Today I was listening to my friend tell a story about his Mother-in-law.\u00a0 She was a Columbian immigrant to the US who entered legally in the early 1970s.\u00a0 She had been abandoned with her two young children by her husband and arrived in the US with $10.\u00a0 Some months later she was living with her two children in a single room in which there was a single mattress upon which she and the two children slept.\u00a0 One night she had not been able to feed her children before they went to bed; they were sleeping head to feet so that they could all fit on the mattress.\u00a0 Her daughter\u2019s feet were next to her head, and she kept hearing the sounds of hunger from her daughter\u2019s stomach.\u00a0 She \u201cloved Jesus\u201d but made a decision to do something which she had thought she would never do; she was going to steal some food so that her children need not go to bed hungry.<\/p>\n
She went to the local late-night grocery store and put some meat in her coat.\u00a0 As she came to the checkout she panicked, and the storeowner saw what was happening.\u00a0 He made her put the meat back but could tell she was distressed and asked what was up.\u00a0 She told him and he offered her work in the store.\u00a0 She was then able to raise her two children well through hard work and discipline, she loved being in a country where her work made a difference to her life and the life of her children.\u00a0 As she told her son-in-law this story for the first time, she was telling him through her tears of gratitude.<\/p>\n
Some 40 years later, her daughter, who is now married to my friend who now has one of the largest followings on a video sharing platform as a public figure, was invited to Mar-a-Lago (the Trump residence in Florida).\u00a0 Her and her husband had become first professional and then personal friends to President Trump and had their picture taken with him at an event.\u00a0 Her daughter showed her Mum the pictures of her \u201cwith the President\u201d and she once again broke down in tears of appreciation that she lived in such a country where merit was recognised, and hard work rewarded; that the children of an immigrant could be honoured guests in the Presidential residence.<\/p>\n
Last night (30th<\/sup> May 2024), my friend said his mother-in-law, now aged and having health issues, was crying and was deeply distressed.\u00a0 She was weeping over the conviction of President Trump; to her this was the death of the United States that she had come as an immigrant.\u00a0 This prosecution of a political opponent on made-up charges in front of a partisan, corrupted judge, convicted by an intimidated and politically motivated jury, was like what she had left her home for almost half a century earlier.<\/p>\n Now President Trump is not the issue.\u00a0 He is a divisive figure that provokes praise and derision, love and hate in equal measures.\u00a0 However, he is the first ex-President in 250 years to be convicted of a crime. \u00a0That, in itself, is not necessarily<\/em> objectionable. \u00a0We all believe that no one is \u201cabove the law\u201d and that the standard of justice is that all are equal and accountable before the law.\u00a0 If a crime is committed and can be proved beyond reasonable doubt (the standard of proof in most legal jurisdictions for criminal, as opposed to civil, prosecutions) then justice demands a guilty verdict and the appropriate punishment.<\/p>\n However, that is not the issue with Trump\u2019s conviction.\u00a0 The issue is that Trump\u2019s conviction will absolutely, without any<\/em> doubt whatsoever, eventually be quashed on appeal.\u00a0 The simple aim of the prosecution was to be able to label Trump a \u201cconvicted felon\u201d as a campaign tool \u2013 any appeals will take months to proceed by which time the election is over.\u00a0 The calculation was that the conviction would \u201cswing\u201d possible Trump voters away from him in crucial demographics and districts.\u00a0 This was not about justice but politics, Trump was denied even a semblance of due process at every<\/em> stage in his prosecution.\u00a0 The case was brought by a District Attorney that ran on a platform that he would \u201cget Trump\u201d, despite the case having been rejected both at a federal level, previously at the State level and even by the same New York office by the previous DA and even more remarkably by the very same DA years previously.\u00a0 President Biden\u2019s no.3 advocate left his position in the Whitehouse to work with this DA to bring this charge to trial.<\/p>\n This was a case from 2016 and a novel untested legal theory was used to resurrect a case that had expired because of the statute of limitations; it was brought with the sole aim of disrupting a presidential candidate\u2019s ability to campaign \u2013 it was blatant election interference.\u00a0 Relocation of the trial to a New York district that had a more balanced jury pool was rejected.\u00a0 The Judge\u2019s daughter was a political activist who was raising money (in the millions) through the trial proceedings.\u00a0 The Judge himself had committed an ethics violation and had been reported for making a political donation (illegal in New York) which was to a radical group \u201cdedicated to destroying Trump and his right-wing legacy.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 In any other jurisdiction he would have been required to recuse himself.<\/p>\n One legal scholar described how 150 years of legal precedent had been ignored by the prosecutor and judge who collaborated in a most blatant manner to skew the process within the court.\u00a0 The Judge created a \u201cmenu\u201d of charges that the jurors could pick from and specified that they did not even have to agree unanimously what<\/em> the underlying crime that the misdemeanour of fabricating business records was meant to conceal, just that they believed there was some scheme.\u00a0 It was only at the closing arguments<\/em> stage of the proceedings, after<\/em> the defence had presented their closing arguments (New York is unique in that the defence presents before the prosecution at closing arguments) that the prosecution indicated the underlying crime was a Federal Election Finance violation.\u00a0 However, the judge had blocked the former head of the Federal Election Commission who had written<\/em> the rules Trump was accused of breaking. giving testimony on behalf of Trump on the grounds it was \u201cnot relevant\u201d \u2013 yet, if the underlying crime was an FEC violation his testimony was supremely relevant.<\/p>\n It was also the first<\/em> time that a State had claimed jurisdiction when the underlying violation was a federal<\/em> statute \u2013 precedent dictates that the State court has no jurisdiction regarding federal statutes.\u00a0 The Judge had also permitted irrelevant and salacious testimony from Stormy Daniels, despite the New York Supreme Court heavily censoring a Judge for doing just that in the recent quashing of Harvey Weinstein\u2019s conviction; that Judge is no longer on the bench.\u00a0 The prosecution\u2019s \u201cstar witness\u201d was Michael Cohen, who admitted purgatory on the stand and admitted stealing from the Trump organisation.\u00a0 His evidence was so bad that even those sympathetic to the Prosecution called his performance a \u201cdisaster\u201d.\u00a0 The Jury should have been directed to disregard his testimony as an untrustworthy witness and convicted felon who had served jailtime.\u00a0 There was also the issue that a key corroborating witness (Trump\u2019s former CFO) named by Cohen as present in the key meetings integral to the prosecution was not called because the State would not offer immunity because there was a risk that he would not incriminate Trump but rather vindicate him.\u00a0 That item alone is grounds for reversal of the conviction, it is called the \u201cabsent\u201d or \u201cmissing witness\u201d violation, where a known key witness that would serve the cause of justice is obstructed from testimony.<\/p>\n Both the District Attorney\u2019s office and the Biden campaign turned up at Court as the Jury began its deliberations.\u00a0 This was to make very clear to the Jury that they had a \u201cmoral\u201d obligation to find Trump guilty to \u201csave democracy\u201d.\u00a0 The Biden campaign had just changed their messaging during the week after their catastrophic failure to build traction with the voters, to Trump is the danger to democracy and should not be allowed to be President. The pressure exerted on this Jury was extreme \u2013 if the verdict was a \u201chung jury\u201d then they<\/em> would be held responsible for allowing Trump to escape \u201cjustice\u201d and to be elected president.\u00a0 Their details would \u201cleak\u201d and everyone in true Blue Manhattan (who voted 85% for Biden) would know precisely who had allowed Trump to destroy the Republic.\u00a0 As ex-Harvard Professor Dershowitz discovered in defending Trump during impeachment as a matter of principle (he was a lifelong liberal), they would be ostracized in their community and publicly humiliated in the media.\u00a0 Dershowitz was \u201ccancelled\u201d despite his prestige as probably the most famous appellate lawyer and his 50 years at Harvard just<\/em> for defending Trump in what he saw as an unprincipled impeachment for purely political purposes.<\/p>\n Despite all this intrigue, Trump\u2019s response to the conviction was muscular and lengthy.\u00a0 He spoke 45-minutes at a press conference and did so fluently and cogently.\u00a0 One liberal talking head responded by saying that if Trump\u2019s accusations during this conference of the election system being \u201crigged\u201d and that the justice system were \u201crigged\u201d were true, then nothing remains of America.\u00a0 This was supremely ironic as it was totally correct.\u00a0 This was what my friend\u2019s mother-in-law had concluded and was the cause of her tears, there really was<\/em> nothing left of the American republic.\u00a0 All that remains is the hope that power can be reclaimed in November and a more experienced and politically savvy Trump who now knows his enemies, Red as well as Blue, can rebuild the Republic.\u00a0 Many with experience in that arena are arguing that the new precedent of persecuting your chief political opponents to prevent them from standing has now been set, and that some reciprocal prosecutions will be necessary to make the point that this new precedent must<\/em> be set aside.\u00a0 Things will get much uglier before they get better.<\/p>\n It is characteristic of totalitarian regimes that they project their own practise as an accusation against those they seek to destroy by those very means.\u00a0 They destroy democracy, weaponize the justice system and pursue their political opponents to guard against their opponent coming to power to do that to them.\u00a0 There are already many indications that the American people are not buying this slide into totalitarianism by the Democratic incumbents.\u00a0 Trump has received $52million in individual donations and has received a 6-point bump in a snap poll.\u00a0 People are seeing the legal lawfare for what it is \u2013 he is more popular since the legal litigation (now numbering over 100 cases) began, most notably amongst the non-White demographics who themselves identify with his victimisation at the hand of a privileged elite in government.\u00a0 Even more remarkably, after the conviction, some big money donors in the tech space known for their support of the Democrats have made 6 figure donations.<\/p>\n So, whereas many in the mainstream media are celebrating with glee and as one commentator described it \u201cgiggling like schoolgirls at a pool party\u201d, the smarter and more objective ones realise this could go sour very quickly and propel Trump as a martyr into a second term.\u00a0 Perhaps the tears of sorrow will quickly be wiped, and anger will rise in the hearts of ordinary people who love their country and want to reclaim it.<\/p>\n One of the best overall comments on the outcome and a synopsis of the issues was by Ben Shapiro here<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n