The lie hiding behind the other lie.

Obviously, Trump’s premise that he is being prosecuted by Joe Biden because he is running against him is false. Trump is being prosecuted because he is a career criminal, and there is no evidence any of the prosecutors taking him to court have communicated with President Biden.

But beneath this first lie, there’s a second lie: Trump only intends to prosecute his political enemies because they did it to him first. In fact, Trump has been planning to lock up his political opponents since he first ran for office, well before any of the current prosecutions began.

  • spaceghoti@lemmy.oneOPEnglish
    9·
    1 year ago

    FTA:

    In the spring of 2018, he told the White House counsel that he wanted to order Justice Department investigations of Clinton and former FBI director James Comey. In 2019, he repeatedly demanded investigations of Biden and attempted to extort Ukraine into announcing an investigation into the same. He commissioned intelligence agencies to find evidence that Comey, along with Andrew McCabe, Peter Stzrok, and Lisa Page, committed “treason.” In addition to insisting on prosecuting various enemies an unknown number of times in private, Trump made similar demands repeatedly in public on his Twitter account.

    Trump’s first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, resisted his relentless demands for politicized prosecutions. His next attorney general, William Barr, partially resisted. Trump wound up appointing John Durham to lock up his deep-state enemies, a task Barr assisted by working closely with Durham (in violation of department guidelines designed to ensure special counsels are independent of the AG). Durham, however, failed to find the promised conspiracy and wound up humiliating himself and his backers by having his two main targets acquitted in court.

    So while it’s true that Trump has not locked up a single one of his critics, it’s not for lack of trying. If he gets another chance at it, he’ll make sure the people working for him will do what he says without any ethical concerns for the legality of his orders.