As Pennsylvania lawyer Bruce L. Castor, Jr., watches former President Donald Trump on trial, he has been thinking about how the American legal system has changed.
Mr. Castor has represented the former president; he helped lead the team that successfully defended President Trump during the impeachment trial in 2021 before the U.S. Senate. He knows his way around a courtroom, having served as an assistant district attorney, deputy district attorney, district attorney, solicitor general, special prosecutor for the Office of the Attorney General, and attorney general of Pennsylvania.
President Trump has faced restrictions such as a gag order, limiting who he may speak about in the Stormy Daniels case. It covers the family members of District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Justice Juan Merchan, potential court witnesses, jurors, lawyers, court staff, and their families.
“To suffer restrictions on your liberties that are onerous, even though you’ve not been found guilty, that is taking away your presumption of innocence,” Mr. Castor told The Epoch Times.
“The vehemence at which the media attacks people robs them of the presumption of innocence in the court of public opinion. And that makes prosecutors and government officials emboldened to think that they no longer have to provide the minimum protections the Constitution grants to everyone ... because the media and the vast majority of the public will back them up.”
The burden of proof and due process are now just quaint notions of another generation, and they are no longer being respected despite the critical foundation they represent for the U.S. legal system, he said.
Mr. Castor says he is losing faith in the legal system, and he knows other attorneys who have expressed that they feel the same way.
“It’s supposed to look like lawyers on both sides, who know their business well enough that when they fight it out in front of the neutral umpire, a truthful and a just result will emerge,” Mr. Castor said. “I was among the last of the people to become cynical ... We’re all scared to death of the trial level judicial system, because the trial level of the judicial system has become infected by partisan politics and regional partisanship.”
While he believes there are people at the Department of Justice who do a good job, he says the leadership there is “scary bad.”
When someone is charged with a crime, they are to be treated as if they have not done anything wrong, they should be treated fairly, that is the presumption of innocence, Mr. Castor said.
Hiding Vitality
Mr. Castor believes the left is using the legal system to advance their agenda, which is to keep President Trump off the campaign trail, so voters cannot directly compare him to President Joe Biden.Voters are looking for candidates who can think on their feet and handle stress, he says; they want a president who will respond appropriately if they are ever faced with something like a nuclear submarine 50 miles off the U.S. coast. Voters want a leader who will be able to withstand the rigors of the job.
“The worst possible thing for the Left is to have Biden’s frailness put up against Trump’s vitality out on the campaign trail. One of the purposes of this whole attack on Trump is to tamp down the expression of his energy in the eyes of the voters,” Mr. Castor said. “Whether you like him or not, Trump exudes energy.”
A February Quinnipiac poll found 31 percent of voters think that President Biden is too old to effectively serve another 4-year term as president. That was up from a September poll showing 28 percent. The poll also found 62 percent felt President Biden is not physically fit enough to be president, but 60 percent said President Trump is physically fit enough to be president.
Mr. Castor believes the barrage of lawsuits against President Trump may actually speak to voters in the center who may feel sorry for him.
“Anyone who has ever had to deal with a government agency like the DMV or IRS knows how frustrating it is, and how you feel as though you have no power to do anything other than be a subject to that particular government agency,” he said.
The public is troubled when they see President Trump in the crosshairs of the Department of Justice or activist prosecutors, he said, because everyone has a distaste for the government intruding on their lives and interfering with the smooth operation of people moving their lives forward.
“The average person shakes their head and wonders, if they do that to the former president, that means there is no stopping the power of the government to go after, and injure somebody, because they don’t like that person.”
If President Trump prevails in his legal battles, he will still be damaged from the process because he is prevented from fully campaigning, the attorney added.
“You only have to keep the ball in the air, where you’re attacking your opponent through Election Day. And when it turns out to be all [expletive] when election day has already gone by, there’s nothing he can do about it.”
Winning or dissolving legal cases after the election will not give him back the campaign time he is losing while stuck in court, Mr. Castor said.
