America is On Trial, and Amerika is Too
A guilty verdict for one, is a guilty verdict for the other
It’s easy to get bored of talking (or even reading) about the Trump trials.
And it’s easy to get lost in how much there is to say. The sheer weight of the thing. The size of it. The number of charges. The number of crimes (by which I mean both the number of ‘crimes’ which don’t apply but which Trump is charged with, and the number of actual crimes committed by those bringing these cases against him).
But I think its important to still give a summary of what those cases are. I’ll explain why after the summary.
First there were the E. Jean Carroll civil cases, in which an eccentric Democrat columnist fantasized about an imaginary sexual assault for which she could provide no evidence and which was supposed to have occurred decades earlier, and was then funded by a major Democrat donor to bring cases in a Democrat city before Democrat judges and juries to decide whether a Republican was guilty of this crime for which no evidence existed. This was the one that decided that the statute of limitations no longer applies when Democrats decide it doesn’t apply, and that crimes can be proven without the existence of any proof.
Both of these were important principles to establish for the other cases to be able to proceed.
In a surprising twist, Democrat Judge Kaplan allowed a Manhattan Democrat jury to find Trump liable for both sexual assault and defamation. In a following ruling he decided that Trump had defamed E. Jean Carroll by pointing out that she is a liar, and in a further surprise a Democrat jury then decided that Trump should pay a total of 83.3 million dollars to the woman who lied about him for the crime of calling her a liar.
Now apparently settled with another enormous fine (Trump has agreed to pay 175 million dollars, reduced from the original theft of 350 million) was the New York civil case (the Real Estate Fraud Case) prosecuted by Letitia James and presided over by Judge Engoron. This was the one that saw a Judge with an established hatred of Trump rule that expert testimony regarding real estate valuation could be dismissed with a judicial slander of the witness, that normal business practice in real estate is fraud when conducted by Donald Trump, and that fraud can still be present when the supposedly defrauded ‘victims’ all state that no fraud occurred.
Following that there’s the Documents Case, that Jack Smith is prosecuting and that Judge Cannon is presiding over. (“On June 8, 2023, former President Donald Trump and his aide Waltine Nauta were indicted by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida on charges related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents at Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago. A superseding indictment was unsealed on July 27, 2023, which charged an additional defendant, Carlos De Oliveira, and included three additional charges against Trump of evidence tampering, willfully retaining national defense information, and lying to investigators”).
Judge Cannon stands out as pretty much the only judge overseeing these cases who wasn’t a Democrat pick (McAfee was appointed by Kemp, but doesn’t seem to be a declared Republican. If he is, its from the same RINO wing that went along with Trump’s impeachments), and entirely coincidentally of course this is the case where it has already been established in court that the FBI investigators tampered with the key evidence and that the Democrat prosecutors lied to the judge. During the unprecedented FBI raid that acquired the ‘evidence’ for this case, the FBI took it upon themselves to spread documents around on the floor before taking ‘incriminating’ pictures of them (On June 9th, 2023 Trump posted on Truth Social that the scattered files had been “staged” by the FBI. As usual, he was right). Those pictures were publicly released (who does that with real evidence in a real case?) to justify the raid.
To make those pictures just how they wanted them, they attached confidential, top secret sheets to the documents, which they had created. They have now had to admit that they did this, and that when the prosecution told Judge Cannon that the documents being used as evidence were in the condition they were found in, this was a lie. Scans of the contents and the current contents do not match. There is in fact therefore no way to prove that the documents haven’t been more thoroughly tampered with, just as if seized drugs used as evidence had been handled and moved around by unrecorded agents instead of stored, unchanged, in an evidence locker where every interaction with them is recorded. On top of that, the documents may come from a batch of documents (SIX pallet loads) that Trump and his assistants were forced to take by repeated demands to do so (from General Services Administration).
There’s also the Hush Money Case relating to Stormy Daniels, prosecuted by Alvin Bragg which Judge Merchan is presiding over. (“The indictment includes 34 counts of felony falsification of business records primarily related to the alleged hush money payments”). Judge Merchan is, and hold your surprise on this one, a Democrat judge with an established hatred of Trump.
Next there’s the Jan 6th Conspiracy Case, which includes 2 counts of obstruction and 2 of criminal conspiracy based on the idea that Trump encouraged Jan 6th and plotted to overturn a legitimate result. That one is the one where the Supreme Court is now pondering the issue of Presidential immunity, but the original case was again prosecuted by special counsel Jack Smith and is presided over by Judge Chutkan.
Finally, of the major cases still active there is the Fulton County, Georgia case (the RICO Conspiracy Case) which is prosecuted by Democrat District Attorney Fani Willis and presided over by Judge McAfee. This is the one that casts all of the efforts to acknowledge massive electoral fraud as a series of criminal racketeering acts under legislation designed for the prosecution of organised crime syndicates. The counts include things like deciding that a President or members of his administration questioning fraud is guilty of the crime of impersonating a public official. This was also the case in which we found out that the prosecutor hired her boyfriend on a very generous publicly funded salary to work on the case and also enjoyed romantic trips with him before lying about the nature of their relationship.
If you want excellent commentary on these cases individually or collectively, Julie Kelly has been providing this, in detail, on her Substack. If you want a summary of them all with links to mainstream media articles (for what that is worth, if anything…it at least shows us what insane justifications they are constructing) then the Lawfare website (at lawfaremedia.org>current-projects>the-trump-trials) provides an incredibly helpful listing of all of them.
So why should we still be talking about these cases, why should we still be interested? Half of them are mired in legal back and forth and are subject to long delays. One is awaiting a Supreme Court ruling on Presidential immunity.
One of the things I’ve noticed when discussing any of the real crimes occurring at present is how the sheer magnitude of what is being done sometimes makes addressing it difficult. Let’s say our subject is the dishonesty of the mainsteam media in relation to Trump. Where do we start? Do we talk about the way they pressed Russian collusion for years? Do we talk about that? But then that leads us into related facts, like John Brennan presenting Obama in a meeting with the knowledge that this collusion narrative was a fiction invented by a probable Russian agent working for Hilary Clinton. That then evokes the memory of over 50 intelligence agents lying about Russian collusion as well in a public statement.
Or do we talk about how ‘drink bleach’ and ‘there are good Nazis’ were both lies presented as confirmed truths by the mainstream media?
Or are we then led into a wider discussion of ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ and how none of the people deploying these terms are themselves truthful? Do we mention the suppression of Lab Leak during Covid, or science advisors distorting the evidence being presented to Trump and then boasting about it in their books?
With the ‘lawfare’ being conducted at present, which one of the 91 charges do we talk about first? If we want to show prosecutorial and judicial malpractice, we are overly spoilt for choice. No one article is going to be able to cover how much of a crook Jack Smith is, let alone Smith, Willis and Bragg together with Engoron, Chutkan and Merchan as a group. Every one of these people are people who should be recused from involvement in cases regarding a political opponent they personally detest. In each and every case there is boundless evidence of conflicts of interest from those bringing and hearing the cases, ones which make the very idea that the process we are witnessing is ‘justice’ obscenely laughable.
How can a judge fairly preside over the case of a person they hate with every fiber of their being, a person they hate more personally and deeply than they ever hate drug dealers, rapists or child abusers appearing in court before them?
How can a prosecutor be allowed to bring cases against political opponents when they have campaigned on the basis of getting that person, by ANY means, when they have publicly made that declaration as part of their own political promise?
How on Earth is anyone supposed to pretend that such a political promise, when it manifests as a legal reality, is a legitimate response to a real crime,rather than a purely political witch hunt? Of course it is a purely political witch hunt….it was a campaign pledge!
How is any of this allowed to go this far, when at every stage the basic legal requirements of any approach towards actual justice are being deliberately and continuously set aside?
Freedom from unjust, politically motivated fines and punishments, and from cruel and unusual treatment? Set aside.
The requirement that there be some actual, untampered with, legitimate evidence on which a case comes to trial? Set aside.
The statute of limitations and its role protecting people from baseless accusations brought forward years after all evidence has vanished? Set aside.
The right to an unbiased jury, selected without political intent, in a place where justice is at least a possibility? Set aside.
Client attorney privilege? Set aside.
Freedom of speech and the right to defend oneself against accusers, including the right to point out their connections and conflicts of interest? Set aside by gagging orders.
The Presidential Records Act and all prior precedent on the treatment of former Presidents relating to documents? Set aside.
The actual purpose of the legislation you are using, like the RICO Act? Set aside.
The right to expect that the statutes used against you are being used as they have always been used, rather than that they are twisted into entirely novel interpretations with no basis in law? Set aside.
The expectation of equality before the law, and that the same actions require the same responses and the same justice? Set aside.
The difference between a misdemeanor and a felony? Set aside.
The need to prove an underlying crime and announce what crime is actually being responded to in order to change an accounting error into a felony ? Set aside.
How do you take the documents case seriously, for example, when Joe Biden can take documents as Vice President he had no right to take, leave them in his car or scattered around multiple locations,unprotected and unsecured, for years, and at the same time that Jack Smith is prosecuting Trump, Joe Biden gets a free pass on that? And Mike Pence does too? And Bill Clinton did? No amount of mainstream media MSNBC articles beginning ‘No, These Cases Aren’t the Same’ excuses that double standard away.
How do you take fraud cases based on two words in a private ledger seriously, when the prosecution won’t tell you or the judge what the actual crime is?
So where do you start with all this, where do you end?
Well, in a way, it is better to talk about the generality than the specifics, not because the details favor the other side, but because there are a million details that do not. There is too much criminality, selectivity, hypocrisy and outright tyranny in the process to ever be able to mention it all.
And the generality is that all of this only occurs in a system that is already utterly corrupt. It’s tempting to say broken, but that’s not accurate. It’s doing what it now exists to do, which is enforce a regime and crush all opposition to the regime. Those holding the levers of power are directing it this way, on this path. This is where they want to go.
The form of a US justice system still exists. It’s simply that all the justice has been removed from it.
Yes, Donald Trump is on trial. But that’s not really the big picture, as unjust and as disgusting as this treatment of Trump undoubtedly is.
America itself is on trial. The old America is on trial. The America of equal justice, and the America of decent values, and the America of any hope at all that any part of this nation remains a shining dream instead of a soiled nightmare.
And Amerika is on trial too. The Amerika of the regime, the Amerika of the nightmare. The Amerika that acts like a banana republic, the Amerika of One Party Rule, the Amerika where one side of politics and its supporters stole an election, imprisoned protesters and dissidents without trial and finally made questioning electoral theft a new crime with which to imprison the old President it removed.
There are two nations on the same soil, and neither can abide the other.
The verdict against Trump will be the verdict on both of them. Is it a place of equal justice where people have the right to vote for the candidate and policies they want? Or is it going to be, for a long time to come, a tyranny where all the Third World rules apply? That’s already not being decided by an election, even a rigged one. It’s being decided in court.
If Trump wins, America wins. If Amerika wins, Trump has lost.
But so has America. At that point, it will have lost just about everything that made it America in the first place.
What an amazing article.
Daniel, you excel in your research and honest reporting.
An absolutely shattering analysis, Daniel. I truly hope that somehow Donald Trump's team gets to see it, because it it really lays out the essentials of the entire sordid situation and logically shows just how corrupt our system is. It's very difficult to see how America re-emerges from this in a way that remotely looks like our government's original design.