OPINION:
As the next indictment against former President Donald Trump creeps closer, it seems like a good time to review a few simple yet often forgotten and perhaps outdated concepts about American justice and governance.
First, and most importantly, nothing is being “weaponized,” and citizens everywhere would be grateful if the defenders of Mr. Trump, talking heads and reporters stopped using that word. The reality is that the federal justice system is a weapon. It can’t be any more weaponized.
The only question that is relevant to the moment is: Against whom is that system, that weapon, being used?
In this instance, there can be little doubt that the system has been turned on Mr. Trump, almost certainly because he is the leader of the opposition party.
That said, Mr. Trump has, across the sweep of his most American life, played fast and loose with the rules, whether that means not paying his bills, not applying careful scrutiny to his handling of classified documents, or crossing lines in his efforts to ensure that every legal vote and only legal votes were counted in the wake of the 2020 elections.
It does not help that the leader of the party in power, President Biden, has similarly played fast and loose with the rules over the course of his career. It is not immediately obvious how someone pays for a mansion and a beach house on a federal salary.
It is also unclear how someone who has admitted to essentially the same conduct as Mr. Trump (mishandling classified documents) is not subject to the same level of scrutiny.
Let’s stipulate that the Department of Justice is, at some level, a corrupt operation run by one of former President Barack Obama’s operatives from Chicago.
Let’s also stipulate that the prosecution of a former president on ticky-tack charges is politically motivated and both a bad look and a bad precedent for the Department of Justice.
Finally, let’s stipulate that Attorney General Merrick Garland and special counsel Jack Smith look and sound like villains from a Marvel comic.
None of that excuses Mr. Trump. If he broke the law, he carelessly exposed himself to prosecution. If he did not, the system eventually will exonerate him.
Whether the Department of Justice has vigorously pursued Mr. Biden, his son or other elements of what appears to be a successful grifting operation is a completely separate question from whether Mr. Trump was incautious enough to be caught by the people who have been hunting him for eight years.
If you know that people mean you harm, you probably should be extra fastidious.
With respect to the equities of the situation, every mother since Eve has probably noted to her children that two wrongs do not make a right and that you are responsible only for your own actions and not for those of others.
As a practical matter, the cacophony of outrage about the different treatment of Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden (and his crew), while completely justified, only serves to politicize and confuse the issue in the minds of most voters. It does not lead to clarity about who did what, to whom and when.
This is borne out by opinion research, which indicates that the indictments, or the lack thereof, appear to have had no effect whatsoever (so far) on the presidential campaign.
Almost 50 summers ago, the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities slowly and methodically broke apart the Nixon administration on the anvil of Watergate. At that time, the Democrats spoke with a single voice and carefully built their case soberly, somberly and without hysteria. By August 1974, President Nixon was done.
If they really seek to rebalance justice, Trump supporters need to adopt the same sober, careful approach; shouting about “weaponization” doesn’t really get you anywhere. because the noise is incomprehensible to most people. After a while, it all starts to sound the same.
• Michael McKenna, a columnist for The Washington Times, is president of MWR Strategies. He was most recently a deputy assistant to the president and deputy director of the Office of Legislative Affairs at the White House. He can be reached at mike@mwrstrat.com.
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