Quote:
|
You are -- intentionally -- blurring civil actions, misdemeanors and felonies, and the discretionary decisions made by cops and prosecutors.
|
That's immaterial. Selective treatment is selective treatment regardless of grade or character of enforcement.
Quote:
|
If there is a reason to think that a police officer is singling someone out for differential treatment, I have a problem with that. Who doesn't?
|
But not with a prosecutor?
Quote:
|
No. It depends on the reasons. As a former prosecutor, I can tell you that you have to make decisions about which cases to bring and which not to bring. Using the word "cherry pick" is a loaded term that you're using rhetorically, without explaining your argument. It matters *why* the prosecutors are picking the cases.
|
We needn't examine that in much detail. Bragg brought this case for political reasons, and no amount of dissembling gets around that fact.
Quote:
Some prosecutors use their resources to overcharge people who then are forced to plea, because who has the money for lawyers. That can feel abusive, especially if they are chasing charges that they're likely not going to win.
Do you see why that paragraph doesn't apply to Trump?
|
Right. That's why I didn't say any of that and it's use here is either a strawman or a red herring.
Quote:
|
I understand all of your feelings on this subject, which I have heard before, but none of it means Trump didn't get what he deserved. Some people commit crimes, and need to be prosecuted, and the trial showed that he was one of them.
|
Exactly the justification cops have used on minorities for decades. "Well, he was guilty of something."
Quote:
|
Please explain why you think the fact that Bragg brought a case that Vance would not shows anything, let alone irrefutably. Because you just keep referring to some undescribed set of circumstances that you think somehow taints Bragg's decision, and I don't get it. Suppose that Vance thought that (a) Trump committed crimes, but (b) it would be bad for the country to prosecute a former President, and suppose that Bragg agreed with (a) and disagreed with (b). That different of views in how a DA should do their jobs in no way tarnishes the prosecution.
|
The prosecution was such a stretch Bragg was unable to locate a state level predicate act and had to use a novel theory involving an alleged violation of federal campaign law (similar to one which Smith used against John Edwards and the jury rejected, btw) to create a felony. Knowing the full time it was likely whatever conviction he got would betaken apart on appeal. But who cares about that? The aim was always a conviction before the election.
Quote:
|
You've already said that Trump got a fair trial, so all this handwaving about skepticism is nonsense. The trial was public. Lots of people watched. You agreed it was fair.
|
He got a fair trial in a completely unfair forum. The law is poorly written and so was perversely exploited in Rube Goldberg fashion by Bragg, and Trump was tried in a city where voters liked Bragg's and Laetitia James' campaign promises to "get Trump." You don't see how this is a loaded deck?
Administering the trial fairly in such circumstance is akin to fairly administering a lethal injection where a witness has recanted. "Hey, it was fairly administered."
Quote:
|
Your skepticism is about Bragg's decision making, not the trial, but Bragg's decision making does not change what Trump did.
|
Huh? What Trump didn't was not even of consequence enough to for the FEC to levy a fine! Bragg's decision converted what would never have been a crime (indeed as a misdemeanor its statute of lims had passed) into a crime. If you have to be as creative as Bragg was in this case, it's a case you have no ethical basis to bring.
Quote:
As re your last quote, consider the start of Gaddis's A Frolic Of His Own:
"Justice? You'll get justice in the next world. In this world, you have the law."
|
Right, well, at least we're in agreement on that. We only differ in that you seem to be bent a bit - willing to defend that which is more than a bit sleazy and obviously political. Why I've no idea. Contra that, I am of the position, which I think is eminently clear, that selective criminal prosecution is always despicable. To wit:
Bragg Case: Despicable
Hunter Biden Cases: Despicable
Trump Docs Case in FL: Absolutely valid, and indeed the man is guilty from what I've seen. The dismissal was despicable.
Trump Jan 6 Case: Absolutely valid.
We cannot have people like James and Bragg running for DA or State Atty Gen on a platform of "I'm going to get our political opponents!" That is banana republic behavior.
