This is a dual-column presented by The Collegian, with columnists Thomas Hegarty and Claire Houchin. This article will present two depictions of the legal issues surrounding former U.S. President Donald Trump.
Indicting for Political Gain
by Claire Houchin
The Democrat party has declared lawfare against its political enemy, Donald J. Trump, former president of United States.
Lawfare is a term used to describe the weaponization of federal and state justice departments for political prosecutions. Whether the prosecutions are justified or not, and in many instances currently, the prosecutions do not appear to be justified, this mixing of politics and the law forms a toxic brew.
The Democrat lawfare began on Aug. 8, 2022, when the FBI raided Trump’s Florida home, Mar-a-Lago.
They seized confidential presidential records that Trump kept in his home. The records had been requested by the National Archives starting on Feb. 7, 2022. Trump was later indicted on June 8, 2023, on 37 felony counts related to the confidential documents.
This indictment sparked a rage in the Republican Party about the weaponization of the Department of Justice (DOJ).
On July 10, 2023, Congressman Jim Jordan tweeted, “Why did the FBI withhold the FD-1023 from Congress? Why did the FBI’s Washington field office conduct the raid of Mar-a-Lago, in a break from standard practice? Why did the FBI limit the number of witnesses who investigators could contact during the Hunter Biden investigation?”
His tweet highlights the common Republican party opinion. The current DOJ is operated by a Democrat administration, and the target was not only the predecessor, but also the sitting president’s likely 2024 opponent.
It is understood, or at least it has been, up until Aug. 2022, that the party in power does not use the government to attack their political opponents absent a crystal-clear violation of the law. No such clarity exists in this instance.
Beyond the classified documents case, President Trump has been indicted three more times with questionable validity to the claims.
On April 4, 2023, Trump was indicted in New York with 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree.
This indictment was officially issued before the Mar-a-Lago indictment, but Trump and the Republican Party anticipated the raid to result in charges which were issued on June 8, as stated previously.
On Aug. 1, 2023, Trump was indicted in Washington, D.C., on four felony charges.
One count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, one count of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, one count of obstruction and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and lastly, one count of conspiracy against rights.
His final indictment was issued on August 14, 2023, in a Fulton County Georgia state court. In this indictment, Trump, along with 18 other’s were indicted on 40 felony charges, including conspiracy, forgery, false statements and writings, solicitation, and impersonation of a public officer.
Like the Florida indictment, these three other cases lack a clear violation. For instance, in the D.C. indictment, Trump is charged for his actions on Jan. 6. The Democratic Party has made Jan. 6 a primary political talking point for the last two years.
Yes, the protestors’ actions on Jan. 6 were wrong, and they should be prosecuted for them. However, it is a stretch to say that Trump incited violence.
In his speech on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump said, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
It may be just me, but I do not usually associate violence and insurrection with words peacefully and patriotically. Trump asked them to protest peacefully. He had no control over their violent actions, and he did not say anything to them that should warrant the allegations of inciting violence.
Trump’s indictment for Jan. 6 must also be viewed in the context of similar actions by Democrat politicians. The Democrat Party supported and called for protests all around the country in the summer of 2020 that led to deaths, businesses closing, and cities torn apart. None were prosecuted in the way Trump is now.
These are just a few examples of the politically and legally intwined allegations against the former president.
The Democrat party is using the DOJ in the sitting administration to target Trump for political gain. Democrat state prosecutors are following their lead.
Such extreme actions should only be considered when there have been unquestionable violations of law. That is not the case here. Instead, this weaponization of the law undermines the reliability of our legal institutions and our political institutions. In America, we are not supposed to prosecute our political opponents.
91 felony charges and the evidence
by Thomas Hegarty
Former President Donald Trump is currently facing 91 felony charges for a variety of crimes. The question of whether these charges are warranted or whether they are part of a political attack on a presidential candidate.
This question is impossible to definitively answer, and there’s room for both to be correct as well. The thing that matters most to me is whether the charges have validity, because if they do, then he should be fully charged of the law. The crimes that he has been accused of are severe, and they place the rights and safety of the American people at serious risk if they are true.
That being said, let’s review the evidence behind these charges.
Trump has been accused of stealing classified documents from the White House. This is patently true, and the only argument in Trump’s favor is the disingenuous downplaying of its severity. Some have argued that the documents taken were classified but not important or dangerous.
This is untrue, as the classification of the documents ranges from innocuous to documents that are top secret. The main claim from Republicans, however, has been that what Trump did was an example of “spillage.”
Spillage is a term that refers to a common mistake made by politicians when they leave office. Thousands of personal documents need to be packed up and transported when an elected official retires from their office.
It’s not uncommon for classified documents to get mixed in with those personal documents. Both Barack Obama and Joe Biden have had this issue. This, however, describes what Trump did. There is ample evidence that Trump knew he was taking hundreds of classified documents, lied about having those documents to the Federal Government, and lied about having returned those same documents.
His motives remain somewhat unknown, but it is evident that he was not ignorant of his own illicit activities.
Trump has also been charged about the events around Jan. 6, 2021.
He has been accused of inciting the insurrection attempt on Jan. 6, as well as attempting to obstruct democracy by preventing a peaceful transition of power to the person that the American public elected. The most important fact here is whether Trump knew that his election fraud claims were untrue.
If Trump was knowingly lying about the election results, then he is an obstructionist who was intentionally trying to subvert the will of the people. Much of this will hinge on the testimony of witnesses and co-defendants who have already taken plea deals, such as Sidney Powell.
There are things already known to the public, however, that lead me to believe that Trump was aware of the illegitimacy of his claims.
In a phone call to Gov. Brad Raffensperger of Georgia, Trump asked him to “find” the exact number of votes he needed to win the state by a single vote. This was after Raffensperger exhaustively explained that Trump’s claims were not grounded.
If Trump genuinely believed that voter fraud had occurred in Georgia, then he would ask for a recount or for a third party to independently investigate the voting process. That’s not what he did. He asked Raffensperger of a state that he lost to “find” the exact number of votes that he needed to flip the state red. That kind of language suggests that the best-case scenario is that Trump is indifferent to whether he is correct, and that his maintenance of power is more important to him than the will of the people.
My inclination is that he knew the people had chosen Biden, that he tried to interfere with the people’s desires, and that his extended propaganda campaign led to the insurrection attempt on January 6th.
This article has also not gone over the civil cases brought against Trump by other parties. Those charges, while not relevant to the DOJ, have strong evidence behind them. Trump has proven himself maliciously incompetent regarding our nation’s security and the rights of its citizens. He deserves to be fully punished by the law for his mishandling of our nation’s classified documents and for attempting, knowingly or not, to prevent the people from choosing their commander in chief.