“Many Democrats still cannot see how their legal aggression against Trump during his four years out of power set the stage”
The Washington Post started out as “democracy dies in darkness” and ended up with an editorial board signed editorial admitting that the abuses under Biden led to all this. The headline is confusing and misleading, with the absurd subheader, “Good people will be deterred from public service if they see a meaningful risk of winding up in jail afterward”, but the admissions in the editorial are a significant breach in the walls of the echo chamber.
Anyone surprised by the news that former special counsel Jack Smith collected the private phone records of eight Republican senators as part of his investigation into President Donald Trump was not paying attention to the prosecutor’s hardball methods. Many Democrats still cannot see how their legal aggression against Trump during his four years out of power set the stage for the dangerous revenge tour on which he is now embarked…
The current rage over Grassley’s revelation shows why. Smith showed little restraint in his pursuit of a former president. He charged Trump for official acts he took as president. He sought a gag order to limit Trump’s ability to criticize the prosecution. He tried to accelerate the case to try a leading presidential candidate before the 2024 election.
The editorial proposes an eventual ‘legal peace’ treaty.
It might feel satisfying for some people to watch their opponents get perp walked, but what goes around often comes around. A spiral of four-year revenge cycles is a recipe for the decline of a republic. Good people will be deterred from public service if they see a meaningful risk of winding up in jail afterward. Lawfare, like warfare, has unpredictable logic. Total victory is impossible in such a divided country. Eventually, one or both sides will need to start negotiating the terms of a legal peace.
I don’t need to tell you that the side proposing peace talks is not the one holding the stronger cards.
After eight years of cheering on Trump lawfare as the saving of the republic, the Washington Post has suddenly decided that prosecuting your political opponents is a bad idea. Much like the sudden calls for unity after Butler and Charlie Kirk’s assassination, there’s every reason to be skeptical of these rapid and rapidly passing revelations. But it does show what it takes to even begin to break through the fanatical mindset that led to the Mueller and Jack Smith vendettas.
