For Liberty And Justice For All
On April 24, 1944, George Stinney Jr., a 14-year-old Black boy, was convicted of murdering two white girls in South Carolina. In one of the most egregious abuses in U.S. Justice System history, he was interrogated without a lawyer or his mother present, and other civil rights were denied. The entire trial, including jury selection, lasted a single day. The all-white jury took just 10 minutes to convict him of First Degree Murder, making him the youngest person ever executed in the U.S. This wasn’t the only instance of political abuse in the justice system. Consider cases of the Scottsboro Boys in 1931, Rubin Carter in 1966, the Wilmington Ten in 1972, and the Central Park Five in 1989. We often place the judicial system on an incorruptible pedestal, forgetting that it’s run by average people who can, and have, abused it for political ends.
The conviction of Donald Trump will be added to this list of injustices in America for two very compelling reasons: the willful abuse of the justice system and the blatant motives of political rivals.
The effectiveness of any justice system relies on public faith that the judicial process is applied fairly to everyone. The average person would understand “justice" as administering and enforcing laws to ensure that individuals who commit crimes are held accountable. We hear a lot about how “no one is above the law,” which should be a fair and true statement, but this only works when the law is applied equally and fairly to everyone.
In recent years, conservatives have become increasingly vocal about unequal treatment under the law. Numerous examples from the past decade alone support this: the “sweetheart” Hunter Biden plea deal exposed by his trial judge (1); the FBI’s targeting of conservative Catholics in 2023 (2); or Kevin Clinesmith, the FBI lawyer convicted of falsifying evidence to spy on Carter Page and received only 12 months probation (3).
More importantly, Hillary Clinton was fined $113,000 by the FEC for falsifying business records to hide the fact her campaign paid for the Steele Dossier (4), the same crime Trump was charged with. If the Steele Dossier sounds familiar, that’s the dossier that it kickstarted the Crossfire Hurricane investigation and led to the empty Mueller probe. Speaking of, neither James Comey, Peter Strzok, and Lisa Page, all central to Crossfire Hurricane, never faced justice. Andrew McCabe, despite his involvement, was reinstated with full benefits after his firing was (ironically) deemed political. Given these facts, any rational American should be deeply skeptical of judicial actions against any political rival.
Examining the facts, we are left with this question: how do we know this is all political? The most common rebuttal is that, no matter what, he committed the crime and should face justice. I think the answer is simpler: everyone who ran their campaigns on locking up Donald Trump are now trying to lock him up. The Attorney General of New York, Letitia James, ran her election platform boasting about her intent to get Trump (5), as did Alvin Bragg. Even CNN’s anchor Fareed Zakaria said on his show “GPS Sunday”: “I doubt the New York indictment would have been brought against a defendant whose name was not Donald Trump” (6). A similar fraud case brought against Trump by James was so politically damaging for Governor Hochul, she had to publicly reassure business owners this was an “extraordinary, unusual circumstance” on TV - an admission that this, too, was politically motivated (7).
If there are clear examples of politically motivated injustice, a country with a history of weaponizing the justice system, and politicians openly stating their intent to target Trump, the logical explanation has to be that this is politically motivated. The argument that “no one is above the law” falls flat, as there are people who are above the law, and most of them tend to be Democrats. This is not about the law; it’s a motive of retribution by a minority of people seeking revenge. It began with Trump being a Russian asset in 2016, continued with endless investigations, and now ends with 34 counts of business fraud.
Average Americans see this for what it is and reject it. After each trial, Trump’s poll numbers climb (8) and he was able to raise $400 million post-conviction (9). Organic social media campaigns erupted within hours with people posting their first time donations. Meanwhile, prominent figures like Piers Morgan (10), Alan Dershowitz (11), Mark Bauerlein (12), and celebrities like Kevin O’Leary(10) and Sean Strickland (13) publicly defending him.
So no, this trial was not just. It will likely get thrown out on appeal, just like how all the other trials against Trump are falling apart (14). With Biden’s plummeting approval ratings and the cost of living skyrocketing, this is a last-ditch effort to stop Trump from reversing the machine. And liberals, who have long championed justice reform and defended those victims of injustice, should agree. Justice is afforded to everyone, not just to people you like.
Nate Henderson
Founder
Sullivan’s Legacy
All sources and citations available at www.sullivanslegacy.com/trump.