The truth of the matter
The narrative from MAGAland is that Donald Trump is being persecuted by Joe Biden, that this latest indictment is an attempt by Democrats to hijack the 2024 election. The red hat-wearing, knuckle-draggers insist that Donald Trump “hasn’t done anything that every other president hasn’t done,” that he’s a martyr to “Democrat lies.” Don’t sit still for it when you hear rubbish like this. Fight back.
First and foremost, use the facts against them. The decision to indict Donald Trump was not made by Jack Smith or Joe Biden or “the Democrats.” That decision was made by a group of Trump’s peers, selected at random from the most pro-Trump population in the United States. A group of his neighbours were shown the evidence over several days, or however long it took, and they concluded, without inducement, that Trump should be indicted.
Now a word about grand juries. A persistent criticism of grand juries is that they can be politically corruptible. Or as Wikipedia puts it, “Unlike potential jurors in regular trials, grand jurors *are not screened for bias or other improper factors*.” [Italics added]. In other words, a grand jury picked at random — in Florida — were empanelled without screening those members for bias. And they were asked to decide whether or not Donald Trump should be indicted. That same Florida grand jury returned a 37 count indictment.
Now as to the question of what other people do, including presidents. When it was discovered that former Vice President Mike Pence and current President Joe Biden accidentally had classified documents in their possession they immediately cooperated. They didn’t wait to be contacted by the National Archives, they contacted them on their own. They diligently hunted down every single document and returned them.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, was, on 6 May, 2021, asked politely and timorously by the National Archives if he would, pretty please with sugar on top, return the property of the people of the United States that he unlawfully took without permission. Trump arrogantly ignored them and refused to cooperate.
Finally, on January 17, 2022, an Archives contractor arrived at Mar-a-Lago to load 15 boxes of classified documents onto a truck and take them back to Washington. On May 11, 2022, the DOJ issued a subpoena for any remaining documents Trump might have. On June 2, 2022, a DOJ attorney went to Mar-a-Lago to obtain the rest of the documents subject to that subpoena. On that day Trump’s lawyers gave that attorney a written, signed statement saying that the documents they were handing over were all of them. That was a lie.
Finally, after being driven to the point of exasperation, on August 8, 2022, Justice Department officials and the FBI served Trump’s property with a lawful court-ordered search warrant and seized over 100 documents marked “classified,” together with thousands of other documents illegally stolen by Trump.
Trump and his team of thugs were informed in advance that the search was coming. So they made an effort to hide some of the documents. Some of those hidden documents were found anyway. Some remain missing to this day.
On 18 November, 2022, Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith as Special Prosecutor to oversee the case. A little over six months later Mr Smith issued an indictment on the advice of a group of Donald Trump’s peers.
So don’t let the boneheads tell you that Trump is some kind of martyr. He isn’t. He was given every single opportunity to cooperate, beyond the most generous idea of perfect patience. The reason he didn’t cooperate was because, despite the fact that Trump has been a blatant lawbreaker all of his life, he has never been held accountable for it. So he figured, wrongly, that this would be no exception. Trump is every bit as shocked — as many Americans are — that he is not above the law.
On Tuesday Trump is to surrender himself at a Florida FBI station. Just like any other citizen who had done what he did, Trump is to be handcuffed then processed in. He will then be fingerprinted and questioned. An official photograph, that is, a mugshot, will be taken.
He will then be hauled before a judge where he will be read his indictment, in full if he wants. Then it will be decided if he is to be set free on bail or to be bound over for trial. That is, it will be decided by Trump-appointed and outrageously pro-Trump judge Aileen Cannon whether or not Trump is to be held in prison until his trial. Take a wild guess how that one will go.
So for all those MAGA heads out there, no, Trump has not and will not be treated “unfairly.” The only “disgrace” about this action is the disgrace that Trump has brought down upon himself. America is the lesser for making that pile of human shit president of the United States. Due Process at last is America’s partial atonement for that huge mistake. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.