If Trump is bad, Clinton was worse
When Richard Nixon was compelled to resign from office or face certain impeachment, the world was shocked: in America, even the POTUS could be held accountable to the force of the Rule of Law! By the time Bill Clinton faced impeachment, the Rule of American Law was a demonstrable farce. The effort to pre-empt Donald Trump from running for office against an inept walking corpse using paltry charges shows shameless hypocrisy. But surely this is a nail in the coffin for any remaining respect of Democrats.
The articles of impeachment against Nixon charged him with obstruction of justice and abuse of power. Much is made of Trump's payoff (which was admittedly not illegal, much like Clinton's $850,000 payoff to Paula Jones) because it allegedly impacted the 2016 election. But then there are Hunter's laptop and Hillary's Steele dossier. Bill Clinton lied to the American people for months about using the power of his position to take advantage of a vulnerable young woman. (So much for #MeToo.) He'd still be lying today, if not for his dried semen on her dress.
Clinton also lied under oath, a crime called "perjury," much more egregious than mislabeling a payoff as attorneys' fees. As Judge Susan Webber Wright opined in the civil case against Clinton:
Simply put, the President's deposition testimony regarding whether he had ever been alone with Ms. Lewinsky was intentionally false ... and his statements regarding whether he had ever engaged in sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky likewise were intentionally false, notwithstanding tortured definitions and interpretations of the term sexual relations.
Strong majorities of Republicans openly declared they would vote to impeach Nixon — for a cover-up. Clinton flagrantly perjured himself, but Democrats rallied to forestall impeachment. Nancy Pelosi declared:
Today the Republican majority is not judging the president with fairness but impeaching him with a vengeance[.] ... In the investigation of the president fundamental principles which Americans hold dear, privacy, fairness, checks and balances, have been seriously violated, and why? Because we are here today because the Republicans in the House are paralyzed with hatred of President Clinton, and until the Republicans free themselves of this hatred, our country will suffer.
This hypocritical double standard was aped by Chuck Schumer:
"Lying under oath about an extramarital relationship requires significant punishment, such as censure, but not the political version of capital punishment, impeachment," he said.
"My colleagues, the rule of law requires that the punishment fit the crime," said Schumer. "Allow us to vote for censure, the appropriate punishment under rule of law."
But Clinton paid no penalty: he was above the law as applied by shameless Democrats, who now exhibit contempt not just for Trump, but for all Republicans. In the name of "defending democracy," this grotesque perversion of former liberalism is hyper illiberal, puking on the First Amendment under the guise of throttling "hate speech," while spewing hatred through BLM, Antifa, and a twisted denigration of murdered children, calling instead for "vengeance" on behalf of unhinged transgender miscreants.
The Rule of Law stands no chance when biology and facts are treated as malleable fiction. Vaccines touted as "98% effective" don't work while sickening Americans, for a disease created in a lab but blamed on market animals. Puberty-blocking hormones are gushingly pushed as salvific, ignoring their experimental nature, lifelong dependency, probable harms, and the underlying fact that most youth transgenderism is an idiotic child fad.
This spin-baloney is now in full churn against the trumped up shenanigans against Donald Trump. Many liberal media outlets have conceded that the recent charges are perhaps flimsy. Politico notes that "Alvin Bragg's case against Donald Trump is running into a wall of skepticism" and that Mitt Romney said something true:
I believe the New York prosecutor has stretched to reach felony criminal charges in order to fit a political agenda. ... The prosecutor's overreach sets a dangerous precedent for criminalizing political opponents and damages the public's faith in our justice system.
Ya think?
The witch hunt by the MSM will still call for Trump's head, heedlessly. As American Thinker's Andrea Widburg explained, "blatant leftism [has] reduced the law to a mockery." Left-wing pundits are targeting Trump's understandable outrage over violations of basic legal strictures as justification for his removal.
An opinion in The Atlantic titled "Depraved, Deranged, and Doing Real Damage" ludicrously clamors:
In the past, wondering just how far a party would go in defense of its leader was a matter of speculation. But Trump has moved this question from the realm of speculation to the realm of reality. The GOP has hitched its wagon to Trump, and he is leading them to places even they never imagined. A grotesque man presides over a grotesque party.
Which grotesque party presided over the non-accountability of Bill Clinton for perjury? False claims of Russian collusion? Biden family deals with China?
PolitiFact claims, "Our only agenda is to publish the truth so you can be an informed participant in democracy," then claims there is no comparison between the Paula Jones and Stormy Daniels controversies:
Although Trump's and Clinton's situations both involve politicians making payments to women, the similarities end there. ... Clinton personally paid Jones to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit after Jones publicly aired her allegations, and after Clinton had already been elected president.
Indeed, there are many noteworthy differences: Trump's unproven relations with Daniels are alleged to have been consensual, whereas Clinton's behavior was an allegedly perverse sexual assault against a married woman (and Lewinsky's was proven with DNA!). Trump didn't commit perjury in a court of law. Clinton sauntered on with impunity, while Trump is being excoriated.
Of course, guilt is presumed. Another Atlantic screed screeches:
The case isn't immediately connected to the survival of American democracy as is the federal investigation into Trump's responsibility for the January 6 insurrection or the Georgia probe into his efforts to meddle in the state's counting of the 2020 vote[.] ... And yet it would be a mistake to brush it off as unserious. The Manhattan case, in its own quirky way, underscores how profoundly unsuited Trump is for the office he once held and that he is now again seeking.
The height of irony is displayed in a CNN opinion piece co-authored by moralizer John Dean:
Despite the salacious details, this is an important case for democracy. ... Bragg's case is a strong one and should not be resisted merely because it involves a controversial political figure. ... [O]ur experience with rogue presidents has taught us ... the bedrock of our democracy: No president is above the law.
Dean has betrayed nearly everything he has touched. He was fired for ethics violations at his first legal job; was involved in Watergate and then cut an immunity deal; was disbarred for obstruction of justice; supervised payments of "hush money" to the Watergate burglars, notably E. Howard Hunt; and wrote a series of conservative-hating tomes, including Conservatives without Conscience and Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches.
Dean turned his acrid tongue against Brett Kavanaugh and spewed special venom against Donald Trump, comparing Republicans to Mussolini and "drawing a direct line from the Watergate break-in to the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021."
Dean left the GOP to become an unscrupulous Democrat. Americans are walking away from this immoral hypocrisy and becoming patriotic, truth-loving conservatives.
Trump may be convicted on these bogus charges. But the backlash against Democrat hypocrisy is long overdue, and it will accelerate.
The survival of our republic depends on it.
John Klar is a former criminal defense attorney. He hosts the Small Farm Republic Substack and podcast from his Vermont farm. His new book is Small Farm Republic: Why Conservatives Must Embrace Local Agriculture, Reject Climate Alarmism, and Lead an Environmental Revival.
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