Trump's Arraignment and the Fight for America

It's not even 2024 yet.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

It was hilarious watching the full-court press of media milking every bit of angst they could from former president Donald J. Trump’s arraignment on Tuesday. Every outlet from PBS to MSNBC breathlessly talked about how “unprecedented” this was and prattled on with their supposed legal experts on what it should portend. There were no cameras allowed in the federal courtroom in Miami, so the media had to content themselves with photographing Trump’s motorcade, and the action outside the courthouse, which included a healthy crowd of Trump supporters protesting along with a few counter protestors.

It was over in the space of 15 minutes and Trump, ever the showman, engaged with a public that still love and support his presidency and his current candidacy.

Former President Trump went straight from a Miami courthouse to a popular Cuban restaurant Tuesday, effectively turning his court appearance on federal charges stemming from his handling of classified documents into a campaign stop with supporters. 

The Hill sounds a little miffed about this. He is running for president after all. What exactly did they expect him to do? Go cry in his coffee?

Trump arrived at Versailles restaurant in Miami minutes after leaving court. He posed for photos with staff and supporters and flashed a thumbs up shortly after pleading not guilty on 37 federal counts. 

“Food for everyone,” Trump shouted at one point. 

Those in the building sang “Happy Birthday” to Trump, who will turn 77 on Wednesday. 

This is why Trump is Trump and everyone else is not. Sadly, this adversarial madness from Biden’s Department of Justice, and the Soros-funded D.A. Alvin Bragg is only serving to suck the oxygen out of the room. No longer do we fight on ideas and constitutional grounds—we simply destroy the people we despise and that we do not wish to have a voice in our representative republic. This is not America, nor American ideals. It’s not even politics. It’s Marxist theory playing out in politics.

I just read this fascinating Wall Street Journal piece by Michael Bekesha, who tried to sue former President Bill Clinton for violation of the Presidential Records Act. Bekesha made it plain that Trump is not in violation of the act because as President, he could declassify anything he wants and he was perfectly in his right to take the records from the Oval Office. In the case of Clinton, the Justice Department and the National Archives could not have cared less about Clinton hiding tapes recorded in the Oval Office in his sock drawer.

In defending NARA, the Justice Department argued that NARA doesn’t have “a duty to engage in a never-ending search for potential presidential records” that weren’t provided to NARA by the president at the end of his term. Nor, the department asserted, does the Presidential Records Act require NARA to appropriate potential presidential records forcibly. The government’s position was that Congress had decided that the president and the president alone decides what is a presidential record and what isn’t. He may take with him whatever records he chooses at the end of his term.

Which is exactly what Trump did.

I lost because Judge Jackson concluded the government’s hands were tied. Mr. Clinton took the tapes, and no one could do anything about it.

The same is true with Mr. Trump. Although he didn’t keep records in his sock drawer, he gathered newspapers, press clippings, letters, notes, cards, photographs, documents and other materials in cardboard boxes. Then Mr. Trump, like Mr. Clinton, took those boxes with him when he left office. As of noon on Jan. 20, 2021, whatever remained at the White House was presidential records. Whatever was taken by Mr. Trump wasn’t. That was the position of the Justice Department in 2010 and the ruling by Judge Jackson in 2012.

In his speech to the Versailles crowd after the arraignment, Trump himself quoted from this “Clinton socks” case and outlined his legal strategy and why he will win the day.

So, why are we going through this circus? It is nakedly apparent that this is a witch hunt, and it is also nakedly apparent that Attorney General Merrick Garland and special counsel Jack Smith are on a fool’s errand. It is unprecedented because we have two living former presidents, the current President in his role as Vice President, and a Senator/Secretary of State who did exactly what Trump did and worse (bleach bit, anyone? 33,000 deleted emails? records stored in the garage of the residence where your crackhead son resides?)

This whole affair is sucking the air out of 2024, and taking the spotlight away from other credible candidates and their platforms; and we are not even anywhere near the primaries. But that may well be part of the purpose. People who do not believe a system represents their ideas and views will abandon it. Once abandoned, the vacuum is filled with those who simply want to be in control for control’s sake. Not for the good of the American people, but for their own ends.

But people are not abandoning Trump. If anything, his poll numbers have risen even higher, and he raised 6.6 million on the indictment and arraignment alone. So, if the intention was to have supporters abandon the former president or their fight for America’s constitutional republic, they have failed miserably.