OPINION:
Headlines are alive with news of Donald Trump and his arraignment on 37 charges related to document storage at his Mar-a-Lago home. And boy, are the pundits punditing; even some conservative talking heads and legal minds are warning about the political fallout from these latest charges.
But proving Trump’s innocence should not the focus of discussions.
Conservatives need only point to Hillary Clinton and her skip of justice over her wiped email server — hardly a mistake; it required a special tool called BleachBit — and demand equal treatment under the law. What’s good for Hillary should be good for Trump.
This is not about “whatabout” politics — the blame game of all blame games, where warring political parties engage in never-ending pointing of fingers. This is about standards of equality and justice and law and order and how one side, the side called Democrat, always seems to be granted the golden free pass on meeting these standards, while the other side, the side called Trump, is held to account — and frankly, predestined for failure.
If Democrats were OK with Hillary Clinton erasing history of what Republicans at the time were arguing — and rightly so — were pieces of public properties, then Democrats ought to be fine with Trump’s possession of documents claimed under the Presidential Records Act.
Of course, the standards are quite different.
Hillary was never president. She didn’t have the records act as protection or excuse. She simply offered up the “trust me, I’m a Democrat” line of defense — and all in the mainstream media dutifully nodded and smiled. In the world of comparisons, Trump would be the apple and Hillary, the orange jump-suited inmate.
“She and her lawyers had those emails deleted,” then-House Select Committee on Benghazi Chairman Trey Gowdy said at the time, in August of 2016, as Politico reported.
Clinton claimed the correspondences were about yoga and weddings; but we’ll never really know.
“[T]hey didn’t just push the delete button,” Gowdy said. “They had them deleted where even God can’t read them. They were using something called BleachBit. You don’t use BleachBit for yoga emails or bridesmaids’ emails. When you’re using BleachBit, it is something you really do not want the world to see.”
True that. But the larger takeaway here is that Democrats, by defending Clinton, simply continued their trend of lawlessness for their chosen elite. It’s just what they do when legal times get tight and testy. Then they get their minions in the press to run cover.
“Yes, Bill Clinton kept tapes in his sock drawer. Here’s why Trump’s case is different,” PolitiFact rushed to write, in the face of recent reminders of the former president Clinton’s audiotapes of interviews with a historian that were the subject of a lawsuit — a lawsuit that found he was actually lawfully allowed to keep these from public ears because of executive privilege. But not Trump, PolitiFact harped. No, no. Trump is different.
In the ruling for Clinton, Judge Amy Berman Jackson said, as The Wall Street Journal noted, “Since the president is completely entrusted with the management and even the disposal of presidential records during his time in office, it would be difficult for this court to conclude that Congress intended that he would have less authority to do what he pleases with what he considers to be his personal records. … [the Presidential Records Act] does not confer any mandatory or even discretionary authority on the Archivist to classify records. Under the statute, this responsibility is left solely to the president.”
But not to presidents named Trump, it seems.
When Trump is involved, suddenly, Democrats are all about law and order — or at least, interpreting laws and defining what’s order.
Suddenly, Republicans are expected to play by rules the Democrats decided during different times weren’t really rules.
When Clinton’s top national security guy, Sandy Berger, stole classified documents from the National Archives, and first denied, denied, denied, but then finally acknowledged yes, he did in fact cut them up into little pieces with scissors, he was given 100 hours of community service and a fine of $50,000. No jail time; his fine was probably paid by Clinton backers giving thanks for the coverup. The documents Berger destroyed dealt with terror threats against America in 2000 — and no doubt contained some juicy information about Clinton’s response to these terror threats and more.
But was Berger’s home torn apart in the dead of night?
No. His residence wasn’t ever raided by armed federal agents while he was away and while the media cameras swirled. With Berger, it was all very diplomatic and dignified. He pleaded guilty in court after discussing terms of a plea agreement — a plea agreement he was allowed to discuss even after outright lying about taking and deliberately destroying the records in the first place. At first, remember, Berger said his theft of three copies of the same document was an “honest mistake.”
Why didn’t Trump get that same standard of treatment when FBI agents were busily sifting through his wife, Melania’s clothing closets for documents they claimed he wasn’t supposed to possess? It was prosecute first; gather evidence last.
Democrats break laws — the media covers for them.
Democrats fabricate crimes that Trump committed — the media covers for them.
Democrats express outrage when Trump dares to defend himself — the media covers for them.
Democrats get outed fabricating crimes against Trump and wasting tax dollars in their investigation of the fabricated crimes — the media covers for them.
The rules of Democratic-run society seem to be this: All Democrats are innocent until proven guilty; Trump is 100% guilty until he proves his innocence — and lest we forget, Trump can never be innocent because he is a racist and therefore, any attempt he makes to prove his innocence is in fact a crime in itself.
Off with his head, as Kathy Griffin might say.
Democrats are disgusting and lawless — lawless, because they have a long, storied history of breaking the law; mocking the law; rewriting, redefining and reinterpreting the law so as to twist it for their own clever designs and protections; and disgusting because they then turn and demand Republicans abide their cleverly worded, cleverly twisted, cleverly interpreted versions of law.
Sadly, too frequently, too many Republicans play right into the left’s revisionist, gaslighting game because they fail to fight the bigger battle — the war on American sovereignty; the war on American individualism; the war on God-given rights versus globalist takeover of the country, and moreover, they fail to connect the dots of Trump’s face to his defense of these American ideals — and instead, too frequently, too many GOPers talk about records’ acts and why this law applies here, but does not apply there.
They parse and argue eloquently, thinking that by rational discourse the day will be won. Then they scurry when their legal arguments and sound, sensible viewpoints are ripped to shreds by partisans working for leftists in media and in courts, and they wonder aloud such things as this, a headline from The Hill: “GOP fears Trump legal woes will boomerang on them.”
They nail-bite over the damage Trump’s reputation as a criminal might do to the Republican Party or, more to point, their own selfish political ambitions — and instead of standing on principle, they fold and become willing participants to the Democrats’ own anti-MAGA designs. America First?
Only if the political winds blow that way.
Republicans need to stop trying to win debates with evil — and to compromise with evil.
Rather than pine and parse and politic over the perceived perils of these latest charges against Trump, Republicans should reshape discussions and rephrase debates by demanding the Hillary standard of law to be applied to this current situation. Then watch as the weaponized Department of Justice lays down arms and folds its investigation.
Read, repeat and repeat some more: Democrats will never, ever, never stop investigating Trump for something or other. That’s because Trump is the fighter for America First principles, and as fighters go, he’s indefatigable. Republicans who fail to recognize this and worse, fail to publicly make this case, are only helping Democrats in the destruction of America.
You don’t have to like Trump to support his cause.
You only have to call out the hypocrisy of the Democrats as they seek to destroy him and insist, publicly and openly, that what’s good for the left on matters of law should be good for the right. You only have to make the argument that Trump should be afforded the same deference as Hillary — as any well-placed, well-funded Democrat.
Any Republican who can’t make that case now doesn’t deserve to serve the American public in office.
Now is the time for the GOP to unite by principle, not exploit for politics. The fate of America’s constitutional integrity rests with Republicans to do right by Donald Trump, right now.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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