The Trump Indictment In 10 Bothersome Paradoxes

The Trump Indictment
In 10 Bothersome Paradoxes

By: Victor Davis Hanson
The Blade of Perseus
June 13, 2023

Yes, we are told Trump is facing serious charges. Experts tell us he will be going to prison. Some of his legal team have quit. Yes, he was sloppy about communicating with the lawyers of the National Archives. Yet, read the 1978 Presidential Records Act (put into place after the typical sloppy departure protocols of most presidents)—and consider that Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Vice President Mike Pence were likely all in violation. Moreover, we are not stupid, when asked to ignore the following:

1) That a president who had the prerogative to declassify almost any presidential papers he takes with him when leaving office, in a way that a senator or vice-president does not, should be prosecuted for doing just that when a former senator and former vice-president are not prosecuted for doing the same.

2) That an ex-president is prosecuted for having supposedly classified papers in his possession after 18 months as a private citizen, but an ex-senator, ex-vice president, and current president is exempt, despite having classified documents for some 15 years—and keeping that fact absolutely quiet.

3) That a “disinterested” special counsel who is currently indicting a conservative Republican ex-president and current opposition presidential candidate, is married to a leftwing documentary filmmaker, whose recent work includes Becoming, a 2020 obsequious documentary of Michelle Obama.

4) That the current president removed classified documents, and kept them stored while President of the United States in as many as four unsecured locations, including a poorly locked garage, shared by his drug-addled son, who made millions of dollars by leveraging foreign governments in quid pro quo fashion, presumably on the principle that he and his father had inside information that could be of monetary value—and is not being indicted.

5) That never before in U.S. history has any administration overseen the indictment either of an ex-president of the opposite party or a current leading candidate for president of the opposite party—or both.

6) That many ex-presidents have removed presidential papers that were under dispute as to their exact legal ownership and classification and were never—until now—indicted.

7) That typically frequent archival disputes over presidential papers are considered jurisdictional matters that rarely even escalate to civil cases and are not violations of criminal statutes—until, oddly, now.

8) That a number of prominent ex-officials have committed by their own admission felonies with impunity:
 John Brennan, as CIA director admittedly lying on two occasions, at least once under oath to the U.S. Congress;
 James Clapper as Director of National Intelligence admittedly lying under oath to the U.S. Congress;
 Andrew McCabe, interim FBI director, admittedly lying under oath to federal investigators on at least three occasions;
 Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State, U.S. senator, and two-time presidential candidate admittedly destroying subpoenaed emails, smashing subpoenaed communication devices, unlawfully transmitting classified information on her own unsecured private email server, illegally hiring a foreign national to work on her presidential campaign, and conspiring to construct three paywalls to hide her payments to a British subject to compile and spread false information against her presidential opponent with the intent of destroying his character and his rival campaign.
 Navy veteran Walt Nauta is being charged with a felony for saying “I don’t know” in the fashion of James Comey’s 245 “I don’t know/recall/remember” while under oath before Congress.

9) That Trump is being indicted in a fashion never witnessed before after his opponents previously had impeached him twice in a historical first resulting in two acquittals in the Senate, another historic first, including a Senate trial as a private citizen in yet another historical first after a special counsel spent 22 months and $40 million in a failed effort to indict Trump on false charges of “Russian collusion,” after the FBI suppressed information about a laptop that was injurious to President Trump’s then opponent and now current President Joe Biden with the lie of “Russian disinformation,” after 51 former government intelligence authorities in conspiratorial fashion lied, on a Biden campaign prompt, in a signed letter that the laptop was likely “Russian disinformation,” and after the FBI interfered in two presidential election in efforts to harm two Trump candidacies.

10) That Trump’s home was raided in surprise fashion by legions of armed FBI agents pursuing reports of unlawfully removed classified documents, in a manner that the current president was not subject to such FBI treatment for the same alleged crime, and was allowed to have the matter resolved by his own lawyers and government agents without the presence of law enforcement.

Another VDH twist on the same subject:
Indict Walt Nauta?
Why Not the Biggest Liars First?

The last thing this country needs is any more bottled-piety lectures
on the rule of law from Special Counsel Jack Smith, Joe Biden,
and the array of admitted lying former high government officials.

By Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
June 14, 2023

Walt Nauta is a 10-year-Navy veteran and served as an aide to former President Trump both in and out of office.

Special Counsel Jack Smith has now indicted him for allegedly “making false statements in interviews with the FBI.” The indictment’s subtext is that Nauta refused to cooperate with and turn state’s evidence for the special counsel in its efforts to convict the former president.

But why stop the indictments of a man who loyally served and followed the orders of the former president of the United States, was a Navy veteran, and a hard-working immigrant from Guam?

Are there not far bigger fish to fry to remind Americans that justice is blind?

After all, when Special Counsel Smith announced his indictment of Trump, he lectured America on the rule of law and the cherished notion that no one is above it.

So let us start with the former interim director of the FBI itself, Andrew McCabe.

McCabe admittedly lied four times about his illegally leaking sensitive information to witnesses and mishandling classified information.

Have those crimes suddenly ceased being felonies?

Or, is it now the policy of the United States government that an FBI director can lie with impunity, and leak, and mishandle sensitive classified information?

Yet Walt Nauta may be sent to prison while McCabe will continue to earn a fine salary at CNN as a paid “expert” to deplore . . . what exactly?

What McCabe knows best from his own experience with the deed—the “mishandling of classified information”?

Nauta reportedly is being indicted for claiming he “did not know” what he supposedly did know in relation to the movement of the president’s papers.

His denial was proffered with nearly the exact phraseology that another FBI director, James Comey, used under oath when he stonewalled congressional inquisitors on 245 occasions.

Was the FBI director ever indicted for feigning ignorance or amnesia before Congress?

Did Nauta ever record a private, and likely classified, conservation he had with the president of the United States in the White House, and then leak it to the New York Times?

That is precisely what James “Higher Loyalty” Comey bragged about doing.

Most recently, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm admitted that she, too, recently lied while under oath to Congress when she denied owning private stocks.

Was Nauta’s “I don’t know” a greater threat to the rule of law and the security of the republic than the lies of the secretary of Energy? She deliberately misled Congress about potential conflicts of interest involving her stock portfolio.

Then we come to Joe Biden, the current president of the United States. He has sworn that he never discussed business with his son, Hunter Biden, currently under suspicion for tax improprieties and leveraging foreign governments by selling them supposed Biden influence.

Yet plenty of witnesses have contradicted Joe Biden’s statement. Photos even reveal him side-by-side with his son’s business associates.

For nearly 20 years, Senator, Vice President, private citizen, and President Joe Biden has concealed the fact he unlawfully took classified documents home and moved them about in various unsecured locations.

Was Mr. Biden’s movement of classified documents for the last 20 years less egregious than what Nauta is accused of having done?

Was the Biden Corvette garage more secure than the closets and bathrooms inside the Mar-a-Lago gated estate?

Biden’s lawyers, after nearly two decades, only came forward because of the media hype surrounding the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago in search of classified documents.

Is there some law that states that a senator, vice president, and president can improperly remove classified documents, move them about to various unsecured locations, and avoid the sort of felony indictments now facing Nauta and Trump?

Let us end with the greatest exemptions of all—those accorded to Hillary Clinton.

She has variously committed the following likely major felonies.

One, she illegally transmitted classified information involving national security over her own unsecure server while secretary of state.

Two, she destroyed both email records and communication devices that were under government subpoena.

Three, she was untruthful about both the use and destruction of said subpoenaed items.

Four, she illegally hired a foreign national, Christopher Steele, to work on her campaign as an opposition researcher.

Five, she conspired to disseminate false documents among top government intelligence and investigatory agencies as well as the media, for the sole purpose of destroying her presidential opponent Donald Trump and thereby warping the 2016 election process.

And?

Clinton—like self-confessed liars or dissimulators John Brennan, former CIA Director, James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence, and former FBI Directors James Comey and Andrew McCabe—was exempted from all legal jeopardy. She, too, continues to monetize her past notorieties and controversies.

The last thing this country needs is any more bottled-piety lectures on the rule of law from Special Counsel Jack Smith, Joe Biden, and the array of admitted lying former high government officials.

They, not Walt Nauta, should be ashamed.