The leftist media machine has launched an effort to link Donald Trump with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.  This tiresome methodology of character attack is a threat to the core of free speech, as victimhood — whether of border children, women, blacks, gays, transgenders, or inquiring people — is transformed into a self-righteous weapon unhindered by policy prescriptions, employed by one political group against another on purely ideological grounds.

This new progressivism elevates "justice" above laws and institutions (after all, the "system" is oppressive and racist).  In its name, free speech is denied to Nazis or KKK members despite specific Supreme Court rulings safeguarding those people's rights.  In its name, Americans who wear MAGA hats or the Trump insignia or display Confederate flags are open season for physical assault.  (The second tenet of the satanic temple similarly declares: "The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.")

Consider that the ideology that wishes to erase criminal records attacked Brett Kavanaugh for an alleged juvenile offense, for which he was never charged; personally attacked Norm Pattis, attorney for Alex Jones, by association; forced the resignation of Harvard professor Ron Sullivan solely because he represented Harvey Weinstein (who has not yet been tried); and now calls for Alexander Acosta's resignation because he was a prosecutor in a case that (years later) the media have in hindsight "judged" was too lenient in sentencing.

John Adams encountered blowback when he represented the British soldiers who had fired upon colonists in the Boston Massacre.  The case was vitally important for our nation, not only because it sparked a patriotic revolt through Paul Revere's masterful employment of propaganda, but because it demonstrated to the British people that Americans were not a barbarian mob run amok.

But now a mob has been loosed.  What is striking about Acosta's case is that he is being excoriated not for doing too much to defend a sex offender but too little to punish or convict — that is, he is being criticized not as a defense attorney, like Sullivan, Pattis, or Adams, but as a prosecutor.  Just as defendants and their counsel must weigh their risks of conviction, so too must prosecutors assess the risks and costs of failing to meet that much higher burden of "beyond a reasonable doubt."  Epstein served jail time and probation and was compelled to register as a sex offender.  Acosta has stated that "the plea deal's results were 'better' than risking a trial, which he said had 'a reduced likelihood of success.'"  Not only do the media seek to revisit that prosecutorial discretion, but they have already passed judgment.  If Acosta had tried the case and lost, the result would have been horrible, compelling the victims to testify in a new trauma.

Examining old cases, defense attorney Hillary Clinton not only successfully defended a barbaric rapist who left a young girl in a coma for weeks, but boasted about it.  She got him off on a technicality and laughed in an interview that she personally transported the defendant's stained underpants to a forensic scientist in order to do so.  She knew that her client was guilty and went to great lengths to get him off.  Acosta knew that Epstein was guilty, confronted aggressive legal defense counsel, and landed a conviction.

Just as Bill Clinton could molest a young intern, lie about it under oath, and go unscathed as a victim of partisan attack, so Hillary Clinton boasted about defending a child rapist on the most grotesque of technical perversions and was hailed as a hero.  (Of course, she also condemned the women who accused her pervert husband of infidelities and sexual assaults, but who's counting?)

In today's headlines, we see this perverse detachment from logic writ large.  The New York Times reads:

The case could shed new light not only on the allegations, which span years and countries, but also on the extent to which officials who have been linked to Mr. Epstein — including, most notably, President Trump and his labor secretary, Alexander Acosta — knew about or downplayed them.

Yet this piece later admits that "[Bill] Clinton flew on Mr. Epstein's private plane dozens of times, according to flight records."  The "downplaying" is of Clinton's "notable" multiple trips with Epstein on "The Lolita Express," and that Clinton often left his security detail behind on these trips.  Less clear is whether Kevin Spacey, Woody Allen, or Alan Dershowitz was on board with Bill Clinton.  (It's hard to imagine that Joe Biden didn't tag eagerly along.)  Never did Acosta "downplay" the allegations.

This evolving chaos of victim weaponization is now widely evident — reparations for ancient wrongs by now dead people against now dead people to "compensate" for white supremacy, Sandy Hook child victims' deaths wielded as anti-gun political weapons, using this stale case against a prosecutor whose every step was overseen by superiors and judges.

Calling for Ron Sullivan's ouster from Harvard, one liberal writer rationalized that "[j]ust as taking a client creates conflict by which an attorney may not be able to counsel another client, being Harvey Weinstein's lawyer means there can be no role for him as a trusted leader in undergraduate life."  But Hillary Clinton can defend child rapists and be hailed as aspiring commander-in-chief?  Before Sullivan's client even selected a jury, there was an imposed judgment of guilt on both client and counsel — and in Acosta's case, both defendant and prosecutor.  This is absurd.

As Norm Pattis has insightfully observed, "[t]here is no mob quite so terrifying as a self-righteous mob.  Suppressing speech because it offends a majority of folks gives the power to censor speech."  But the Acosta-Epstein connection, sought to be saddled upon POTUS Trump, is the mob attacking not free speech, but the Bill of Rights (due process, presumption of innocence, right to an impartial jury, right to effective legal counsel). 

The core of this right was explained by Hillary Clinton: "I had a professional duty to represent my client to the best of my ability, which I did[.]"  Boy, she sure did!  She bragged that her client passed a polygraph even though guilty, and she moved for a psychiatric examination of the young girl who had been permanently injured and left for dead.

Hillary Clinton filed this (hearsay-laden) affidavit with the Court:

I have been informed that the complainant is emotionally unstable with a tendency to seek out older men and to engage in fantasizing. I have also been informed that she has in the past made false accusations about persons, claiming they had attacked her body. Also that she exhibits an unusual stubbornness and temper when she does not get her way.

I have also been told by an expert in child psychology that children in early adolescence tend to exaggerate or romanticize sexual experiences and that adolescents with disorganized families, such as the complainant, are even more prone to such behavior.

The victim, Kathy Shelton, later related that "Hillary Clinton took me through Hell."

Alexander Acosta secured a conviction of a vile predator, despite the fierce attacks of defense attorneys like Hillary Clinton.  For that, he is being politically victimized.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr.