Order Josh Hammer’s new book, Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West: HERE.
When the Biden-Harris regime’s Justice Department and likeminded state allies targeted (then-former and future) President Donald Trump for four distinct politicized prosecutions, the mood among Democrats and their media mouthpieces was blitheness bordering on glee.
The Stormy Daniels case was perhaps the most blatantly bogus of them all—one giant exercise in trampling over relevant statutes of limitations and shoehorning of a corporate bookkeeping fraud state law to fit the non-crime of alleged “hush money” payments. Soros-funded Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who brought the case, embodied the old Stalin-esque mantra, usually attributed to former Soviet secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria: “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.”
But Democrats were positively enamored. Christmas had come early!
“Grand Jury votes to indict Trump!” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) tweeted once the first Rubicon had been crossed. “No one is above the law, and everyone has the right to a trial to prove innocence,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) added, continuing the distortion of Western civilization’s defining “innocent until proven guilty” justice ethos that Democrats had begun a few years prior during the Supreme Court confirmation hearing of Brett Kavanaugh.
But there was more—much more.
An absurd racketeering case from a corrupt district attorney in Atlanta. The use of the dubious World War I-era Espionage Act to prosecute classified docs at Mar-a-Lago, following an unprecedented FBI raid. There was the Merrick Garland Justice Department’s prosecution of pro-life grannies peacefully praying outside abortion clinics. There was the incarceration of Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon. One could even go back to last decade’s Russiagate hoax itself—an extraordinary bastardization of the federal government’s intelligence apparatus to spy on then-presidential candidate Trump.
None of the Biden-era Democrat-Lawfare Complex’s four anti-Trump prosecutions went anywhere. (The Bragg case did yield a guilty verdict, but the case was effectively dropped after Trump won the 2024 election.) Nor, for that matter, did New York Attorney General Letitia James’ contemporaneous fraud “civil” probe into The Trump Organization go anywhere either. And while we’re on the topic of Lavrentiy Beria, who can forget James’ infamous vow, while on the New York State campaign trail in 2018, to get Trump by any means necessary?
The Democrat-Lawfare Complex’s anti-American legal jihad backfired politically. Along with the besieged U.S.-Mexico border, the Biden-era perversion of America’s justice system was a leading reason voters swept Trump back into office over cackling Kamala.
Now, it appears that Democrats’ stunts have backfired in other ways. At the height of the Biden-era lawfare, Republicans warned Democrats that they would regret weaponizing the justice system against their political opponents.
It appears that day has now come.
Last year, the Trump administration indicted James on charges of bank fraud and making false statements. Former FBI Director James Comey, a central player in the Russiagate saga, was first indicted last year on perjury grounds. Just this past week, he was indicted again—this time over an Instagram post featuring an “86-47” seashell constellation on a North Carolina beach that looks an awful lot like a threat to the president.
The Trump DOJ also sought indictments for six Democratic lawmakers—Sens. Mark Kelly (Ariz.) and Elissa Slotkin (Mich.), along with Reps. Jason Crow (Colo.), Maggie Goodlander (N.H.), Chrissy Houlahan (Pa.), and Chris Deluzio (Pa.)—over a video urging the defiance of military chain-of-command orders. That last indictment was rejected by a grand jury.
To be sure, not all of these cases are the same.
The six lawmakers, for instance, were very wrong to produce the subversive video they did—but “sedition” it was not. On the other hand, the DOJ is on stronger ground with its new Comey indictment. It’s difficult to imagine this indictment will actually go anywhere, but it’s also nearly impossible to interpret a message of “86-47” in any other way than how the Trump Justice Department argues it should be interpreted. And especially after yet another attempt on Trump’s life during the recent White House Correspondents’ Dinner, it would be reckless for the DOJ not to treat such an episode with the utmost earnestness.
But zooming out, it’s not hard to see what’s going on here. Indeed, the recent indictment of former Anthony Fauci adviser David Morens only further clarifies it.
Instead of crying foul at the Trump administration, as so many in the elected class and commentariat seem quick to do, perhaps it would be better to ask: What did leftists think was going to happen?
That question answers itself. Basic game theory analysis suggests that a subjugated party—in this case, the broader Right—must punch back in order to reestablish order over the subjugator. It’s also just old-school playground logic: Sometimes a bully must be punched in the face. Only then will he stop being a bully. Short-term escalation is often necessary in order to secure a mid- to long-term equilibrium.
Maybe that sounds harsh. Maybe it even sounds immoral to some. But it’s the hard reality. And if Democrats don’t like that reality, then they shouldn’t have gotten us to this point in the first place.
Nor is this the first time Democrats commenced such a “mutually assured destruction”-style iterative paradigm in American public life. Recall that it was in 1987, only one year after Antonin Scalia was confirmed to the Supreme Court with 98 votes, that former Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Joe Biden (D-Del.) directly ushered in the modern era of nuclear-level judicial nominations chaos by “borking” the eponymous Bob Bork and preventing the highly qualified jurist’s ascension to the high court. Fast-forward nearly four decades, and our Supreme Court showdowns are still an awful mess.
You’d think Democrats would have learned their lesson by now. But they haven’t. Some bullies, it seems, need to be punched harder than others.
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