Looking for a way out of his new legal challenge, 76-year-old former President Donald Trump says he’s subjected to “double-jeopardy,” something expressly forbidden in the Constitution. Trump was acquitted in his second impeachment trial Feb. 13, 2021 of “incitement of insurrection,” only to wind up with the Jan. 6 House Select Committee trying to tie him to planning the Jan. 6 Capitol riots. With Trump, anything goes when the nation’s vaunted law enforcement and intel agencies used to harass him. Trump couldn’t believe Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith to go after Trump’s alleged crimes. Truth be told, Garland didn’t need to appoint a Special Counsel, something that looks like another government witch hunt. Garland’s team could have evaluated whether or not Trump committed a crime worth prosecuting with appointing a Special Counsel.
Trump called the decision to appoint a Special Counsel “appalling,” harking back to May 17, 2017 the day Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Bob Mueller as Special Counsel to investigate Trump’s alleged ties to the Kremlin. Mueller and FBI officials at the time knew that former FBI Director James Comey used former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s opposition research AKA “the Steele dossier.” Rosenstein was hounded by Democrats after Trump fired Comey May 8, 2017, for leaking fake stories to the New York Times and Washington Post. Trump reacted harshly to Smith’s appointment because he knew what the government has put him through before. Yet, like with Mueller’s appointment, Democrats and the press hailed Garland’s decision, anything to get back at Trump, especially if it prevents him from running in 2024.
Trump’s point about double-jeopardy would only apply if he were tried for the exact same charges. When it came to his second impeachment trial, Trump was charged with “incitement of insurrection,” different from planning or orchestrating the Jan. 6 Capitol riots. Trump’s analogy to double-jeopardy probably doesn’t apply to an impeach trial, because its doesn’t have the same burden of proof in criminal trials. Trump called the Biden administration “egregiously corrupt,” working in concert with the Democrat Party and the press to stop Trump from running in 2024. No question the impeachment charges are similar to the ones pushed by the Jan. 6 House Select Committee. But whether or not that triggers the Constitution’s double-jeopardy charge is anyone’s guess. Trump’s former Atty. Gen. Bob Barr said today that appointing a Special Counsel meant the DOJ had enough evidence to charge Trump.
At the time of Trump’s second impeachment, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that Trump whipped a Jan. 6 crowd into a frenzy before they attacked the Capitol. Once the FBI researched what happened, the found out that right-wing militia groups has actually planned the Capitol mayhem for months. So, when Trump was acquitted Feb. 13, 2021, he assumed the story would go away. Yet Pelosi couldn’t let go of what Democrats accused Trump of planning and orchestrating the Jan. 6 Capitol riots. Pelosi wants Trump prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, even if he did noting to plan the riots. Democrats and their friends in the press are euphoric about Garland appointing a Special Counsel, hoping to finally get a conviction. Final say on any charges lies with Garland. Barr thinks the DOJ has enough evidence that Trump broke the law handling classified docs.
CNN’s senior justice correspondent Evan Perez told host fact-checker John Berman that “the former president is just making it up,” showing, if nothing else, that CNN has not changed its Democrat bias. “There is . . . nothing to say that this was a dead investigation or that it was being abandoned—far from it,” Perez told Berman. “People around him have been getting subpoenas in recent days. So there was nothing to indicate that is was about to go away,” Perez said, showing his zeal about going after Trump. Broadcast and print media outlets have to work toward neutrality because where it stands now, no one can trust the press as objective. Why are all the liberal journalists backing Garland’s announcement of a Special Counsel? Whatever happens with the Special Counsel investigation, Garland will have the final say to go ahead and prosecute Trump for any alleged crimes.
Trump called the Special Counsel appointment “the worst politicization of justice in our country,” Trump said. When the FBI under Comey opened up a counterintelligence investigation of Trump in the 2016, it’s difficult to get more political bias. Reporters at the New York Times or CNN have to stop jumping-for-joy expecting an indictment against Trump. Charging someone with crimes at the Feb. 13, 2021 Senate impeachment trial found out, doesn’t mean it will lead to conviction. Trump has strong arguments to make that he’s been subject of government harassment since 2016. Whatever documents were found in the Aug. 8 Mar-a-Lago raid, it doesn’t mean they exposed the U.S. to any national security risks. When it comes to the Jan. 6 House Select Committee, former Vice President Mike Pence said he would not cooperate with the committee’s subpoena because of extreme bias.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
