Atlanta’s Attack on the Constitution
It is not illegal to question the validity or honesty of an election.
For reasons that are obviously political, Fani Willis, the brutally partisan district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, returned a fourth round of indictments against Donald Trump at 10:30 p.m. Monday night. By now I’m almost out of words to explain this latest attempt by allies of the current figurehead president, Joe Biden, to take out his most likely opponent next November. Maybe no explanation is needed. Trump is not the real or even primary target.
The purpose of this unprecedented rain of prosecutions is to intimidate into silence or inaction any future populist conservative who would try to stop the transforming of Americans into sheep who only exist to serve a globalist vision of the future.
If you draw any comfort from the fact that the target this time is not your favorite candidate, put that aside. These attacks are being levied not just to get Trump, but also DeSantis or anyone else who won’t play by the establishment’s unwritten (and increasingly written) rules. Yes, you are allowed to run for office and you may win, but you are not permitted to challenge or reverse the etched-in-stone remaking of our country into a secular-socialist “paradise.”
This is all familiar territory, but the Georgia indictments introduce some new themes:
Not only is Trump indicted, but so are 18 other individuals, well beyond his personal circle. They include Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, three of Trump’s attorneys (you get it: don’t dare to provide the former president with legal defense, it will cost you), and the head of Black Voters for Trump (wonder what might be motivating an assault on this growing group of his supporters?). Did you know that there is now even a separate group whose sole purpose is to deny Trump legal representation, by harassing any law firm until it drops all negotiations to be at his side in court?
Second, DA Willis is not asserting among her many charges that Trump committed a federal crime. Instead, her case involves the novel use of a sweeping Georgia RICO (racketeering-influenced and corrupt organization) statute. These laws allow a wide net of indictments and acts — including tweets, that can be labeled criminal. I still remember how a civil RICO suit under the complicated federal law kept pro-life activist Joe Scheidler tied down in court for nearly 20 years. As Mark Steyn commented about his own First Amendment case, “The trial IS the punishment.”
Thirdly, legal “experts” are claiming that because these indictments are under a state law, no future president can pardon anyone convicted under them. But, my good friend and former Reagan Justice Department Chief of Staff Mark Levin argues that a state DA can’t block a presidential pardon. I think Levin is correct, but we are in uncharted territory.
Here’s the bottom line. As a God-and-America-loving patriot, I know it is not illegal to question the validity or honesty of an election. American history is rife with accounts of episodes like Tammany Hall and the 1960 presidential primary in West Virginia.
Second, you not only can say an election or process was corrupt, you have constitutional and legislative rights to contest elections, including by the appointment of alternative slates of electors. I have been in the presence of Donald Trump many times and I would bet my house that Trump believes the election was stolen. But even if in his heart of hearts Trump regarded the outcome as correct, he has the right to question and contest it.
The only place on Earth where election procedures and outcomes can’t be challenged are exactly those places where they are completely corrupt. Are there some who would like to see America join those nations? Putin and Xi would no doubt be pleased at such a turn of events. If the Atlanta DA is correct in her sweeping charges, with nearly two dozen solid Americans reporting for booking on August 25, two days after the first GOP presidential debate, we are taking a huge step into a vast wilderness.
Keep in mind what it means to indict political opponents for alleged falsehoods (we’re not talking about slander against individuals here). There are actually people who say things like: “Men can get pregnant.” “The contents of the womb are not a baby.” “The Earth is going to be destroyed by global warming in five years.” Can we now put the leftists who spout these lies in jail?
Americans Abandoned
On another, equally bitter, front, yesterday was the official second anniversary of the horror show at Kabul airport. The debacle looks even uglier in the rearview mirror. Once again, we are reminded that no event is merely “just history” — we grieve still for the 13 American families who lost sons and daughters in those dark days and have an unfillable hole in their hearts.
Today, two years along, that grief is only compounded by the lack of responsibility. No one has been held accountable for these needless deaths. Not Joe Biden. Not the Pentagon. Not a single officer has been demoted. No one has resigned from the White House or the military in shame and disgrace.
Americans increasingly see it. It is overwhelmingly obvious that our fellow citizens are increasingly on their own as far as elites are concerned. The Americans stranded in Kabul were on their own. The devastated communities of Maui were — and are — on their own. Our president, feckless Joe, had no comment from his sunny East Coast beach or now from the resort country in Lake Tahoe.
Fox reporter Will Cain, who grew up in Hawaii, was on the ground in Lahaina. Monday night he reported no sign of government help. Aid and comfort are coming from private citizens and churches. The most direct involvement by a public official was someone from the office of the mayor who came up to Cain and told him this “is a media-free zone.” Cain retorted, “No, sir, this is America.”
We have seen this time after time. The people of East Palestine, Ohio, have seen it. They are on their own with smoldering rail cars spewing poison. Thousands of miles of border communities have seen it with bodies floating in the Rio Grande and trafficking victims, robbed of their last money, being dumped on our shores.
Even in that capital of American liberalism, Manhattan, we are being left on our own. Some 60,000 migrants are now living on the streets there — and a record 600,000 Americans are homeless nationwide. The news featured one restaurant owner who arrived to open his shop only to find 500 young men camping in the street outside. The local police advice: just walk around them.
Yesterday, I wrote about Oliver Anthony, whose lyrics are now circling the globe and inspiring social media riffs that reflect his song’s spirit:
Young men are puttin’ themselves six feet in the ground
‘Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin’ them down.
Americans are tired of being told to just walk around these issues. The elites who think the answer to it all is more indictments and criminalizing dissent are in for a rude awakening. Will Cain was right, “No, sir, this is America.”