THIS NEW SERIES: For the last two presidential election years I did an analysis of the two candidates – their experience, record, and character. As I started my reading to do it again with Joe Biden, it struck me that there were two distinctly different themes in his record over the past 3 ½ years – a policy record and a record of ideological change. The more I read and attempted to categorize things the more those two themes developed. So, I changed my plan and concentrated on the two themes, differentiating them, which I feel is the best way to understand where we are as a country from a socio-political standpoint.
On the policy side, I categorized the record into nine categories: governance, climate change, criminal justice, immigration, COVID – 19, foreign policy, China, economy, and culture wars.
After reviewing all the segments, I decided to do something different than usual -- to provide an opinion up front. Specifically, to rate my concerns going forward for each category – what the next guy is going to have to deal with – an important point, at least for me, to consider as we approach the election. In the syllabus you will find I only had one rated as “little concern” and one as “some concern”. For the rest: I had two “serious concerns”, three as “significant alarm”, and two as “survival fears”. My ratings are based on this segment’s excerpts, but they were also influenced by last year’s series “Seeking Wisdom for America” – where we looked at characteristics which led to the decline/ending of empires and/or superpowers. I will explain my reasoning on the ratings in the cover letter of each policy segment. I give you these ratings not to try to convince you, but to give you something to shoot at, to challenge you, and to test my own thinking. And maybe some fun telling me how off base I am.
More importantly, on the ideological theme, I found six books which, in my opinion, provide one with an understanding of what is happening ideologically in the country and more significantly where it might take us. There is a segment devoted to each book, i.e. the segment becomes a Cliff Note. The six authors are:
Tulsi Gabbard – Former U.S. Congresswoman and Democrat candidate for president in 2020
Gerard Baker – Editor-at-Large for the Wall Street Journal
Ted Cruz – U.S. Senator and Republican candidate for president in 2020.
Mark Levin – Author of seven #1 New York Times bestselling political books and conservative talk show host.
Thomas Sowell – Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute and long- time Black economist, social philosopher and political commentator.
Christopher Rufo – Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and former fellow at the Claremont Institute and Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism.
AS AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE TWO THEMES – POLICY and IDEOLOGY – and how they have to be split to understand the difference in importance -- I would like to analyze with you the recent conviction of Donald Trump. The airways have been filled with such analyses from many different perspectives, but I would like to do so from the perspective of a common ordinary citizen. The excerpts I am using to do so come from a CBS News report dated 5/31/2024 and are in italics.
The Crime: How say you to the first count of the indictment charging Donald J. Trump with the crime of falsifying business records in the first degree.
The Evidence: In 2017, Cohen and Allen Weisselberg, an executive at the Trump Organization, reached an agreement about how Cohen would be repaid for the $130,000 that he sent to Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence. Cohen would receive $130,000 for the Daniels payment, plus $50,000 intended for a technology company that did unrelated work for Trump. That amount was doubled to account for taxes that Cohen would have to pay on the income. Weisselberg then tacked on an extra $60,000 as a bonus for Cohen, who was upset that his regular year-end award had been cut. The total worked out to $420,000 Cohen would be paid in a series of monthly payments of $35,000 over the course of 2017. The first check was for $70,000 covering two months. Cohen sent an invoice to the Trump organization, portraying the payment as his “retainer.” Every time he was paid, a bookkeeper generated a record for the company files, known as a voucher, with the description “legal expense.” The first three payments were made from Trump’s trust, while the remaining nine came from his personal account.
Each of the 34 charges against Trump corresponded to a check, invoice and voucher generated to reimburse Cohen.
Why were the charges a felony? Under New York law, falsification of business records is a crime when the records are altered with an intent to defraud. To be charged as a felony, prosecutors must also show that the offender intended to “commit another crime” or “aid or conceal” another crime when falsifying records.
What exactly those “unlawful means” were in this case was up to the jury to decide. Prosecutors put forth three areas that they could consider: a violation of federal campaign finance laws, falsification of other business records, or a violation of tax laws.
Jurors did not need to agree on what the underlying “unlawful means” were. But they did have to unanimously conclude that Trump caused the business records to be falsified, and that he did so with the intent to defraud that included an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.
MY COMMENTARY: That’s it. From my perspective as a common ordinary citizen, I would say, “OK Trump paid some hush money which is not a crime. And he got hosed by Cohen his lawyer who made $290,000 on the deal and some bookkeeper log it in as a legal cost because the check was made out to his lawyer. Also, the total of 34 charges is deceptive. If Cohen had been paid with one $420,000 check it would have been three counts by the prosecutor’s methodology but in essence it was only one.” Further we will never know how and why the jury bumped the charge up to a felony because it will never be disclosed – most probably for the majority it was campaign finance laws.
From a policy standpoint, I jump to fairness plus the accusations of a two-tiered justice system as aspects for comparison. The first comparison that comes to mind is the 2016 “Russian Collusion” where charges were built off a bogus dossier that Hillary Clinton paid for, and the country spent 5 years investigating and proving. No consequences. The second is the 2020 phony letter that Tony Blinken got 51 retired CIA people to sign stating that the “laptop from Hell’ was Russian disinformation which later Joe Biden used as defense for accusations from Trump that his family was profiting from peddling influence in foreign countries in their last debate. Again, no consequences. Two election interferences; far clearer and more serious than this one with no consequences.
From an ideological standpoint, many things jump to my mind in addition to fairness. Like – if it happened to a former president think how it could happen to any one of us. What precedent does this set legally – are we going to have every politician go after their political opponent on legal grounds in every election? Where do these rogue district attorneys get the authority to do such a thing; isn’t it regulated somehow? What about the judges, can they be trusted? If the legal system is this bad now, how is it going to be when equity (equality of outcomes) is interjected into bar exams and the standards are significantly reduced or eliminated? Is our legal system broken? In other words, this example will be one more situation which creates distrust in our institution of law.
Net, as illustrated in this example, the policy questions and issues are important, but the ideological ones are far more important as they threaten our values -- the rule of law, which translates to our democracy.