Which points to a larger pattern: On numerous fronts, Trump’s allies—overt and tacit alike—seek to run interference for his corruption and likely criminality in ways that allow them to maintain a veneer of respect for the rule of law. But Trump keeps demanding that they openly pervert the rule of law on his behalf, not least because a central feature of the MAGA movement is explicit contempt for the very idea that the law should apply to him and his supporters at all.
After Smith requested Thursday that Cannon rule quickly on the Trump team’s claim that the PRA absolves him of wrongdoing, Trump posted this on Truth Social:
Deranged “Special” Counsel Jack Smith…should be sanctioned or censured for the way he is attacking a highly respected Judge, Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over his FAKE Documents Hoax case in Florida….He shouldn’t even be allowed to participate in this sham case, where I, unlike Crooked Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and all the rest, come under the Presidential Records Act. I DID NOTHING WRONG, BUT BIDEN DID, AND THEY LET HIM OFF SCOT-FREE. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN, JACK? A TWO TIERED SYSTEM OF JUSTICE. ELECTION INTERFERENCE!
Everything here is exactly backwards. President Biden was cleared of wrongdoing by a special counsel appointed under Biden but originally nominated as a U.S. attorney in 2017 by Trump. Whereas Robert Hur could not find evidence that would persuade a jury of criminal wrongdoing, Smith secured an indictment against Trump from a grand jury of the former president’s peers. What’s more, a judge considered reams of evidence that Trump had improperly stashed classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort, concluding that probable cause existed to authorize a search of it.
