Donald Trump, hush money and the weaponization of government
This weaponization of government to pursue Trump on "hush money" is a shameful perversion of our criminal justice system.
Before I start, let me make something clear: I will not vote for Donald Trump in the November election. Trump's character flaws have disqualified him from getting my vote. While I respect the choice of those who will vote for Trump, I will not. So what I say from this point forward is not coming from a Trump supporter defending "my guy" from attacks, or justifying "my guy's" behavior.
Donald Trump has been a deeply immoral man for his entire life. He paid off two women after committing adultery with them, and funneled the payment to one of them through his attorney. This is was almost certainly not new behavior in 2016, as Trump has likely paid many women to be silent about his sexual dalliances with them over the course of the last fifty years. It just so happened that these two stories threatened to break when Trump was running for President.
Trump is hated by the Left, and both President Biden and state prosecutors have been using "lawfare" to get to him before the 2024 election. The weakest and most absurd case of "lawfare" is the Stormy Daniels bribe. In order to prove that this was a campaign expense, you have to demonstrate this is not something Trump has been doing for decades, that he would not have paid hush money if he was not running for President, and there were not other reasons for paying Daniels and Karen McDougal, such as avoiding embarrassing his wife and ten year old son. This case meets none of those standards.
The entire hush money case hinges on "falsifying" financial records to cover up another "crime." But Trump was never prosecuted or even charged for the other crime, and the acquittal of John Edwards for using donors' money to cover up his own adultery illustrates how difficult it would be to convict Trump of committing a "crime" in this case. President Barack Obama (a Democrat) declined to continue to pursue the former Democratic Senator on the other charges.
The hush money case represents extreme hypocrisy by the Left. Democrats and Leftists vigorously defended Bill Clinton in 1998 and 1999 despite the fact that Clinton committed perjury, subornation of perjury and obstruction of justice to hide his adultery with a White House intern while he was President. Unlike Clinton's scandal, Trump's so-called "crime" did not involve any such crimes, and the claim it was to cover up a "campaign finance" violation is extremely weak. Unlike Clinton, Trump was not in office when this adultery took place. He was a reality TV show host and real estate developer.
This weaponization of government to pursue Trump on "hush money" is a shameful perversion of our criminal justice system. Allowing this abuse of power to stand puts every American in danger, because it sets the dangerous precedent that corrupt government bureaucrats can destroy a political enemy's life without consequences. We need reforms to reign in these prosecutors.