I’m beginning to think that the best way to understand the never-ending series of legal cases against Donald Trump is to see it as a gigantic communal jigsaw puzzle.
The ending image is clever: Seen from one perspective, it shows the former president behind bars.
Seen from another perspective, however, it shows a composite image of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama superimposed on the White House, which is superimposed on a collage of images of the headquarters of the FBI, the IRS, the Department of Homeland Security, and half-a-dozen other agencies of the deep state.
The great, the hitherto insuperable, difficulty is finding the interlocking few pieces that make the images snap into place.
If the agents of the state and their megaphones of the press have hitherto been unsuccessful in completing the puzzle, it hasn’t been for lack of trying.
The long years of the Russia collusion hoax were an extended effort to find—or forge—the missing pieces.
So were the twin impeachments handed down against Trump.
The raid at Mar-a-Lago last summer was an effort to find that holy grail but once again it failed.
Now, as we approach the 2024 election season, everything has sped up.
Such dubious legal devices were all the rage in Tudor England, but they were also out of favor for those who championed the rule of law.
Why? Because bills of attainder “attaint” specific people not because of what they’ve done but because of who they are.
Impartiality is an essential component of the rule of law.
Singling out specific individuals not because they’ve done something wrong but because of their identity, because of who they are, is inimical to the rule of law.
This is how it is with Trump.
Last week, Alvin Bragg, Manhattan district attorney, was rumored to be on the verge of indicting Trump for—for what?
The rationale was that in coming to a financial nondisclosure arrangement with “Stormy Daniels,” née Stephanie Clifford, Trump had allegedly been party to bookkeeping fraud, a misdemeanor.
Bragg expended enormous effort to figure out a way to elevate that to a felony.
So far, his efforts have been for naught.
Something similar can be said about the case building in Georgia against Trump, the one ostensibly about Trump’s efforts to “subvert” the 2020 election.
That, too, appears to be going nowhere, so the great game mavens have largely moved on to their next gambit: an obstruction charge to be filed against Trump in connection with his possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
That case was complicated because not so long after Trump’s property was raided and his possession of the documents was reported, President Joe Biden was discovered to have classified documents in his garage, his house, and his former office.
Then, former Vice President Mike Pence was discovered to have classified documents.
For a moment, it seemed that possession of classified documents was the new fashion accessory, something you wouldn’t think of leaving home without.
At first, that complicated the plans of the prosecutors.
If everybody named was going to come bearing secret docs, how were authorities to uncover the magic missing piece that would put Trump out of the way or at least out of the picture?
That didn’t work either, so as of March 26, the die-cutters are at work trying out a charge of “obstruction.”
True, Biden and Pence had classified documents in their possession, but that was completely different.
Why? Because neither of them is Trump.
For the past six years, the minions of the regime, not only the officers themselves but also their attendant scribes and Pharisees, have been searching high and low for the magic puzzle piece that, hammered into place, would finally put paid to Trump.
It hasn’t worked yet.
