You’ve heard the saying, politics makes strange bedfellows? Apparently, prosecutors make strange bedfellows as well.
We all know what Donald Trump thinks about the court cases brought against him. He has railed over and over about what he perceives is the corruption and the politicization of our judicial system. Witch hunt, travesty, disgrace!
As you know, I’m not a Trumper. I think he’s despicable. Worse than that, he’s a lying dog-faced pony soldier. But when it comes to New York State Attorney General Tish James, who ran on a promise to prosecute him, and who just won a huge monetary judgment against him in a fraud case where no one lost any money, Trump may just be right.
And there’s Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. His prosecution of Trump will start next month. Thirty-four criminal counts against the former president for falsifying business records. Why? For allegedly paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election campaign to keep her lips zipped about his cheating. Really? A class E felony trial? Such a fine use of taxpayers’ money and the court’s time.
That’s why lots of Republican voters and politicians believe the former president is being persecuted by partisan prosecutors. They see it as a perversion of the American judicial system.
But Trump has another apparent ally and a very unlikely one at that. His new friend in the fight against judicial injustice is none other than a dyed in the wool Democrat. Andrew Cuomo, former Attorney General for the State of New York, former Governor of the State of New York, the scion to his family’s political dynasty, brother to Fredo (aka Chris), agrees with Trump that something smells like rotten eggs in the halls of justice.
In a recent op-ed article in the New York Daily News, Cuomo called out some of the same people who Trump says have unjustly targeted him; Tish James, the federal government.
He even implies the feds’ raid on New York Mayor Eric Adams was motivated by hizzoner’s criticism of President Biden’s weak immigration policies.
Cuomo and Trump say justice isn’t blind, it’s playing peek-a-boo with opposing politicians.
But get a grip on your gavels. What’s Cuomo complaining about? He was never prosecuted for anything so why does he have his knickers in a knot?
The accusations by several women against Cuomo were serious. Inappropriate touching of female state employees, asking creepy sexual questions, leering.
But Andrew Cuomo’s bitch that he’s been prosecutorially abused is a stretch. The only criminal charge against him was dismissed two years ago. If anything, Cuomo has been abused by the shadow justice system. The one that has no oversight, the one that relies on the court of public opinion to pass judgment. The one that doesn’t limit itself to politicians.
I don’t have to remind you of the myriad of professionals whose careers have been robbed from them without a trial, stoked by an irresponsible press, at the hands of the #MeToo tyrants and the cancel culture autocrats.
In his op-ed, Cuomo said “the only safeguard [for a non-partisan judiciary] is engaged independent reviewers.” He says, “That could be an unbiased and competent press corps…”
Unbiased and competent, two adjectives you’ll be hard pressed to find in American journalism in 2024.
Large swaths of the media are just as politicized and biased as Cuomo and Trump claim the justice system is. They act as judge and jury. They parrot and perpetuate unsubstantiated accusations with no due process. Forget about getting a fair hearing. Forget about honest and thorough reporting.
Here’s how it goes. Some disgruntled employee, past or present, gins up allegations against a boss, a supervisor, a professor, take your pick, in the quest for revenge and/or money. They find a reporter who reads the room and knows they can get an instant career boost by building a story around the so-called evidence they’ve been handed. The article is published or broadcast, or streamed and predictably, the organizations with their own angry agenda jump up, pressuring cowardly corporations and universities to rush to judgment instead of pausing for the truth to prevail.
The journalism piranhas are feasting on the red meat thrown at them from accusers and sources with axes to grind, grievances to air and lawsuit money to be made. It takes only one news story, from one publication, one website, one TV network, no matter how shallow the reporting, no matter how shoddy the credibility of the source, to get repeated and amplified by the reputation butchers. And they’re not satisfied until the defenseless sheep are hauled off to the slaughterhouse.
Ha! We gotcha! Another rogue removed from power! Aren’t we just the best!
“An unbiased and competent press corps” to keep the justice system on the straight and narrow? You’ve got to be kidding. The news media are a big part of the problem, certainly not a part of the solution.
So, a vengeful former president is trying to make a comeback and a disgraced former governor is seemingly trying for a comeback and they’re both using the American judicial system as their whipping boy. (Can I even use that phrase anymore?). Whipping homosapien? These big shot politicians with lots of baggage, feel they’re being f’ed by the system, and sometimes they are. But they’re not alone.
Ordinary citizens are getting screwed, too. That rotten egg smell is also coming from the media, the business community and academia.
And for those of you who question my seeming sympathy to two, highly dislikable politicians, let me quote what the great American playwright, Lillian Hellman once said, “Since when do you have to agree with people to defend them from injustice.”