When I was a child, I was scandalized that some people were stopped for speeding, some people weren’t. Some people who drove over the speed limit were stopped, some people weren’t. That offended my sense of justice. Shouldn’t all speeders be stopped? Or none?
Of course, that is problematic.
I must say, I have never been entirely comfortable with the idea of “prosecutorial discretion.” But I know — or think I know — that practicalities demand it.
• When we’re in kindergarten — or thereabouts — we’re all taught that, in this country, no man is above the law: not even the president. The law applies to all. We are a nation of laws, not men.
Is it a fairy tale? Just some hokum for civics hour? I hope not.
• “Third World!” Republicans are saying. “Banana republics!” Here, for example, is Florida governor Ron DeSantis:
The raid of MAL is another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime’s political opponents, while people like Hunter Biden get treated with kid gloves. Now the Regime is getting another 87k IRS agents to wield against its adversaries? Banana Republic.
I recall a highly controversial symposium in First Things magazine. This was during the Clinton ’90s. The magazine spoke of the “regime” — which rubbed a lot of conservatives the wrong way.
I am seeing “regime” a lot these days — and not in some neutral PoliSci way. Before DeSantis, however, I had not seen it capitalized.
Is it true, by the way, that only Third World countries or banana republics investigate, prosecute, and imprison former leaders? It is manifestly not true, correct? I think of Israel: and the trial of ex-PM Ehud Olmert, who went to jail. This happened not because Israel is a banana republic; it happened because Israel observes a rule of law.
At the time of the Olmert trial, many of us noted that certain neighboring Arabs were astounded. You can prosecute a former leader in a fair, just, transparent way? Yes, you can.
It was an object lesson, something for a democracy to be proud of, I think, not ashamed of.
• “Unprecedented!” Republicans say. The search at Mar-a-Lago was unprecedented. Yes. But isn’t Donald Trump, too, unprecedented? Isn’t that one of the things his fans like, and love, about him?
You don’t have the FBI at Jimmy Carter’s in Plains. Or at George W. Bush’s in Dallas. Or at Barack Obama’s in D.C. You don’t even have the FBI at Bill Clinton’s. (Not sure where he is living.)
• Back in the ’90s, many of us said that Clinton was benefited by the sheer volume of his scandals. They came at you like a firehose. This allowed Democrats to say, “They’re always pickin’ on him.”
For years now, Trump has benefited from the exact same phenomenon.
• Can agencies such as the FBI and the IRS be “weaponized” by a presidential administration? For sure. That’s one reason we need checks and balances out the wazoo.
• Republican wagons circled around Trump immediately — Republican wagons in politics and the media alike. This is natural. The party line keeps shifting — but the wagons, nimble, keep up.
For days, I heard, “The FBI planted evidence, or probably did.” More recently, I’ve heard, “Doesn’t everyone take home documents from work?”
You may enjoy an e-mail from a friend of mine, a veteran of our armed forces:
Jay,
Never remove classified material from the facility is literally the first thing you are taught. First day. Before the first smoke break (I date myself).
• To toe the party line can be a problem, morally and intellectually. But that aside: It must be so exhausting, when the line changes from hour to hour. You have to pivot more than an NHL player.
Bill Buckley told a story about the Pendergast machine (Kansas City). A machine legislator was on the floor, inveighing against a particular bill. Mid-speech, a lieutenant comes up and hands the legislator a note: “The Boss has changed his mind.” The legislator nods and resumes, “All those things I was saying? That’s what the other side says! Here is why they’re wrong . . .”
Flexibility is important in a politician — and in a human being, frankly. But sometimes a politician, and a person, is just silly putty.
• On the campaign trail in 2016, Donald Trump said, “If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” The other day, he invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 400 times. Probably, few people appreciate rights until they need or want them.
On Election Day 2012, Trump wrote a series of tweets, blasting the Electoral College. One of them read, “The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.” Four years later, he became president by that very mechanism.
Live and learn. (Maybe.)
• I have heard many defenses of Trump, many excuses for Trump, regarding classified materials at Mar-a-Lago (and regarding everything else). What I have not heard, to my knowledge, is, “You know? It just doesn’t sound like him. That’s not a violation he would commit.”
• On Friday, Trump wrote,
President Barack Hussein Obama kept 33 million pages of documents, much of them classified. How many of them pertained to nuclear? Word is, lots!
Two observations:
(1) You see that the “Hussein” is back. When times are tough, bring out the “Hussein.”
(2) “Word is, lots!” I recall Harry Reid, speaking about Mitt Romney in 2012: “So the word is out that he has not paid any taxes for ten years.”
• Obviously, there has always been violence in America, including violence related to politics. But, in my lifetime, I have not heard our political rhetoric so loaded with violence.
You’ve heard about the man who attacked the FBI’s Cincinnati office and got himself killed.
I thought of Pizzagate. Certain activists claimed that leading Democrats were running a child-rape ring out of a pizza parlor in Washington, D.C. One man, in North Carolina, took this seriously. He also took his rifle, up to D.C., and shot up the pizza parlor. Fortunately, no one was killed.
This summer, a man flew from California to murder Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh.
The magistrate judge who signed the Mar-a-Lago search warrant, Bruce Reinhart, has been the target of many death threats. A Fox News host showed a picture of him with Ghislaine Maxwell, the Jeffrey Epstein accomplice. The photo had been doctored.
I think back to Shining Path days. Peruvian judges had to wear hoods over their heads, because, if their identities had been revealed, the guerrillas would have come after them — and their families, and their friends, and their pets, and . . .
May such an atmosphere never take hold in these United States.
• “Defund the FBI!” some people cry. This is a cousin of “Defund the police.” One Republican congressman wrote, “We must destroy the FBI.”
If you do, make sure that there is something in its place. Who will foil kidnapping and murder plots against Masih Alinejad (the Iranian dissident who lives in New York)? Who will foil plots against John Bolton et al.?
This needs to be thought through.
• At his press conference on Thursday, Merrick Garland, the attorney general, said, “Upholding the rule of law means applying the law evenly, without fear or favor. Under my watch, that is precisely what the Justice Department is doing.”
Hmmm. I hope so. I believe the kindergarten teachers: No man is above the law. Not even the president, or former presidents. Donald Trump once said, “I have the most loyal people.” He continued, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay? It’s like incredible.”
It is like incredible. If he shot somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue, should law enforcement respond? I get the impression from some partisans that they think no.
At the same time: That search at Mar-a-Lago had better have been damn worth it. Urgently necessary. Otherwise, the country has been inflamed for nothing.
• A final word, for now, concerning our old friend tribalism. I keep talking about the Clinton ’90s. In those days, I saw the D’s defend and excuse everything. If they could not defend or excuse — if it was just too hard — they deflected. What about the Republicans? What about the media? I wondered why they couldn’t give an inch, or even half an inch. I think I knew why, eventually: fear that the other side — the bad side — would win.
Tribalism is a drug that affects everyone. It is baked deep, deep into the cake. (I guess I am switching metaphors, but what the hell.) Natural though it may be — predetermined though it may be — it is something to watch, something to guard against: something, at a minimum, to be aware of.
Out.