A consistent theme of Republican allies of Donald Trump is that he is being singled out by law enforcement and prosecutors because of his political status and not based any actual crimes.
The most-often heard slogan from Republicans like House Speaker Michael Johnson is that these selective investigations are illustrative of a “two-tiered system of justice” in which Republicans are indicted on charges when Democrats who have committed similar offenses skate free.
Dr. Ken Hicks
Aside from claims that the Manhattan election-tampering case would never have been filed had the perpetrator been anyone other than Donald Trump, the ex-president’s congressional allies have argued the stolen documents case in Florida is no different than the discovery that current President Joe Biden had retained classified documents but was subsequently cleared by special counsel Robert Hur.
The fact that President Biden’s son Hunter was recently convicted of perjury of a gun purchase form, or that two elected Democrats – New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez and Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar – have recently been indicted on corruption charges hardly serves to dim the clamor from Republicans that the justice system has been weaponized in the service of nefarious partisan schemes to discredit Republicans, just as the 2024 election cycle ramps up.
In one sense, Republicans are undoubtedly correct: Donald Trump would likely not have been indicted in Manhattan ordinarily, had not his stymying of more pressing federal and state charges not been so successful. Call it the “Al Capone effect,” but the tendency to gang up on obvious criminals who appear invulnerable to legal accountability seems innate to those whose job is to uphold the law.
Likewise, neither of Hunter Biden’s trials – he is also facing a trial in California on tax evasion charges – would likely have been filed were he anyone other than Joe Biden’s son. Lying on gun purchase form is rarely prosecuted unless the gun is subsequently used in the commission of a crime, and in the tax evasion case Biden has already paid the $1.4 million is back taxes. Again, the IRS rarely targets tax evaders for criminal investigation, much less prosecution.
One might argue Hunter Biden’s prosecutions by special prosecutor David Weiss has similar “Al Capone”- adjacent motivations.
When you look beyond the partisan grievances, a more complex picture of American justice emerges, a many-tiered justice system that is a function of a free market society where huge disparities in income and wealth lead to huge disparities in how people are treated.
There are, for example, several tiers of justice for the roughly 38 million Americans living below the poverty line, who are vulnerable to being fired at the whim of employers in “at-will” states, who may be evicted from their rental properties in states lacking renter’s rights protections, and whose children are sent to underfunded, crumbling schools with out-of-date textbooks.
There is the level of justice where minority communities are underserved yet over-policed, where police patrol neighborhoods like an occupying force, and where Black and Hispanic men are far more likely to face criminal prosecution for indiscretions that get White youths a slap on the wrist.
There is the level of justice in certain states with large minority populations that weaponizes the criminal justice system, where minor arrests turn into felonies that result in voter disfranchisement – the most sinister form of voter suppression.
In fact, there is a direct correlation between a person’s assets – family reputation, connections, political influence, celebrity, etc. – and the degree of protection afforded to individuals under the American justice system: the higher a person’s social or political station, the greater deference accorded them by American justice. The exceptions – such as Justin Timberlake’s recent DWI arrest – merely prove the rule: the well-off can hire legal and public relations teams to minimize the damage, while for low-income Americans the costs of such misjudgments can be devastating.
Finally, there is that tier of justice that allows a man of such defective character as Donald J. Trump to avoid accountability for actions that should long ago have disqualified him from holding any office of trust or authority. Make no mistake: The ex-president’s legal problems are of his making. The justice system’s handling of his miscreance illustrates the extent to which affluence has deranged the administration of justice.
Richard Nixon famously declared, “…the people have a right to know whether or not their president is crook. I am not a crook.” Nixon perhaps was unaware that having to declare he wasn’t a crook was itself damning, but at least he believed he owed something to the American people in a way that Donald Trump clearly does not.
Dr. Ken Hicks is a political scientist and department head of History and Political Science at Rogers State University. The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed in this column are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Claremore Progress editors or Rogers State University.
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