Caution: Do not rush to judgement!
The 37 counts in the indictment of former President Donald J. Trump are written to be as damaging to the accused as possible. Some are restatements of the same charge over and over. Wisdom and experience dictate the withholding of judgment.
In the early 1970s, your humble reporter was the Presiding Officer (Judge) over a General Court Martial held in West Germany. The defendant, a non-commissioned officer (NCO), was charged with having sex with the family’s 13-year-old babysitter while the NCO’s wife was back in the States tending to her ailing mother. By noon, the Trial Counsel (prosecutor) laid out such a damning case it looked like we would be voting to send the NCO to Ft. Leavenworth prison for many years.
After lunch, the Defense Counsel produced a series of witnesses, backed up by some official intelligence reports (sources and methods redacted) to wit: The female was not 13-years-old. She was 18-years-old. Her name was false. In fact, she had been sent by the East German Intelligence Service to work as a prostitute in the Port of Bremerhaven for the purpose of obtaining information about NATO shipping.
The NCO was acquitted of all charges. With regard to Article 134 (adultery), it was a case of "she said" vs. "he said." Was the NCO having sex with the "babysitter?" Maybe. We’ll never know. How did this situation come to the attention of the U.S. military? A German neighbor provided an anonymous tip. An over-eager prosecutor did not do his homework.
So, you see, initial impressions are not always correct. Moreover, the charges against PDJT, if proven, are merely "process crimes." Documents mishandled in the process of transition from the White House to his retirement home. They pale in significance to a sitting Vice President of the United States collecting millions of dollars from foreign governments in exchange for favors from the U.S. Government. They pale in significance from compelling a foreign government to fire a prosecutor who was on track to expose corruption in a foreign corporation that was paying Vice President Joe Biden’s son $80,000 per month to do nothing. Recall, PDJT was impeached by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives for merely asking about the status of the fired-prosecutor case.
Former Vice President John Nance Garner often said, "Being Vice President is not worth a bucket of warm spit." In the case of Joe Biden, we may learn the Vice Presidency is worth over $10 million dollars. And that was before inflation.
But wait. Like PDJT nothing has been proven against President Biden* in a court of law. We must await the judicial process. Or, await the political process which could see PDJT back in the White House with the power, if needed, to pardon himself and others. He could also, like President Biden* is doing right now, order his Attorney General to throw the book at former President Joe Biden* and his crime-family members.
But everyone, except those with Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS), knows that PDJT has not done anything seriously wrong while Joe Biden* and his family probably sold the Office of the Vice President many times over.
*Election disputed.
©2023. William Hamilton
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