What goes around

What goes around

One of the most basic practical insights of liberalism is that any power you give government with the goal of empowering your side will–usually within 8 years!–be captured and used by the other side against you. So you shouldn’t create any source of power you wouldn’t want your ideological enemies to possess.

One of the most basic moves of American politics is to ignore this insight, even though it has so far never been wrong. – Jason Brennan

The “vengeance is mine” tour continues. The president fired Erik Siebert who a few months ago he appointed as US District Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Why? Because Siebert would not bring charges against two of the president’s enemies, Letitia James and James Comey. “After a five month investigation and interviews with more than a dozen witnesses,” Siebert said that they lacked sufficient evidence to charge New York attorney general Letitia James with mortgage fraud. Trump was clearly unhappy with his attorney general, Pam (Blondie) Bondi. He chastised her in a tweet that he probably hit “send” and then went “oops”s because he quickly deleted the post. Here is the missive:

“Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, “same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam “Shifty” Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done. Then we almost put in a Democrat supported U.S. Attorney, in Virginia, with a really bad Republican past. A Woke RINO, who was never going to do his job. That’s why two of the worst Dem Senators PUSHED him so hard. He even lied to the media and said he quit, and that we had no case. No, I fired him, and there is a GREAT CASE, and many lawyers, and legal pundits, say so. Lindsey Halligan is a really good lawyer, and likes you, a lot. We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!! President DJT”

Siebert had been endorsed for the position by Virginia’s two democrat senators and republican governor. Note that he left out the governor, Glenn Youngkin in this diatribe. The president knows perfectly well that any old prosecutor can find trumped up charges to indict anyone having been indicted so many times himself. What are the odds that the next district attorney for Eastern Virginia will find evidence sufficient to indict James and Comey? By the way, that person is one of the president’s former defense lawyers, Lindsey Halligan.

He did issue a mea culpa to Bondi saying “Pam Bondi is doing a GREAT job as Attorney General of the United States. She is very careful, very smart, loves our Country, but needs a tough prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia, like my recommendation, Lindsey Halligan, to get things moving. What we don’t need is a Democrat Endorsed ‘Republican.” Ms Halligan who is an insurance attorney has never been a prosecutor. But hey, you got to start sometime.

Bondi now has her marching orders. It’s a bit strange that the president would tweet all this out rather than just giving her a call. But the message is clear as he said when asked if he was upset with her. He said “No. I just want people to act. They have to act. But now we want to act fast. You know, they were ruthless and vicious. I was impeached twice. I was indicted five times. It turned out to be a fake deal. And we have to act fast one way or the other. One way or the other. They’re guilty. They’re not guilty. We have to act fast. If they’re not guilty, that’s fine. If they are guilty or if they should be judged, they should be charged. And we have to do it now.”

Some out there with short memories are saying that Trump is shattering the image of an independent Justice Department. I guess they have forgotten when then Attorney General Eric Holder said that he was President Obama’s wing man. Does anyone think that Merrick Garland’s Justice Department was independent of Joe Biden? It was during Garland’s tenure that I started putting quote marks before and after “Justice.” No Bondi is following her boss’ marching orders and has continued the politicization of the department instituted by her predecessors.

So returning to the quote by Brennen, what was done to Trump by his political enemies is now going to be done to them. If the charges against him were baseless then there will be baseless charges brought against them. There is no turning of the other cheek. In the vicious world of petty politics its an eye for an eye. Vengeance is mine.