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When Is Crime Criminal?
Poor Cletus. He doesn’t have any money. What’s a felon to do?
Cletus goes down to the 7-11 and sticks a gun in Mr. Maloney’s face and says “give me all your cash.” The manager complies, turns over the money, and Cletus walks out with it. It’s December 20, 2020, and Cletus needs to buy a few presents. Everyone understands even if they don’t condone the behavior. Desperate people do desperate things. That’s why 7-11 has cameras.
The sheriff shows up, looks at the video feed from five different angles, including the one with Cletus getting into his car, and it’s license plate, and says “I think that’s Cletus!” The manager picks out Cletus from a photo array. Cletus is in big trouble.
The sheriff knows where Cletus lives because, Cletus has done this kind of thing before. But it’s a day before Christmas. Does the public expect that the sheriff will say “December 26 is quick enough to arrest Cletus?” Or, as is more likely, does everyone believe that wrong is just as wrong the day before Christmas as it will be the day after?
I’ve always taken an absolutist view of the criminal law. When you break the laws you pay the price, and justice should be immediate and punitive in order to make certain that you don’t do bad things in the future. Let’s face it, if Cletus decides on Christmas Day that he wants a 12-pack but doesn’t have enough money left, nothing is going to stop him from robbing the liquor store because, well, that’s what criminals do. Delaying his arrest and detention makes no sense.
By now you’re wondering where I’m going with this.
The question I pose has less to do with common criminals, and more to do with uncommon ones. Over the last 24 hours, we have seen the greatest crime in political history laid bare for the entire country to see. A presidential candidate (Hillary) colluding with Russians (Dachenko) and other foreigners (Steele) to create a collusion hoax targeting President Trump. It’s released to the media, but nobody bites. Hillary loses. Now they have a real problem. Very soon the intelligence community will be under different control. They have to explain the loss to the megadonors, and they already have the con set up. Russian Collusion becomes the narrative.
From the declassified notes we know that Obama was briefed on the Russian involvement and the fact that the Russians knew what Hillary was up to (making her a target for potential blackmail later). We know too that Biden, in an attempt to keep the collusion hoax from being discovered, was the first to suggest the Logan Act be used against General Flynn. General Flynn was targeted in large part because he knew where the bodies were buried and how to exhume them.
We know also that Biden is the subject of a criminal probe in Ukraine. The Senate report shows that Hunter was paid $3.5 million by a Russian oligarch to open American doors for her husband. We know that former FBI Director Comey has the worst case of amnesia in the history of law enforcement and can’t remember anything about the Russia hoax, and certainly doesn’t remember a referral regarding Mrs. Clinton trying to use the FBI to peddle the hoax. Sergeant Shultz must be so proud.
For years the FBI and Department of Justice have had a policy not to announce or file criminal charges during the run-up to an election for fear that it might sway the election. But we get back to the same question as raised above.
If something is illegal, unethical, criminal or otherwise, and the DOJ knows about it, should the arrests and prosecutions commence no matter where the election cycle is? Does criminality become more criminal after someone is elected, or after they lose an election? If Biden were to murder a staff worker tomorrow, would the police hold the arrest until after the election? Hopefully, that would not be the case, but at this point, you have to wonder.
Townhall columnist Kurt Schlicter says that no one will be held accountable for the Russia hoax. I hope he isn’t correct, but it is beginning to look that way. The initial enamel on this giant scandal was first knocked off in 2017, with more exposures coming in 2018 and 2019, and finally the IG report which demonstrated actual criminality. One FBI lawyer has been convicted in the FISA abuse probe. But Comey, Clapper, Brennan, Biden, and Obama remain largely untouched. They continue to spew anti-Trump vitriol, and the Department of Justice continues to do nothing.
At some point, something has to change.
We cannot have two systems of justice in this country. We cannot have one set of rules for the elite, and the remainder for the rubes. We can’t penalize Cletus for armed robbery without penalizing Comey for Seditious Conspiracy.
This is why it is so important for President Trump to be re-elected. If he is not re-elected, we’ll never know the full scale of the corruption that occurred in Washington D.C. from 2016 through 2020. It will be swept away with a “nothing to see here” stamped on the file before it’s taken to the shredder.
We deserve better than that.
Published in Elections
I think we already know the full scale of corruption, but you’re right about a Biden election killing the chances of prosecutions . . .
Not always a fan of civil forfeiture, but I frankly wouldn’t mind if the DOJ etc seize the mansions of Hillary, Obama, et al as being proceeds from their criminal enterprises.
Nobody deserves it more.
It’s a sad commentary on the current state of affairs but there are now two interrelated Russia hoaxes …
There you go. :-)
Before I respond, I want to make clear I’m not defending Hillary, Biden, Comey, Obama or anyone else. If it turns out they violated the law, then I’m all for prosecution. I do want to defend our criminal justice system.
The points you raise show exactly why the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments are so important. It could be that you are right in concluding that all these crimes were committed, but right now the evidence is extremely thin. You conclude that Obama was briefed on Hillary’s collusion with Russia as if he was told that was a certain fact. When you look at the letter however, it clearly was more of a mention that there was a rumor going around in Russian intelligence circles that Hillary was doing that. There was even a disclaimer that they really had no idea if there was anything to it at all. No actual evidence was given to Obama of anything. And these are the kinds of rumors that go around all the time about many people.
To tie in your 7-11 robbery analogy, this would be like the police hearing from someone that some other unnamed person thought Cletus might have robbed a store somewhere. It’s that thin and it’s not even close to probable cause to charge him. What if those rumors weren’t true? If Cletus had powerful, politically motivated enemies, imagine how they could unfairly ruin him, imprison him, if not for the 4th-6th Amendments? That’s banana republic stuff. Then end result is a breakdown of the rule of law. The end result of a breakdown of the rule of law is, at best, tyranny.
Again, I’m all for continuing to investigate. But, unlike Cletus in your analogy where there is a ton of evidence, the time is not right to arrest and charge.
You’re right, Obama should have just been impeached. And Hillary, if she had won. Since they used far less “evidence” to do that to Trump.
You’re absolutely right about this, and I wish it were not so.