RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thefederalist.com/2023/04/04/no-one-is-above-the-law-give-me-a-break/

Lock Donald Trump up, or don’t lock him up, but don’t tell me that “no one is above the law.” It’s one of the most ludicrous fantasies peddled by the left.

Plenty of people are “above the law.” James Clapper, who lied under oath to Congress about spying on the American people, is above the law. John Brennan, who lied about a domestic spying operation on Senate staffers, is above the law. Unlike Trump advisor Peter Navarro, Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder was never going to be handcuffed and thrown in prison for ignoring a congressional subpoena. He is above the law.

Trump’s 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, is also above the law. The then-Secretary of State set up a private server in her home to circumvent transparency surrounding her slush-fund foundation. She sent 110 emails containing marked classified information, and 36 of those emails contained secret information. Eight of the email chains contained “top secret” information. Every one of those instances was a potential felony punishable with up to ten years in prison.

We learned all of this from James Comey, then FBI director, who noted that Hillary had been “extremely careless” in conducting her business. Comey didn’t recommend charges because, he claimed, the state couldn’t prove Clinton’s intent — even though “gross negligence,” not intent, was the only standard he needed. Gross negligence and extreme carelessness are synonyms. Comey concocted a new standard to protect Clinton because she is above the law.

When Hillary’s husband, also above the law, perjured himself under oath, Democrats argued that puritanical conservatives were only pursuing Bill because of some trumped-up charge over “sex.” Using that logic, Trump’s campaign finance charges related to Stormy Daniels’ “hush money” are also about sex. This is different because Trump is the boogeyman, and everyone knows he’s guilty of something. The important thing is getting that mug shot.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/where-political-prosecutions-are-common-south-america-brazil-mexico-venezuela-colombia-peru-supreme-court-trump-indictment-prosecution-931305ea?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

As Donald Trump faces indictment, many of his opponents are losing sight of a warning they issued in 2016. Then, Mr. Trump spoke of prosecuting Hillary Clinton and his supporters chanted “Lock her up!” Critics accused him of subverting a crucially important norm against political prosecution. They said that would be a dangerous turn, and they were right.

In much of Latin America, the use of the judicial apparatus as a means to sideline electoral opponents is part of the political culture. In a particularly egregious example, the autocratic Nicaraguan regime of Daniel Ortega arrested more than a dozen of his rivals just months before the November 2021 presidential election, many under treason charges created by a law Mr. Ortega’s government had enacted in December 2020.

Under international pressure—mainly from the U.S.—the regime released 222 political prisoners this February and had them flown to Washington. Under yet another treason law, however, they were stripped of their Nicaraguan citizenship and effectively expropriated.

Along with Nicaragua, political imprisonment is rampant in Latin America’s other full-blown autocracies, Venezuela and Cuba. These socialist regimes hold more than 250 and 750 dissidents, respectively, in arbitrary detention according to nongovernmental organizations Foro Penal and Justicia 11J. Like their sister regime in Managua, they often resort to the tactic of liberating political prisoners on specific occasions to obtain some short-term advantage.