My dad was opposed to gambling on moral grounds, but on practical grounds as well.
“Those fancy casinos ain’t built on air, you know,” he wryly observed.
Last week, former President Donald Trump was indicted by a grand jury on 37 felony accounts related to this mishandling of government documents after leaving office.
Trump, along with several other high-profile Republicans, condemned the indictment as politically motivated and an attempt to sabotage Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.
“This is political persecution and election interference at the highest level in history,” Trump said in a statement.
“Today is indeed a dark day for the United States of America,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said. “It is unconscionable for a President to indict the leading candidate opposing him.”
“This phony Boxes Hoax indictment against President Trump reflects the most severe election interference on the part of the federal government that we have EVER seen!” tweeted Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida.
“It’s shameful,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. “Pathetic really. Ultimately the biggest hypocrisy in modern day history. A stain on our nation that the FBI and DOJ are so corrupt and they don’t even hide it anymore.”
Critics of the indictment also claim a politically-motivated double-standard, noting that President Biden was found to have kept government documents in his private D.C. office and Delaware home, but has not been indicted.
Here’s the weakness in that argument. Biden’s handling of government documents is also under federal investigation. If evidence emerges that Biden broke the law in his handling of those documents, the evidence should be handed to a grand jury for possible charges. It’s hard to make the argument for a double-standard until the results of that investigation are known.
What is known is that in the last four months, Trump has been indicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records stemming from a $130,000 hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, has been found liable for sexual abuse and defamation by a Manhattan jury and is under investigation in Georgia for election tampering and under federal investigation for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
If you’re keeping score at home, that’s one conviction, two indictments and two continuing investigations. This is habitual offender territory.
That all of this is being orchestrated by a sitting president who Trump supporters say is mentally incompetent strains credulity. Which is it? Is Biden a mastermind of epic proportions or a doddering old fool? He can’t be both.
I suspect Americans, including Republicans, are beginning to get tired of all these “witch hunt” excuses. Trump’s claim of political persecution is no different than those of Charles Manson, Lee Harvey Oswald or Jim Jones. There’s an important difference between prosecution and persecution, as history shows.
Some will maintain their blind allegiance to Trump, but for those who retain some capacity for independent thought, I encourage you to read the indictment. It’s 49 pages, which means you can easily read it in an hour. It is written in plain language. You don’t have to be an attorney to follow the narrative.
What is contained in the indictment is disturbing and dangerous. If even half of what is alleged in the indictment is proven, Trump could – and should – spend his final years in prison.
We are nowhere close to that point now, of course, but once you have read the indictment, I believe you will come to the same conclusion my dad reached on the subject of casinos:
It ain’t built on air.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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