By Steve Huntley

June 25, 2023

The bill of indictment accusing former President Donald Trump of mishandling classified documents is damning.

Lying, conniving, irresponsible, manipulative, dishonest, deceptive, reckless, contemptuous of the law — these are just a few ways to describe the picture of Trump in the 49-page indictment.

All things being equal, Trump deserves to stand trial on these charges.

But are all things equal?

Why does polling show that half of America thinks this prosecution is politically motivated?

Here’s a thought or two on that.

The Durham investigation lasting a couple of years found no basis for an FBI investigation into what we now know was the Russian collusion lie. It found that top FBI leaders were anti-Trump and perverted agency norms to launch and prolong the probe, giving credence to the hoax. It found that the FBI deliberately avoided giving Trump the kind of deference afforded Hillary Clinton in its inquiry into her email scandal, which of course resulted in no prosecutions.

Yet, neither Durham nor the now-Democrat controlled Justice Department choose to prosecute any of the wrongdoers, except for a couple of nobodies quickly acquitted in a courtroom in Washington. The diversity of the D.C. jury pool ranges from hate Trump to hang Trump.

Neither Clinton nor any one in her campaign was indicted for feeding false allegations to the FBI inspiring the years-long investigation that served to undermine the legitimacy of the Trump presidency and the 2016 election in the minds of millions of Americans. Isn’t lying to the FBI a crime?

No one among the anti-Trump leaders of the FBI was prosecuted for their abuse of their investigative powers. One of them had even boasted in an email about an “insurance policy” against the Trump presidency.

No one in the agency faced legal jeopardy for ignoring what the Durham report called “highly significant intelligence … pointing to a Clinton campaign plan to vilify Trump by tying him to Vladimir Putin.”

In contrast, a special counsel appointed by President Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, took only months to indict Trump for his alleged mishandling of classified documents. And the charges fail to allege that any actual harm, like foreign agents seeing the materials, came from Trump’s reprehensible behavior.

Hmmm, when the investigation involves Democrat wrongdoing, there never seems to be much urgency about getting the job done and little interest in hauling the wrongdoers into a courtroom.

But when it involves Trump, the investigators jump to it and don’t miss the chance to come down like a ton of bricks on him. In New York, a Trump-hating Democrat prosecutor employed what virtually ever legal expert agrees was creative — and suspect — manipulation of the law to indict Trump for hush money paid to a porn actress.

Besides the leniency showed Clinton for her mishandling of classified materials in the email scandal, there’s the favoritism shown presidential son Hunter Biden.

A five-year-long investigation into influence-peddling and bribery allegations against him ended this week no more than a slap on the wrist — a couple of misdemeanor tax charges and an unlawful gun possession count, all gone with the wind in a plea bargain.

Also a special counsel probe into President Biden’s own mishandling of classified documents going back to his days in the Senate is proceeding at a snail’s pace.

Add to all that the contrast between the draconian prosecutions of the Jan. 6 rioters and the light hand — and often no prosecution — against the left-wing BLM and Antifa rioters who looted and burned cities across the country.

Is there one standard of justice for rioting against the powerful in Washington and another for rioters targeting everyday Americans in their businesses and neighborhoods?

Then throw in the way Garland’s Justice Department jumped on the ludicrous complaint from the National School Boards Association that parents speaking up at board meetings about their children’s education constituted a domestic terrorism threat.

The FBI took that bit of malice to a new level by looking for “violent extremists” among “radical-traditionalist” Catholics.

Any wackadoodle grievance about conservatives seems to perk up the ears of Biden’s Justice Department.

No one is above the law, declared Trump special counsel Jack Smith.

But that standard comes with the corollary that everyone is equal before the law.

Given recent history, is it any wonder that an ABC/Ipsos poll shows that 47 percent of Americans — and 80 percent of Republicans — see politics in the Trump indictment?

Now add in the unprecedented nature of the case.

For the first time in America’s history a former president is facing a criminal trial. And that former president comes from a different political party than the current president and his attorney general. And the indicted former president is running in the 2024 election to unseat the current president.

In other words Biden’s Democrat government is turning law enforcement loose against his top Republican opponent. It escapes no one’s notice that it’s just the latest targeting of Trump by Democrats, a campaign that stretches back to the Russian collusion hoax and included two impeachments.

But no one in the Democrat regime sees any problem with all that.

Garland, who no doubt holds a deep grudge against Republicans for blocking his nomination to the Supreme Court a few years ago, signed off on the special counsel’s indictment. He saw no reason to hold back a prosecution sure to throw gasoline on the nation’s already hyper-partisan political environment and sow further distrust of government institutions.

What’s more, Garland didn’t consult with Biden about this momentous decision. At least that’s what Biden says. Let’s take them at their word.

Think about that for a minute.

A profound decision upending nearly 250 years of history and portending only God knows what for the future of our country, and the leader of our government, the man at the top of the pyramid, the most powerful individual in the nation was, in effect, a no show. The buck didn’t stop at his desk.

A calmer, more reasoned review of the case by a president aware of the venomous partisanship in the country might have recommended that the allegations against Trump be laid out in excruciating detail, without an indictment, to let the American people come to their own verdict.

That would have been the high road. Joe Biden has never been known for taking the high road.

Neither Biden nor Garland deigns to address the earthquake in our political and government traditions this indictment represents. This despite half of America seeing it as politically motivated.

This indictment is on the two of them, as will be history’s judgment.

Supercharging it all is that Democrats are celebrating this prosecution. They hope and expect it will so enflame Republican primary voters that they will show their support for Trump by nominating him for another run at the White House despite his weak chances against Biden.

The predominant line of political thought, which I share, is that Trump is the only Republican who could lose to Biden.

In this campaign season the GOP has a rich field of talented and appealing candidates, any one of whom would likely emerge victorious over Biden in November 2024.

Don’t believe me? Consider this quote in the New York Times from a Democrat National Committee member:

“The only political risk is if the indictment and possible conviction of Trump causes him to lose the nomination and Biden has to run against someone else.”

Trump lost me with his election denial and the Jan. 6 riot. The indictment is just another reason for the GOP and the country to put him in the rearview mirror. I don’t think he deserves another Republican nomination, much less another term in the White House.

His conduct got himself in this mess. All this could have been avoided had he just turned over the documents in answer to a government subpoena.

So I don’t give a damn about Donald Trump.

I do care about my country, the reputation and integrity of its vital institutions, its civic health, the traditions that have made our nation the world’s longest-lived democratic republic, the rule of law in that no man is above the law coupled with the equal application of the law, and the historic tradition that politics stops at the courthouse door.

Trump isn’t worth a grain of salt compared to all that.

So I’d be fine with Trump facing a jury on charges of egregiously mishandling secret documents — all things being equal.

But are all things equal?

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