The former president and current whiner-in-chief Donald Trump complains about being a victim of "deep-state" political persecution.
Political opponents of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin were persecuted, usually with a bullet to the back of the head or a vacation in the Gulag Archipelago. Opponents of Trump's buddy Russian President Vladimir Putin are routinely persecuted. They are poisoned, shot, fall out of fifth-story windows, or, as in the case of Alexei Navalny, if they are too well known to murder they simply rot in prison.
Political opponents of the late Uganda President Idi Amin were persecuted. Amin had a swimming pool filled with crocodiles. He was known to personally sever the heads of his political opponents and feed them to the crocodiles. He often expressed an appetite for the flesh of his political opponents which, it was reported, was regularly satisfied.
The present Saudi regime is led by Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner's pal Prince Muhammed bin Salman. Opponents of the regime, such as Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, are persecuted. Khashoggi was lured to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on Oct. 2, 2018, where members of bin Salman's secret police were waiting for him. Over the following hour or so, they dismembered Khashoggi (probably while alive) with a sawzall. His remains have never been found.
Those are just a few historic examples of political persecution.
The MAGA Goodfellas are right about one thing. We do have a two-tiered justice system in America. Even the real Mafia bosses never threaten the lives of police officers, FBI agents, judges, prosecutors and their families when they are about to stand trial. If it was anyone other than Trump, his bail would already be revoked and he would be behind bars. Trump lives and dines in comfort at his resort home in Florida and his private golf club in New Jersey. A two-tiered justice system indeed.
Like a petulant child, Trump pushes the limits of behavior that the law requires of him. He freely rails at judges, prosecutors and law enforcement. His inflammatory political rhetoric plays well with his MAGA cult followers, but he is in a different situation now. He is out on bail. If his social media words cross over into threats of something like witness tampering or intimidation, he will await trial from behind bars.
All the witnesses who will testify against Trump are MAGA Republicans who worked for him, not Democrats.
His lawyers are attempting to mount a First Amendment "free speech" defense of Trump in the Jan. 6 indictment. He is not being charged for his words, as Special Prosecutor Jack Smith said. He could and did say whatever he wanted after the election in 2020, including blatant lies. He is being prosecuted because his words crossed over into criminal conspiracy conduct. It is Trump's rampantly lawless conduct, not his words, he will stand trial for.
Marty Ansley
Cinebar
