Democrats’ preemptive pardon paradox

OPINION:

The Democrats’ preemptive pardon gambit is a tacit admission of their partisan weaponization of America’s justice system. What should we, the people, do about this outrage?

Some guidance may be found in strategic game theory. Here, we have a “repeatable game” in which whenever one political party controls all three branches of our government, the temptation is to weaponize the justice system to interfere with elections and thereby hold onto power.

Before the rise of President-elect Donald Trump, both major parties largely resisted this temptation. Like nations armed with nuclear weapons, Democrats and Republicans adhered to an unwritten doctrine of mutual assured destruction to check their most destructive partisan impulses.

Both sides understood that using government institutions for political advantage would provoke retaliation. The punished party would eventually return to power and then exact retribution in an escalating cycle of political vengeance. This balance kept overt weaponization in check, much as the doctrine of mutual assured destruction discourages nuclear war.

With the coming of Mr. Trump, however, Democrats threw all such restraint to the wind. Through subpoena after subpoena, impeachment after impeachment, FBI raid after FBI raid and court case after court case, the Democrats have terrorized Mr. Trump, his children Don Jr., Ivanka and Eric, his aide Walt Nauta and many of his advisers.

Even today, Mr. Trump faces a possible prison term from one bogus case in New York, another Manhattan judge has stolen nearly $1 billion from him in legal costs and fines, a whacked-out amnesiac may get away with a big payout and a D.C. judge is holding him hostage in a lawsuit.

Meanwhile, both Steve Bannon and I went to prison, John Eastman and Jeff Clark lost their bar cards, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is now bankrupt, Trump advisers Dan Scavino, Stephen Miller and Mark Meadows have shelled out millions of dollars in legal fees and other former Trump staffers with weaker spines bent their knee and turned on Mr. Trump.

Of course, none of these Trump loyalists who have been pummeled by the Democrats’ lawfare and injustice ever did anything more than try to defend American democracy. This defense of liberty stands in sharp contrast to the felonies allegedly committed precisely by those for whom the possibility of preemptive pardons is being raised.

Consider Sen.-elect Adam Schiff. As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, Mr. Shiff promoted the phony Steele dossier and a Russia hoax designed to overthrow the Trump White House.

Consider, too, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, John Brennan, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Rod Rosenstein, Hillary Clinton and the original bad seed himself, Christopher Steele. Each allegedly promoted the Russia hoax to interfere with the 2016 election and, once Mr. Trump won, tried to overthrow the Trump White House.

There’s also former Rep. Liz Cheney, Wyoming Republican, and each member of the Jan. 6 committee, including its chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson. This illegally formed and unduly authorized witch hunt conceived by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought not to get to the bottom of the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Instead, the committee used its subpoena power to build a bogus criminal case — a poster child of election interference.

There is also a whole slew of prosecutors and judges who may well have explicitly or tacitly colluded in their bogus prosecutions of Mr. Trump and his advisers. Prosecutors include Attorney General Merrick Garland, special counsel Jack Smith, Matthew Graves, Elizabeth Aloi and John Crabbe at the Department of Justice and Manhattan’s Alvin Bragg and Fulton County, Georgia’s Fani Willis.

Bully judges include Manhattan’s Juan Merchan, Arthur Engoron and Lewis Kaplan, along with the D.C. Circuit’s Amit Mehta, Tanya Chutkan, Cornelia Pillard and Patricia Millett.

Should the incoming Trump administration seek to hold any or all of these possible felons accountable through prosecutions or impeachments? This brings us back to strategic game theory.

If the past is prologue, the Democrats may take back the House in 2026. Since World War II, the president’s party has lost an average of 26 House seats in midterm elections, far larger than the current razor-thin Republican majority.

Here is the preemptive pardon paradox: If Democrats are not now held accountable for weaponizing our justice system, will they not start the whole destructive lawfare cycle of subpoena-impeachment-contempt-fines-imprisonment-election interference all over again once they regain power, perhaps as early as 2026?

In the meantime, be assured that Mr. Trump’s overriding priorities will be to secure our borders, cleanse our nation of toxic sanctuary cities and deport the millions of illegal aliens now committing crimes and stealing jobs; tamp down on inflation, crack down on unfair trade and restore robust growth in our gross domestic product and real wages; exorcise the “woke” demons from our government, our schools, our corporations and our military; make our cities safe again; rid this nation of deadly Chinese fentanyl; and restore President Biden’s broken peace.

In closing, the night of the day I was released from prison on July 17, I said on the stage of the Republican National Convention: “I went to prison so you won’t have to. I am your wake-up call.”

If the government could come for me as they did, they surely can come for you. How can we best defend ourselves against lawfare and weaponized injustice and restore integrity to our justice system?

• Peter Navarro served as Donald Trump’s manufacturing czar and chief China hawk. He is the author of “The New MAGA Deal: The Unofficial Deplorables Guide to Donald Trump’s 2024 Policy Platform.” Take the preemptive pardon poll at www.peternavarro.substack.com.