Donald Trump is absolutely right.
“If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone,” Trump said Friday, speaking at Trump Tower in New York on Friday.
Trump, who has proven many points about himself simply by repeating them over and over, made it clear during the past few days how aghast he is that the government and courts would dare to accuse him, Donald Trump, of crimes. He is astonished and furious that prosecutors were allowed to drag him into court to face charges, and use the same judicial system that has been imposed on millions of people for hundreds of years — to convict him, Donald Trump.
Proving what so many celebrity politicians and experts said, who were neither shocked nor surprised by the verdict of guilty on 34 counts Thursday afternoon, is that, despite attempts by Trump and others, truly, no one, not even Donald Trump, is above the law in the United States.
Trump is dead right. If the justice system can do this to Trump, they can do it to anyone.
If any U.S. politician pays their fixer attorney to pay porn stars or centerfold models money to not go public with their stories to keep the scandal from scuttling their election chances, and then lie about where the money came from and what it was for, they, too, would face similar or even the exact same charges.
Absolutely, anyone in this country running for public office, even someone as rich as Trump, and even a former elected official, could face the same exact fate as Trump if their illegal scheme were to be leaked to the Wall Street Journal, like it did to Trump Jan. 12, 2018.
And you, too, might be asked by an Associated Press reporter if you were aware of leaked hush money payments, just like an AP reporter asked Trump on April 15, 2018.
“Did you know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels?,” the reporter asked Trump. “No,” he said.
You, too, would be made out to be a liar when, in court, phone recordings between you and and your fixer attorney, years before the scandal erupted, discussed making the payments to the porn actor.
If all those red flags about a crime go off on the dashboard of prosecutors, and they find a pile of corroborating evidence of a real crime having been committed, you, too, could be the subject of a grand jury investigation.
Prosecutors can’t even press charges against a suspect unless they can prove they have a substantial chance of winning a conviction against a suspect. Otherwise, the grand jury returns a “no true bill,” making it clear there is a reasonable doubt a suspect committed a crime.
That didn’t happen in Trump’s case, and the same could happen to you, if the evidence of a crime is so compelling. That’s what happened to Trump on March 30, 2023. The NY Grand Jury indicted Trump, forcing him into court to face 34 counts of lying about redirecting money to keep damaging news and information from becoming public to save his 2016 presidential campaign.
If a prosecutor anywhere in the United States can persuade a grand jury of a crime you’ve committed, you, too, could be subject to indictment.
You, also, would likely be forced to get an attorney to try to discredit the case against you and stifle it even before it gets rolling. That’s much harder to do with an indictment, as Trump discovered, because the prosecution has already provided a huge amount of evidence, so much so that a grand jury has seen a very likely conviction.
Then, your lawyer, too, might have to spend days and days whittling away at fair-minded or skeptical jurors that might convict you, like they did Trump. As a defense attorney and defendant, all you need is one juror that believes there’s a remote possibility you didn’t do what a mountain of evidence and witnesses said you did, like Trump.
You, too, could take some solace in knowing that in the United States, you don’t have to prove your innocence, not at all. Just like in the Trump trial, the total onus of the case is on the prosecution to prove you did commit the crimes you would be indicted for —beyond a reasonable doubt.
It happens to famous, infamous and obscure people all time, almost every court day. “If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”
Trump’s conviction fit like a glove, 34 times.
It wasn’t a witch hunt. It wasn’t the underhanded scheme of political enemies, none of whom have any control over New York state courts, grand juries, the Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, or any of the dozens of witnesses and the mountain of damning evidence against Trump.
You and even the families of presidents and former presidents must fret if you have a cocaine addiction and falsify paperwork to get a handgun, lying about not being a drug user, like Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden.
Thursday proved that, despite sustained attempts by Trump and his allies, the United States really is still governed by the rule of law. The laws apply to everyone, even you. Even Trump.
And if you do the same things Trump does when it comes to hiding hush-money scandal payments, conspiring to undermine U.S. elections, inducing and supporting an insurrection or scheming to keep the government from finding a trove of top-secret, highly classified documents in your poo-poo, it could happen to you.
Trump’s right. It could happen to anyone.
Follow @EditorDavePerry on BlueSky, Threads, Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@SentinelColorado.com
You obviously haven’t experienced our judicial system like I have. In this case however you have made strong valid points about jury trials. I’ll explain my first comment. I should have demanded a jury trial but I was honestly intimidated out of demanding a jury trial by the state paid public defender. There are too many people with law degrees today also so there are many of these hungry for cases lawyers that aren’t in the public defender’s payroll but still getting state paid. They’re not actually representing people pro-bono. They’re in need of business so much like ambulance chasers many of them are in court multiple times a week to get cases assigned to them. Many of these same poor people parasites make sure they don’t aggravate the judges or prosecuting attorney’s because they want more cases assigned to them in the future. It’s supposed an adversarial relationship because they are supposed to present the best defense they possibly can and damn the torpedoes shot by the prosecuting attorney’s. But it’s not like that. 99 percent of the time the prosecuting attorney’s will have multiple charges filed at the very minimum two this way they can offer some kind of deal but again 99.99 percent of the time get a conviction on at least one charge preserving their 99 percent conviction rate. SO: You have hanging judges that merely follow whatever the prosecuting attorney’s suggest. You have supposed defense attorney’s that get paid faster or more when their own client gets convicted. You have judges that follow and do whatever the prosecuting attorney’s suggest almost always. So you end being guilty unless you have a lot of evidence or witness proving innocence. I have experienced more than once. I should have demanded a jury trial and with the inferior representation I got I should have represented myself. Now I’m a convicted felon because of a friend’s drug paraphernalia that had drug residue that wasn’t even mine. U.S. justice system and the privately owned jails DISGUST ME ! IT’S NO WONDER TO ME THAT THE UNITED STATES INCARCERATES MORE OF IT’S OWN CITIZENS THAN ANY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD !
😆 🤣 😂 Perry is a political hack! If he really believed that nobody is above the law he would be calling for Joe Biden’s prosecution for at minimum, illegally possessing classified information. Also, Clinton for mishandling classified information. Anyone who has ever handled classified information understands that it is illegal to transfer classified information from secure government servers to a private server. Perry is a hack. A hypocrite! Still, these media dimwits calling themselves journalists can’t understand why they have so little credibility. Well, Mr. Perry…you deserve scorn & mistrust. You earned it.
Both of those cases were fully investigated and resolved. In both cases, the individuals cooperated fully. Unlike your hero. the felonious fornicator. There is no equivalence.
Stop defending the indefensible.
Thank you.
You are being generous. Hillary Clinton destroyed evidence under court ordered subpoena by erasing her hard drive. Joe Biden is being investigated for using his influence as Vice President to do favors for foreign adversaries to enrich himself and his family. These are serious crimes but weren’t followed up on nor will they be.
Clinton was investigated, exhaustively, and there was nothing there.
The Republican claims about Biden, which you uncritically raise, have been proven to be totally untrue. The Comer/Jordan investigation sputtered out after the Republican claims proved laughably bogus. This is, of course, standard Republican practice: Make outrageous accusations, get press attention, and then utterly fail to prove a damned thing. They really hated the fact that Clinton got the advice about handling some sensitive documents from Colin Powell, who is no one’s idea of a Democrat.
Give it up. Or get some facts.
We went through this with Whitewater. Fortunately, Arkansas journalist Gene Lyons shredded that nonsense completely, by simply investigating the sources of the Whitewater “controversy” and discovering that virtually everything reported by the New York Times was wrong. Lyons wrote two very good books (one co-authored with Joe Conason) documenting all of this and exposing the shoddy work of the Times and its reporter, Jeff Gerth.
Investigation is not arrest, followed by a jury trial, and convictions of felonies. More false equivalencies, a favorite ReTrumplican tactic, often paired with victimhood.
This case should never have been allowed to proceed. Just because a grand jury indictment someone doesn’t necessarily mean they were provided with truthful information. This case was full of items that would have caused a mistrial had the defendant been anyone other than Trump. The judge was obviously biased, the district attorney was elected because his platform was that elect him and he would get Trump, the jury was biased, the jury instructions were biased, federal prosecutors had said there was no crime, the statute of limitations had run out, the judge made political contributions to democrats and his daughter raises money for the democratic party plus she made money off of this trial. There are many more things that transpired that should have caused a mistrial but once the appeal happens then this case will be thrown out. Whether you like or dislike Trump if you had any common sense you would know this was an attempt to keep Trump from running for president. Lastly the comment that the Hilary and Biden cases were fully investigated and resolved is not accurate. They were both pushed under the rug but hopefully once the administration changes then they can be fully investigated and resolved.
Please cite sources, data, credible links or anything but your MAGA mimicking to back up your panglossing claims. You ReTrumplicants say that you stand for law and order, but only for the laws you order, it seems.