- USA TODAY Network Tennessee Columnist Cameron Smith is a Memphis-born, Brentwood-raised recovering political attorney who worked for conservative Republicans.
“The people are losing faith right now in this country, in our institutions,” U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson said on May 14, criticizing the ongoing criminal prosecution of former President Donald Trump. “They’re losing faith in our system of justice.”
He’s correct. America’s trust in our justice system is indeed weak … because of our politicians.
District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of Trump in New York is a tough sell. Bragg has yet to explain exactly whom Trump defrauded with his business records, that a candidate paying to “catch and kill” unfavorable stories is unlawful, and that Trump knowingly covered up his “hush money” payments to disguise a campaign crime.
Bragg brought the case under serious political pressure. His predecessor Cyrus Vance Jr. went after the Trump Organization and longtime CFO Allen Weisselberg for tax fraud, but Vance retired without prosecuting Trump individually. The unusual structure of the case certainly leaves the common observer with the feeling that politics is indeed a driving force behind Bragg’s efforts.
In Trump’s criminal trial,thanks to the courageous New Yorkers serving jury duty
Chuck Schumer and Mike Johnson are playing the same game
Unfortunately, Bragg’s politically driven prosecution in New York isn’t the only force undermining our confidence in the American legal system.
In 2020, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer stood on the steps of the Supreme Court after oral argument in the case that would ultimately overturn the abortion precedent in Roe v. Wade.
“I want to tell you, (Justice Neil) Gorsuch; I want to tell you, (Justice Brett) Kavanaugh: You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price,” Schumer said. “You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”
Since then, you’d have to be hiding under a rock not to notice the myriad Democratic campaigns attacking the legitimacy of both the Supreme Court and the more conservative members on the bench.
Republicans like Johnson also willfully erode faith in the American legal system. “We’re seeing the same [political prosecution] in the classified documents case,” he said after attending Trump’s current trial in New York. “That one is so egregious that the trial has been indefinitely postponed.”
Johnson, who is also a lawyer, knows that statement is misleading to the point of being demonstrably false.
In Trump’s classified documents case, the prosecution and defense both agreed that the case wouldn’t be ready for a jury trial in May. Prosecutors suggested July while Trump and his co-defendants proposed either August or September.
Judge Aileen Cannon didn’t indefinitely postpone the trial date because the prosecution was “egregious.” She did it because there are a number of pending motions that need to be addressed in a case that involves documents related to national security.
Tennessee Rep. Andy Oglesfollows Trump into a desperate corner and eats away at democracy
Trump’s surrogates defend him in the court of public opinion
In an effort to support Trump, Johnson engages in his own sleight of hand: If Bragg’s case is politically driven, then all of the criminal allegations against Trump must be meritless.
The documents case Johnson mentions, for example, rests on a much stronger legal footing than Bragg’s case.
It’s not politically expedient for Johnson or other Republicans to be nuanced and honest about that reality.
Johnson, for one, owes Trump his speakership. Trump came to Johnson’s defense after MAGA acolyte Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, filed a motion to remove the Louisiana speaker. He’s not going to upset that dynamic by splitting hairs on the facts of each case against Trump.
Trump now beckons his political supplicants to defend him in the court of public opinion.
“I do have a lot of surrogates and they are speaking very beautifully,” Trump said Tuesday morning. “They come from all over Washington, and they’re highly respected and they think this is the biggest scam they’ve ever seen.”
Concerned about “weaponization of our criminal justice system,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, showed up to the New York trial as Trump’s emotional support senator. “The Republican candidate for president of the United States is going through mental anguish in a courtroom that’s very depressing, very depressing,” said Tuberville. “I’m glad to stand by President Trump. I’m a friend of his. I’m here more as a friend than backing him as candidate as president.”
New York trial smacks of politics, but Trump politicized the DOJ too
Suggesting that Bragg’s case shouldn’t have been filed in the first place is reasonable, but Tuberville, like Johnson, makes broad claims about the whole criminal justice system.
“The Democrats are using the court system to go after and prosecute, criminally, a political opponent – that’s a crime,” Sen. Rick Scott noted on Fox News. “They’re just thugs trying to stop Trump from being able to run for president.”
Republicans even suggested the judge in the current trial can’t be impartial because of his adult daughter’s business dealings. “The real bookkeeping we need accounting on is the judge’s own daughter collecting millions of dollars as a Democratic operative,” said former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s anticsare precisely why U.S. House Hastert Rule must go
Johnson further noted, “I’m working with Chairman [Jim] Jordan of the House Judiciary Committee and Chairman [James] Comer of our Oversight Committee on measures to rein in the abuses of special counsel Jack Smith.”
Wait a minute. How did we move from Bragg to Jack Smith?
I’ll be the first to say that Bragg’s prosecution smacks of politics. It’s also, by far, the weakest case brought against Trump. Isn’t it also serious political bias to declare that Trump can’t be prosecuted legitimately in any court for any reason? Do we really want politicians who can’t be accountable under the law?
The hilarious irony in all of this is that Trump has never hidden his desire to use the Department of Justice to either protect himself or punish his political enemies. Just ask former Attorney General Jeff Sessions how Trump treats those who make legally reasonable decisions to maintain prosecutorial independence from politics.
Politicians are telling us what we want to hear
We don’t trust the American legal system because our political leaders tell us we shouldn’t. When Democrats don’t like the opinions of the Supreme Court, they question it as a legitimate institution. Republican politicians don’t like Trump being prosecuted, so every case against him is a political scam. We don’t question the political narratives because we want to believe them.
We pay politicians to represent us, and they quickly learn to tell us what we want to hear. Right now, we want them to tell us that our side is righteous and the other side is a threat to American democracy.
Even if he’s reaching in his prosecution, Bragg is an elected official paying attention to the people who put him in office. Johnson is politically savvy for carrying Trump’s water during the criminal prosecution if he wants to remain speaker. Of course President Joe Biden says the Supreme Court is “not a normal court.” Do we really expect him to applaud the legal reasoning in opinions a vast majority of his voters oppose?
None of it means the American legal system is broken … because it isn’t.
Politicians can receive fair trials. The rest of us can too. While it’s true that prosecutors have wide discretion, we’re also entitled to a neutral jury of our peers. Appellate courts review trial court determinations for any bias or abuses by prosecutors, judges, or juries. Over generations, we’ve built in safeguards to protect against myriad human frailties.
America’s legal system isn’t perfect, but it is capable of just deliberations. The jury is still out on whether our politicians can do the same.
USA TODAY Network Tennessee Columnist Cameron Smith is a Memphis-born, Brentwood-raised recovering political attorney who worked for conservative Republicans. He and his wife Justine are raising three boys in Nolensville, Tennessee. Direct outrage or agreement to smith.david.cameron@gmail.com or @DCameronSmith on X, formerly known as Twitter. Agree or disagree? Send a letter to the editor to letters@tennessean.com.
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