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On April 24, 1944, George Stinney Jr., a 14-year-old Black boy, was convicted of murdering two white girls in South Carolina. In one of the most egregious abuses in U.S. Justice System history, he …
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On April 24, 1944, George Stinney Jr., a 14-year-old Black boy, was convicted of murdering two white girls in South Carolina. In one of the most egregious abuses in U.S. Justice System history, he was interrogated without a lawyer or his mother present, and other civil rights were denied. The entire trial, including jury selection, lasted a single day. The all-white jury took just 10 minutes to convict him of first-degree murder, making him the youngest person ever executed in the U.S.
This wasn’t the only instance of political abuse in the justice system. Consider cases of the Scottsboro Boys in 1931, Rubin Carter in 1966, the Wilmington Ten in 1972, and the Central Park Five in 1989. We often place the judicial system on an incorruptible pedestal, forgetting that it’s run by average people who can, and have, abused it for political ends.
The conviction of Donald Trump will be added to this list of injustices in America for two very compelling reasons: the willful abuse of the justice system and the blatant motives of political rivals.
The effectiveness of any justice system relies on public faith that the judicial process is applied fairly to everyone. The average person would understand “justice” as administering and enforcing laws to ensure that individuals who commit crimes are held accountable. We hear a lot about how “no one is above the law,” which should be a fair and true statement, but this only works when the law is applied equally and fairly to everyone.
In recent years, conservatives have become increasingly vocal about unequal treatment under the law. Numerous examples from the past decade alone support this: the “sweetheart” Hunter Biden plea deal exposed by his trial judge (1); the FBI’s targeting of conservative Catholics in 2023 (2); or Kevin Clinesmith, the FBI lawyer convicted of falsifying evidence to spy on Carter Page and who received only 12 months probation (3).
More importantly, Hillary Clinton was fined $113,000 by the FEC for falsifying business records to hide the fact her campaign paid for the Steele Dossier (4), the same crime Trump was charged with. If the Steele Dossier sounds familiar, that’s the dossier that kickstarted the Crossfire Hurricane investigation and led to the empty Mueller probe.
Speaking of, James Comey, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, all central to Crossfire Hurricane, never faced justice. Andrew McCabe, despite his involvement, was reinstated with full benefits after his firing was (ironically) deemed political. Given these facts, any rational American should be deeply skeptical of judicial actions against any political rival.
Examining the facts, we are left with this question: how do we know this is all political? The most common rebuttal is that no matter what, he committed the crime and should face justice.
I think the answer is simpler: everyone who ran their campaigns on locking up Donald Trump are now trying to lock him up. The Attorney General of New York, Letitia James, ran her election platform boasting about her intent to get Trump (5), as did Alvin Bragg. Even CNN’s anchor Fareed Zakaria said on his show “GPS Sunday,” “I doubt the New York indictment would have been brought against a defendant whose name was not Donald Trump” (6).
A similar fraud case brought against Trump by James was so politically damaging for Gov. Kathy Hochul that she had to publicly reassure business owners this was an “extraordinary, unusual circumstance” on TV—an admission that this too was politically motivated (7).
If there are clear examples of politically motivated injustice, a country with a history of weaponizing the justice system and politicians openly stating their intent to target Trump, the logical explanation has to be that this is politically motivated. The argument that “no one is above the law” falls flat, as there are people who are above the law, and most of them tend to be Democrats.
This is not about the law; it’s a motive of retribution by a minority of people seeking revenge. It began with Trump being a Russian asset in 2016, continued with endless investigations, and now ends with 34 counts of business fraud.
Average Americans see this for what it is and reject it. After each trial, Trump’s poll numbers climb (8) and he was able to raise $400 million post-conviction (9). Organic social media campaigns erupted within hours with people posting their first-time donations.
Meanwhile, prominent figures like Piers Morgan (10), Alan Dershowitz (11), Mark Bauerlein (12) and celebrities like Kevin O’Leary (10) and Sean Strickland (13) publicly defended him.
So no, this trial was not just. It will likely get thrown out on appeal, just like how all the other trials against Trump are falling apart (14). With Biden’s plummeting approval ratings and the cost of living skyrocketing, this is a last-ditch effort to stop Trump from reversing the machine. And liberals, who have long championed justice reform and defended those victims of injustice, should agree. Justice is afforded to everyone, not just to people you like.
All sources and citations are available at www.sullivanslegacy.com/trump.
Sullivan’s Legacy is an independent expenditure committee based in Sullivan County, NY. Its mission is to support conservative, pro-America candidates in Sullivan County by developing the operational and material infrastructure candidates need to win.
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johnandherta
Person?
Well, I read your remarkably long 875 word “letter to the editor” and found not one specific citation for any of your outlandish claims regarding the “modern abuses” of justice that allowed you to comingle the cases of the sexual abuser, protofascist and swindler, D. Trumfp, with the case of the Central Park Five, whose execution he loudly demanded while calling for the return of the death penalty, in a paid ad in the NY Times (May 1, 1989, Section B p.6). Years later, those five African-Americans were exonerated rather than as Trumpf would have had it, exhumed.
The rabbit hole of logic, where unsubstantiated claims based on unsubstantiated claims leads us to a kind of “Bizarro World” of up is down is not one I am willing to dive into; especially when this tome is yet another unsigned troll letter attacking presumed innocent people (our system) with serious charges attributable to no one except some vague and little known “Sullivan’s Committee.” Honestly, I do not know how this scandalous twist made it past the editors, but the next time I have lots of words with nowhere to go…
John Pace (a real person)
Honesdale
Wednesday, June 19 Report this
PScottA
I am re-posting my (updated) comment to your earlier op-ed "Condemning political persecution and judicial corruption" because the same principles apply to ALL of his indictments, not just the recent 34 he was convicted of. Keywords: "JURY" and "EVIDENCE".
Again, trump was indicted not by Biden, not by the Justice Department, not even by Alvin Bragg (or Fani Willis or Jack Smith-a trump appointee, by the way), but by a grand JURY that was presented with EVIDENCE. Every word spoken and every piece of evidence presented at that trial was made (and still is) publicly available at the end of each day of the trial, so you can see for yourself that the prosecution presented 20 witnesses, 19 of whom backed up Michael Cohen’s testimony, as well as email, checks, recordings of phone calls and a piece of paper that literally laid out the payback plan in detail.
The defense offered a phone chart and 2 witnesses, one of whom was immediately impeached on cross-examination. In other words, the jury had no choice but to convict because of EVIDENCE of guilt, and basically nothing offered by the defense to rebut it.
Not to mention, if Biden controls the Justice Department, why was his own son convicted of a Federal crime and why has Biden said he won't interfere with a pardon or anything else?
Meanwhile, trump, after watching them for three hours before telling them "we love you", has promised to pardon every single January 6 rioter, police assaulter, trespasser, vandalizer, official proceeding interferer, and feces smearer who were not only convicted by juries and evidence, but whose crimes were witnessed by the entire world as they occurred.
Maybe, unlike me, you haven't seen every episode of the original Law & Order 17 times, but I still find it astonishing that you seem to have absolutely no idea how the American system of justice works.
Pamela Arnold
Sunday, June 23 Report this
ellendouglass1
It's clear that people have been unfairly targeted for many many years. Perhaps Republicans are just now speaking out against this since they are on the receiving end of it. The question is, what are politicians from both sides willing to do to right this wrong? No one should be targeted for arrest and trial because of the color of their skin, their religion, their politics, or their famous last name.
Ellen Douglass
Scottsdale, AZ
4 days ago Report this