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You are assuming the goal was legal as opposed to political
You are assuming the goal was political as opposed to legal.
I don't pretend that Democrats would never do anything underhanded. But I think Republicans are getting to the point of treating everything that happens to a Republican as a conspiracy. Sorry, I don't buy that Trump can do no wrong, and must be immune to any consequences of his actions else the world is out to get him. And often by the same people who claim that Democrats in cities let repeat offenders walk.
A lot of the evidence in this case is public, including Trump literally confessing to showing classified documents to someone who has no clearance. So yes I think he is guilty, and guilty in a way that is easily provable in court, outside of a judge who tosses a case for completely unprecedented reasons. If all of this is made up, we'll soon see.
If they are only prosecuting a guilty person because he's the wrong guilty person, well I say it's a good start. If Republicans want to engage in "lawfare" against Democrats by punishing them for things they are guilty of, great! Either government gets cleaned up, or laws that aren't being enforced get removed. Sounds like a positive to me.
No one is saying Trump can do no wrong. They are pointing out the obvious disparate treatment and concluding that “obvious legal mistakes that hurt Trump politically” are more readily explainable by those mistakes being political calculations. We’ve seen the DOJ / FBI act very political vis-à-vis Trump. Therefore it isn’t conspiracy to assume that their conduct is political when it makes most sense for it to be political.
A) the disparate treatment is all feels. Here's a list of government misconduct, and I'm seeing lots of Ds. And I haven't personally witnessed Democrats attempt to protect other Democrats accused to crime.
B) The government is not all Democrats. Republicans had effective control of the federal government from 2016-2020. They also have the power to go after Democrats. You might say, "Well, Republicans are nicer and wouldn't do that!" I don't buy that. Trump literally campaigned on going after Hillary. If he didn't do that that sounds like he squandered a prime opportunity and you should judge him and other Republicans for that accordingly.
C) "The legal system pays disproportionate attention to criminals as opposed to non-criminals" also explains the phenomenon you are seeing, and is literally how the justice system is supposed to work. Doubly true if the criminals leave obvious evidence.
D) The "obvious" part of your "obvious legal mistakes" is evidence against it being a political gesture. If you make an argument that turns out to be false, it hurts your credibility, both legally and publicly. Therefore, it makes sense to at least be clever in telling lies, especially since the legal system is designed to be adversarial and thus sniff out falsehoods.
E) Let's say you are given the task to scan thousands of pages of documents, and put them back exactly as they were. How do you do that? If it were me, I would have some sort of separator to remind me where everything was. Like a cover sheet. And since the contents are believed to be confidential, I would put "confidential" on those separators. Then due to some mistake or miscommunication between multiple people, they either don't get removed at the end or aren't disclosed when meant to be disclosed.
It isn’t about being disclosed. Those separators immediately ended up on the front page of the NYT. And the correction did not. So no, no price was paid for the mistake. And they knew no price would be paid.
Corrections never end up on the front page of anything. The government does not control the NYT.
The idea - that the Justice Department spends probably millions of dollars arranging a raid of Mar-a-Lago and building a case that they know they will lose just so that they can add a cover sheet saying "confidential," which will end up on the front page of NYT for a day before being debunked (which they also know won't matter) - is actually extremely conspiratorial. I would argue if they're smart enough to do this and also set Trump up to be recorded showing documents to a civilian and say that those documents are confidential (This part seems to be getting ignored a lot) then they could have planted better evidence than cover sheets.
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This is so easy to say when you know it will never come to pass.
Ask Senator Menendez and Eric Adams about "never."
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Sure, but what do you want me to do about it? Change my career path, go into a law, get a job in politics, and rise through the ranks so I can become a star prosecutor who goes after Republicans and Democrats alike?
I’d just like you to not act as though your personal desire for fairness in lawfare means anything to those of us on the right. No lawfare is much preferred over one-sided lawfare.
In other words, I cannot argue in favor of a thing unless I personally have the means to implement it? Sorry, that's not a demand I'm going to comply with.
"No lawfare" is just corruption, because every public figure is partisan. Was Bob Menendez (D-NJ) a victim of lawfare when he was convicted of 16 counts of bribery? He has a D next to his name! George Santos? Michael Flynn? "Lawfare" absent any hard evidence of the motives of the prosecutors is little more than the idea that anyone you like can't be accused of a crime.
I'd also argue the right does know what lawfare is. What do you think all those people chanting "Lock her up!" were calling for?
You’re right. It is corruption. One-sided lawfare is also corruption, and of a more dangerous kind.
Bob Menendez will be replaced by another guy with a D next to his name so absolutely nothing was lost by the democrats. The occasional no-stakes sacrifice isn’t fooling anyone, especially when it took two decades for consequences.
They wanted lawfare. Your rules applied fairly and all that.
Oh come now. You ignore the point and pivot to calling it meaningless. The "lawfare" argument is that Menendez should never face consequences, because if Republicans bring charges it's lawfare and if Democrats do it it's a stunt I guess? Do we need to summon a being of true neutrality and law to bring prosecution or not?
They were doing this before Trump was ever even in office. And again, I don't have near as much a problem with it as you seem to. The whole "Oops I deleted it!" was at a bare minimum shady as fuck.
Exactly! Because you know your side will never actually face consequences!
Surely you can see there is an enormous qualitative difference between democrats ejecting an unpopular democrat in a safe-D state and democrats digging through the couch cushions and charging the opposing presidential candidate with whatever novel legal theories they can find?
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It's better than two-sided lawfare too -- there's a reason why "don't go after past presidents for petty bullshit" has been the norm since forever; it's a good norm!
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Moreover structurally democrats in government benefit from the fact the vast majority of trials would take place in the DMV meaning they will Never be held accountable even when their guilt is unquestionable.
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