Whether former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani gets indicted, convicted, and sent to prison is very unlikely. At least that is my opinion. Rather than a criminal, he seems to be just another victim of prosecutorial abuse.
In several past commentaries, I have expressed my belief and concern that the federal prosecutors are among the most political – and ergo, the most dangerous – component of the federal judiciary.
The fact that prosecutors wield unappreciated personal and political power is the very reason the radical left-wing globalist billionaire George Soros is spending a significant share of his massive wealth to elect radical politicized prosecutors throughout the United States.
I must issue this disclaimer:
There are thousands of federal and local prosecutors who do an outstanding and honest job. However, in the most senior ranks is a collection of overly ambitious individuals. The office’s political underpinning is clearly established by the career trajectories of so many of those ambitious and partisan individuals.
The position of federal prosecutor is a principal steppingstone to public office. If you are dubious, just check the biographies of the members of Congress. Most people already know that lawyers dominate legislative offices. But they may not know that the largest group among the lawyer/legislators are the prosecutors.
It is not just about Congress. Public offices at the state and local levels are rife with former prosecutors – federal, state, county and municipality. And their most powerful tool (weapon) is prosecutorial discretion. It does not take an advance degree to understand the potential problem of a person with political ambitions deciding who to prosecute and who not to prosecute. Going after political adversaries while protecting political allies is standard operating procedure in many prosecutorial offices.
More and more, prosecutors are operating in the court-of-public-opinion as much as in a court-of-law.
They can launch baseless investigations merely for the publicity. They can damage the person’s reputation and political standing of enemies on the flimsiest of evidence – or none at all. Because of the unfairness of the Grand Jury systems, it is said that a prosecutor could get an indictment of a hamburger.
It seems that the goal of many “investigations” is to simply damage the person in the court-of-public-opinion rather than any real chance of a conviction in a real court – where rules-of-evidence, bans against hearsay and other standards of conduct protect defendants from dishonest accusations.
The politicized prosecutors play to the press. They leak specious evidence. Former prosecutors go on news shows as guests and paid contributing panelists to interpret the cases politically more than legally – inevitably with a political spin. They essentially serve as prosecutors in the court-of-public-opinion – but without the restraints imposed on prosecutors in real courts. They speculate, pass along gossip (hearsay) and take on the role of the judge in declaring guilt or innocence.
When you take away all the false accusations and media hyperbole thrown at political figures, you often find that there is nothing there.
There is no real case. We witnessed the Trump campaign being accused of criminal conspiracy with Russia for more than two years. It was a top story told only from the prosecution perspective. The guilt was assumed in virtually every media report.
That is why the findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller – that no such conspiracy existed – was such a shocker. All those accusations – including California Congressman Adam Schiff’s false claim that he had seen incontrovertible evidence – were proven to be false when examined in the light of facts and actual evidence.
We see a similar disparity between the prosecutorial-driven court-of-public-opinion and the real legal issues in the riot on Capitol Hill.
While the prosecutors in the court-of-public-opinion see sedition, insurrection against the United States and inciting-to-riot, the non-political prosecutors — who must go on the evidence and the law– are filing charges of trespassing and criminal destruction of public property. These are rather minor offenses compared to accusations being advanced in the media. And a great disappointment to those on the left who see an illogical distinction between the 4-hour riot on Capitol Hill and the endless rioting in Portland. One is sedition and the other is … oh well … just folks demonstrating.
We can see a number of cases that rise in the media, thanks to leaks from prosecutors and law enforcement, which inexplicably evaporate without so much as an apology from the abusive prosecutors. Prosecutorial misconduct is not an outrageous suspicion.
Based on prolonged news reports, former White House Advisor Karl Rove was all but certain to face prison time. Today, hardly anyone can even recall why he was subjected to so much character assassination in the press. You may also recall how former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was sure to be indicted and convicted for his participation in Bridgegate. Nothing. The accusations of criminal charges against virtually every member of the Trump family – and the predicted indictments – have virtually all frittered away.
It cuts both ways.
Hillary Clinton was been publicly accused of being a crook. It even inspired the campaign mantra, “lock her up.” In the final analysis, no charges were ever brought against her. Today, Hunter Biden is being accused of criminal activity based on his highly suspicious activities with foreign operatives. Like the Giuliani case, the accusations are only in the court-of-public-opinion.
Giuliani is the latest to be hauled into the court-of-public-opinion. He is being accused of all sorts of criminal activities – even being an asset or co-conspirator with the Russians. And yet, the only hard charge that has surfaced speculatively is a technical violation of not reporting his activities on behalf of a foreign government. It will be awfully hard to make even that one stick in view of the fact that his client was the President of the United States and not a foreign government.
In both the Hunter Biden and Giuliani cases, the jury is out. If you are a betting person, the odds are that neither of them will be heading to hoosgow. Time will tell. But this trying people in the court-of-public-opinion as the first and last resort by government prosecutors is an abuse that we need to address.
The practice is so bad, even Joe Scarborough is calling out prosecutors for using leaks to try people in public. Scarborough said that prosecutors need to avoid public discussion of any case until they are ready to bring actual charges. No more accusations that can only survive in the court-of-public-opinion – opinion that is formed by biased reporting. This is one of those unique occasions in which I agree with Scarborough.
So, there ‘tis.