying tens of thousands of dollars worth of prostitute services from Florida-based madam Ekaterina Moreva. What can Florida do in response to that? I don’t know the answer, but I know this: If Democrats discovered a Trump family member had sent thousands to a madam in one of their states, the answer would not be “nothing.”
James Biden
Joe Biden’s brother has been at the heart of a long-running federal investigation into various health care ventures he was part of, in which James flagrantly trafficked in his brother’s name to attract investment that otherwise never would have happened. James then allegedly used these companies as a personal piggy bank. Today, thanks to the Hunter Biden whistleblowers, we can guess the real reason no federal charges have been forthcoming: James Biden is being politically protected. Oh well. Since Biden’s companies have operated in states like Florida and Kentucky, it’s time for state-level officials to get in on the action.
Alejandro Mayorkas
The calamity along the U.S. border has long ceased to be defensible as simply an overmatched Border Patrol grappling with a flood of humanity. It is a calculated dereliction of duty to enable an ongoing invasion of the United States. Congress should of course impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas for his conduct, but there’s another option: indict him for abetting human trafficking.
Black Lives Matter
The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation is the most glaring charity scam in America. BLM took in $90 million in donations in its first year of operations, riding high on the link between its name and the chant shouted by George Floyd rioters.
The charity, from the beginning, was a scam. It spent $6 million on a luxury home in the Los Angeles area, justifying the purchase by saying it could be used by black social media influencers (seriously) or serve as a “safe house” for people receiving “death threats” (seriously). In reality, the house was enjoyed by founder Patrisse Cullors for her personal use, while being monitored by her brother, who was on BLM’s payroll.
The above is all we need to call it a criminal scam. Buying an entire luxury house with dollars donated to fight racism? AG offices exist to prosecute this sort of thing. BLM got donations from every state in the country and quite possibly nearly every county. So it’s time Republican AGs acted accordingly. The people of their states were defrauded by BLM. Investigate and indict them.
Southern Poverty Law Center
For decades, the Southern Poverty Law Center has collected revenues well in excess of its spending. In 2022, it collected $140 million and spent just $110 million, for a surplus of nearly $30 million. It has amassed a war chest of more than $700 million. The SPLC’s lavish headquarters has been nicknamed the Poverty Palace. Even other, more principled liberals find the group completely loathsome; in 1996, one of them called SPLC founder Morris Dees “a fraud and a conman.” In a 2019 piece, former staffer Bob Moser said the group was “ripping” off donors and was essentially a “con.”
Well, the SPLC is headquartered in Alabama. So, I ask, where is the war room in the Alabama AG’s office investigating the SPLC the way New York investigates the NRA?
Literally Any Democrat, for Anything
But really, giving specific names is beside the point. The cases against Trump and his associates aren’t the product of a reasoned criminal inquiry. They are the product of years of work that started from the premise of “investigate Trump for literally anything, and bring whatever charges you can come up with, even if they’re invented.”
That premise can be equally applied to any Democrat official, and for the time being, it should be. Given how many lawmakers fudge their federal taxes (or don’t pay them at all), what are the odds they’re paying their state taxes properly? What are the odds that congressmen representing deep-blue cities in red states are perfectly clean in all their dealings? That’s a good place to start. Send out subpoenas, demand records, fish constantly for anything remotely questionable.
“Investigate first, define the crimes later” should be the order of the day. And for even the most minor of offenses, the rule should be: no charity, no goodwill, no mercy. After all, it’s what Democrats have practiced the past seven years.
Charlie Kirk is the founder and CEO of Turning Point USA, and host of The Charlie Kirk Show, a nationally syndicated radio show and one of the most listened to conservative podcasts in the country.
