Vendetta, or Justice? A Nation Divided

"I believe this Witch-Hunt will backfire massively on Joe Biden,."

"The American people realize exactly what the Radical Left Democrats are doing here. Everyone can see it. So our Movement, and our Party – united and strong – will first defeat Alvin Bragg, and then we will defeat Joe Biden, and we are going to throw every last one of these Crooked Democrats out of office so we can MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"

Former U.S. President Donald Trump

Donald Trump has been considered the man to beat for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024  Getty Images

"The Manhattan DA's crusade against President Donald J. Trump is nothing more than political persecution and, just like with every other hoax that President Trump has been targeted with, there is no crime whatsoever, except for election interference by radical Democrats through weaponization of our justice system against President Trump and his supporters."

Steven Cheung, Trump campaign spokesman

"We urge you to refrain from these inflammatory accusations, withdraw your demand for information, and let the criminal justice process proceed without unlawful political interference." 

Leslie Dubeck, general counsel in the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg

 

"Officers have been cautioned to remain vigilant and maintain situational awareness, both inside courthouses and while on perimeter patrols, as evidenced by the incident on Tuesday afternoon outside of Manhattan Supreme Court."

Manhattan Court

Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Waco Airport on March 25, 2023Waco, Texas. AP

"I am not afraid of what's to come", Trump said in a fundraising email. In fact, 24 hours after his NY indictment a whopping $4 million in donations reached his campaign coffers, and another million the following day. "It's politics, I think they're just dying to find a way to keep him from being eligible for running for re-election", one of his supporters, 58-year-old Mark Funk opined at a beer garden in Houston. 

Yet 44 percent of Republications feel that Donald Trump would do best to drop out of the race should he be indicted, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week indicated. "He's ready to fight. He's gearing up", stated one of Trumps lawyers, Joseph Tacopina who added that his client would not be expected to wear handcuffs at his Tuesday court appearance. Bail would not have to be posted on his release, he said.

But he is due to be fingerprinted and photographed in the New York courthouse, the first ex-president to ever face criminal charges, in a notorious case that involves hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, in 2016. Which brings to mind the Watergate scandal that caught then-President Richard Nixon in unsavoury criminal revelations. The only reason he escaped indictment in that case was because the prosecutor argued only when a president leaves office can he be indicted.

This is a country that has divided itself on either side of an agonizingly wide trench separating Republicans from Democrats, a polarization of venomous dissonance. Accusations passing back and forth between the two solitudes, each hissing the hot breath of a fire-breathing dragon of hatred and suspicion. The country itself is aflame with vehemence, one against the other. The nation's president just chided Israel for its disruptions and divisions caused by a move to modify its judicial system.

President Biden has chosen to leave Washington temporarily rather than embroil himself personally in the indictment against his ideological adversary.  As for Donald Trump, he has been busy drumming up support for his party's nomination to challenge President Joe Biden in the 2024 election. And even as he faces charges he will continue his campaigning.

The indictment brought against Mr. Trump lacks information on the specific charges which remain under seal. Reports from CNN reveal there are 34 counts related to business fraud -- to all of which the former president plans to plead not guilty. Trump holds he is "completely innocent", accusing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, of planning to damage his electoral opportunities.

Former vice=oresident Mike Pence spoke of the charges against his former boss as a "terrible message to the world surrounding U.S. justice. I'm very troubled by it", said Mr. Pence, himself a possible 2024 candidate. Similarly, senior Republicans in the House of Representatives plan to investigate Prosecutor Bragg, demanding he reveal the documents involved, along with other confidential material that led his investigation. 

"You and many of your colleagues have chosen to collaborate with Mr. Trump's efforts to vilify and denigrate the integrity of elected state prosecutors and trial judges", District Attorney Bragg wrote to Republican lawmakers, in response to their threats. Security has been stepped up around the courthouse, reflecting Trump's March 18 call to his supporters to protest any arrest. 

It will take at least over a year before any potential trial is scheduled, according to legal experts. The trial, in other words, could take place during or following the presidential campaign. The indictment against Trump does not necessarily preclude him from running for re-election. And he has appealed for nationwide protests, warning of "death & destruction" should he be charged.

 

 

The Gloom of American Democracy Imperilled in the Partisan Divide

"We often think that what we should be waiting for is fascists and communists marching in the streets, but nowadays, the ways democracies often die is through legal things at the ballot box — so things that can be both legal and antidemocratic at the same time."

"Politicians use the letter of the law to subvert the spirit of the law." 

Daniel Ziblatt, political scientist, Harvard University

 

 Reuters   President Joe Biden

"Our democracy held. We the people endured. We the people prevail. For the first time in our history, a president had not just lost an election -- he tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob breached the Capitol."

"But they failed. They failed. And on this day of remembrance, we must make sure that such an attack never, never happens again."

U.S. President Joe Biden

"The American spirit is being tested. The answer to whether we will meet that test resides where it always has resided in our country, with you, the people. And the work ahead will not be easy. Here in this very building, a decision will be made about whether we uphold the right to vote, and ensure free and fair elections. Let's be clear. We must pass voting rights bills that are now before the Senate and the American people must also do something more."

"We cannot sit on the sidelines, we must unite in defense of our democracy."

"In order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and to our prosperity and posterity."

"That is the preamble of the Constitution that President Biden and I swore an oath to uphold and defend and that is the enduring promise of the United States of America."

U.S.Vice-President Kamala Harris 

Have Americans ever been more polarized? The promise of a great coming-together with the election of a Black President in Barack Obama held great promise; if America could finally yield to the premise in their own Constitution that "all men are born equal", recognize the leadership quality in a bi-racial American, bring him to executive office and anticipate a rebirth of the nation, a cleansing of the past, a bi-partisan Congress to advance the United States of America into the future, the world's ills could also be solved. 

 

"Yes we can" was the optimistic spirit of the time, but "Yes we did" failed to come to fruition. Under the Obama administration the Democrats and Republicans gave short shrift to working together, surrendering opposing ideology for the good of the whole. The response to two terms of an Obama administration gave birth to a Republican presidency introducing the world to uncertainty and the spontaneity of an uncouth character shattering the comfort of the West to be by a stable, resolute mind of intelligent repute.

That single term led to a completion of the polarization of values held dear by Americans who had cultivated the myth of standing strong together against the evil empires of the world, leading the free world to victory, and the unfree world to democracy. With the consequential election of an aging Democratic leader of uncertain virtues mindful of the creeping influence of vociferous progressive voices hating the America that is and urging on an America that never was, a series of judgement failures has voters howling in rage.

Illegal aliens stream into the United states; over 1.7million in 2021. A fearsome epidemic of looting and record-breaking levels of killing splurges across major urban centres with a dozen major cities breaking annual homicide numbers in 2021. Black Lives Matter which rampaged and rioted with the death by police mishandling for a minor misdemeanor lit the fuse of public rage that turned to trepidation when Black criminals became untouchable even by Black police chiefs and Black mayors.

The mantra of 'defund the police' gained traction, demoralizing police forces who stood back giving free rein to the civil threats, the looting and pillaging, the street violence suddenly unleashed in numbers barely imagined. The racial tensions that the killing of George Floyd resonated throughout the world, his death and ignominy brought to U.S. society on the global stage had his visage writ large as the ultimate U.S. victim, a symbol for all Black Americans, stinging U.S. pride in itself as a just society ridden with Black crime.

Gun sales surged as society became further estranged in the countless deaths caused by an unseen plague out of China flooding the world and extracting from the United States record death numbers. That same United States mounted a scientific defense through its fabled enterprise in science and entrepreneurship counter-flooding the world with life-saving vaccines against a pathogen that refuses to be tamed. And then the Biden administration shocked itself and its allies by its cowardly withdrawal from Afghanistan, leaving the vulnerable in the clutches of the Taliban.

 

57 percent of Americans polled by Fox disapprove of their new president's focus on and response to crime; 80 percent are extremely concerned over the crime surge, with 21 percent placing the blame on a "breakdown of moral values", with 15 percent feeling weakened criminal penalties the cause, 13 percent the availability of guns and 12 percent decreased police funding as reasons for unprecedented crime levels plaguing American society. 

 

Andrew Harnik/AP   Rioters gather outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on Jan 6, 2021

Little wonder Republicans still gather around the promise of a returned Trump administration in 2024. Donald Trump had a single term as president before he was vaulted out of the position as most powerful person in the world community; president of the great United States of America. President Joe Biden stands a fairly good chance of celebrating one pathetic term in office before he too is ushered out of the Oval Office, having done perhaps more than his share of humiliating his countrymen and women and baffling America's foreign allies.

Close to two-thirds of independents fail approval of the Biden administration on all counts. In 2021 more Americans perished from COVID than did in 2020 under the previous administration. Hispanics, most of whom voted Democrat, no longer approve of their management of the nation's needs. America, no longer a civil-minded nation, where crime and violence are taking over the streets as lawlessness prevails past the 'defund the police' demands, is in peril, and its allies and friends look on with alarm and sorrow.

But there is guaranteed satisfaction in the situation from other sources. From countries that have presented as potential harbingers of global destabilization, countries whose ideological roots and pervasive antagonism to the West and to the democratic ideal, look on with both disbelief and curiosity and no small amount of gloating as they see internal discord and societal breakdown within America as it tries desperately to find its moderate middle and a return to sanity.

 

America, Divided

Constitution Avenue is deserted next to the U.S. Capitol building on January 17, 2021 in Washington, DC  

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

"For this deployment everybody is screened additionally, but it's more of a reassurance, because we do everything we can do [to] know our guardsmen, our soldiers and airmen [are not involved in right-wing politics]."

Major General William Walker, commanding general, District of Columbia Guard

 

"We're continually going through the process, and taking second, third looks at every one of the individuals assigned to this operation."

"The question is, is that all of them? Are there others? We need to be conscious of it and we need to put all of the mechanisms in place to thoroughly vet these men and women who would support any operations like this."

Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy

 

"As is normal for military support to large security events, the Department will vet National Guardsmen who are in Washington, D.C. While we have no intelligence indicating an insider threat, we are leaving no stone unturned in securing the capital."

"This type of vetting often takes place by law enforcement for significant security events. However, in this case the scope of military participation is unique."

"The D.C. National Guard is also providing additional training to service members as they arrive in D.C. that if they see or hear something that is not appropriate, they should report it to their chain of command."

"We appreciate the support of the FBI in assisting with this task and for each of the more than 25,000 Guardsmen who answered their Nation’s call and rapidly deployed to the NCR."

Christopher Miller, acting Defence Secretary

 

"There is no place for extremism in the military and we will investigate each report individually and take appropriate action."

"The army is committed to working closely with the FBI as they identify people who participated in the violent attack on the Capitol to determine if the individuals have any connection to the army."

U.S.Army statement

About 25,000 members of the National Guard are streaming into Washington from across the country — at least two and a half times the number for previous inaugurals. (J. Scott Applewhite/The Associated Press)

 A fraught air of deep suspense hangs over tomorrow's presidential inauguration for incoming president Joe Biden at the Capitol building in Washington. The government has undertaken a massive screening of the 25,000 National Guard troops who have filtered into the nation's capital for the past week due to concerns over extremism suspected in the ranks. A number of pro-Trump rioters involved in the January 6 protests were discovered with ties to the military.

As the riot unfolded, the presence of dozens of people in Washington on a terrorist watch list alerted authorities to the scale of the infiltration amongst a vast group of protesters. Out of that alert arose questions over the numbers within the armed forces for whom extremist sentiments resonate. One such reservist involved in the riots was arrested last week. Court papers described him as an "avowed white supremacist and Nazi sympathizer", who was said to have "encouraged" other violent rioters.

 

The FBI is vetting all the National Guard troops coming into Washington for the inauguration after U.S. defence officials expressed concern about an insider attack in securing president-elect Joe Biden's inauguration. (Julio Cortez/The Associated Press)

 

 

Speaking on condition of anonymity a U.S. defence official described a situation where the army and the FBI are working together vetting all service members detailed to support the inauguration. Though maintaining awareness of threats, the army does not collect  domestic intelligence. Thousands of troops in camouflage uniforms now patrol Washington streets where security barriers and fences have been erected in the lead-up to the inauguration.

The screening, according to Maj.Gen.Walker, represents an "extra layer" of security over and above the continuous monitoring the U.S.military engages in with its service members. So far the process of vetting has failed to flag any potential problems with the troops entering to form a protective cordon around the inauguration. Another defence official spoke of 143 notifications of extremism-related probes last year from the FBI, some related to suspected domestic extremism including White nationalism, anti-fascist, anti-abortion and anti-government sympathies.

All personnel aspiring to enter any branch of the U.S. military receiving a security clearance undergo background checks. Captain Chelsi Johnson speaking for the National Guard stated that all members arriving in Washington for the deployment "go through a credentialling process. That information is shared with the requesting federal agencies and added to their database. We cannot speak for those agencies and how they use the information."

 

Onlookers snap a photo of the US Capitol through protective fencing installed after the January 6 attack.

Andrew Lichtenstein/Insider

 

At no other time in the United States has the old Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times" been more appropriate. These are difficult-to-believe times; interesting yes, but dreadfully disturbing in the revelation of the extent of the polarization of American society. At what other time in its honoured history has fencing topped with razor wire been used to keep American citizens out of the Capitol? When was the last occasion when tens of thousands of armed soldiers and police were dispatched to ensure safety and security at the inauguration of a new president?

A Secret Service tent in downtown DC on January 16, 2021.

Andrew Lichtenstein/Insider

A Pox On Both Their Houses

"Armed protests are being planned at all 50 state capitols from 16 January through at least 20 January, and at the U.S. Capitol from 17 January through 20 January,"

"While our standard practice is to not comment on specific intelligence products, the FBI is supporting our state, local, and federal law enforcement partners with maintaining public safety in the communities we serve."

"Our efforts are focused on identifying, investigating, and disrupting individuals that are inciting violence and engaging in criminal activity."

FBI Bulletin

 

"We're keeping a look across the entire country to make sure that we're monitoring, and that our Guards in every state are in close co-ordination with their local law enforcement agencies to provide any support requested."  

Army Gen. Daniel Hokanson, chief of the National Guard Bureau

 

"A lot of people were energized by what happened last week, State capitals are a natural place where people might want to show up, especially assuming that they think there might be a huge presence of police and military in D.C. because of what happened last week."

"[The Capitol siege demonstrated the emergence of a new movement of] Trumpist extremists, so caught up in the cult of personality around Trump that they may be willing to break the law or engage in violence purely in support of Trump and whatever he wants."

Mark Pitcavage, senior research fellow, Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism

 

"The FBI just can't passively sit in websites and forums and social media platforms, waiting to see who's going to present a direct threat versus just someone who is being highly radicalized."

"There has to be an investigative predicate for the FBI to then start even the lowest form of an investigation."

Javed Ali, former FBI senior intelligence officer

A team of FBI agents gather as demonstrators rally outside of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

"In light of events of the past week and the evolving security landscape leading up to the inauguration [the Secret Service has been instructed to begin security operations on January 13 rather than January 19]."

"[Federal, state, and local agencies] will continue to coordinate their plans and position resources for this important event."

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf

Warning that "armed protests" could arise around events linked to the January 20 presidential inauguration in Washington, the FBI made it clear that all fifty state capitals in the U.S. will be susceptible to the potential for rampaging mobs to make their dissatisfaction with the removal of President Trump from office clear, in a nation bifurcated by toxic left-right disagreement. A totally polarized population has resulted from suspicion, fear and anger, well nourished by both the Democratic and Republican parties' elites.

The National Guard has been authorized to ensure that up to 15,000 troops will be on hand in Washington. Tourists are to be barred from access to the Washington Monument until January 24. The theme of the January 20 ceremony to inaugurate Joe Biden, the president-elect is to be "America United", as absurd and tone-deaf a chosen theme under the current toxic circumstances as any that might be imagined. The Democratic Party is playing nice now that one of their own is moving into the Oval Office.

When the Republican choice for president of the United States was elected four years earlier, the Democrats incited their faithful to demonstrate long and loud against an admittedly flawed personage with no experience, yet the choice of a majority of voters. Donald Trump, like him or loathe him, was duly, democratically elected. Indignant crowds of faithful Democrats came out to express their disgust that the White House would be ruled by a crass and crude man for the next four years, and they wanted him removed.

 

 

The Democratic Party itself did all it possibly could to restrain President Trump, to portray him as inept and disloyal to the country, themselves unwilling to sit as lawmakers under a man whom the world viewed askance and whose volatile and ill-chosen statements struck doubt in the hearts of allies. Yet, the democratic process so allegedly dear to Americans' hearts elected the unelectable fairly and squarely. America is decidedly anything but united. Over 70 million Americans voted for a candidate they held trust in and whom senior Democrats slurred. Wounding their own institutions in the process.

The country remains aghast that the bastion of democracy in the United States was attacked. No less so that the man who is their outgoing president did his best to incite the rioters to their task after having built their belief in a 'stolen' election both prior to and following the election that left him a one-term president. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser is anxious that last week's "unprecedented terrorist attack", not be repeated.

State capitals are preparing for the possibility of virulent protests disturbing the peace of the presidential transition at a remote on and around January 20. To that possibility they have responded by taking proactive, preventive measures of their own. On Monday the Michigan State Capitol Commission unanimously voted on banning the open carry of firearms inside the state capitol building, voting 6-0 for the measure.

 

"Given what's going on across the country, we moved up our meeting to consider the issue. It's now done and will be implemented by Michigan State Police", announced John Truscott, vice-chairman of the commission. No one wants a repeat of an event that sent lawmakers into fearful hiding, a riot, invasion and threat to America's democracy that took the lives of five people. Dozens who were part of the rampaging mob have been charged in the violence they took part in, with many more yet to be arrested.

 

Finally, Reason Prevails

"My heart goes out to anyone who has experienced any type of sexual assault in their life. However, based on all of the information I have available to me, including the recently completed FBI report, I have found Judge [Brett] Kavanaugh to be a qualified jurist who will follow the Constitution and determine cases based on the legal findings before him."
Democrat Joe Manchin, West Virginia

"I believe that Brett Kavanaugh is a good man. It just may be that in my view he's not the right man for the court at this time."
"I also think that we're at a place where we need to think about the credibility and integrity of our institutions."
"This has truly been the most difficult evaluation of a decision that I've ever had to make, and I've made some interesting ones in my political career."
Republican Lisa Murkowski, Alaska 

"We will be ill-served in the long run if we abandon the presumption of innocence and fairness, tempting though it may be."
"We must always remember that it is when passions are most inflamed that fairness is most in jeopardy."
"I do not believe that those charges [of sexual molestation] can fairly prevent Judge Kavanaugh from serving on the [U.S. Supreme] court."
Republican Senator Susan Collins, Maine

Kavanaugh testifies to the Senate judiciary committee during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing on Sept. 27 in Washington, D.C. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

There, it is done. A confirmation vote of 50 to 48 out of 100. Not that the news field day will be over. It may just be starting, in a conflagration of volatile, abrasive and ruinous partisan conflict that will see no end in years to come. In this entire, insane episode in American politics the Democrats have been leading a no-holds-barred 'resistance' against anything they deem to be tainted by the touch of President Donald Trump. In this latest and most egregious instance, the nomination of a leading jurist to the U.S. Supreme Court, to represent the interests of Republicans.

This is by no means the only event of its kind, there have been previous high-profile nominations with attendant accusations of sexual impropriety. This one, however, was unmatched by the level of covert planning that went into the accusations to achieve a victory of damning denial, one that took its traction from the #MeToo movement and the wretched friction between the left and right on the American political scene where the front-and-centre issue of Populism has propelled an unfit leader to the throne of American politics.

That aside, the performance of the Democrats in conspiring to smear a man destined for the highest court of the land, is shameful. From delegating a lawyer to represent Brett Kavanaugh's initial accuser, dredging up a 37-year-old memory of painful experience, to calling upon the services of a left-leaning press to go into full accusatory-action mode, the public responded, with women seeking to make a signal example of one man of integrity and universal respect in the administration of law and justice who just happened to be caught in the cross-fire.

"If you wanted an FBI investigation, you could have come to us. What you want to do is destroy this guy's life and hold this seat open, and hope you win in 2020 ... This is the most unethical sham since I've been in politics. If you really wanted to know the truth, you sure wouldn't have done what you did to this guy", railed Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Well, they almost succeeded, in desperation at the last possible moment launching their seek-and-destroy rocket of accusation.

They may have failed to stop Brett Kavanaugh from assuming his place with dignity on the Supreme Court, but they have made the history books. And the further removed from the event, the more distastefully history will look back on their shameless and harmful partisanship. The man they ultimately sought to harm, Donald Trump, has prevailed, after all. Having publicly sullied a hitherto-unblemished name, Kavanaugh will nonetheless take his seat with pride and dignity though he will never forget the assault and the torment of his family.

Demonstrators march against the U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in New York City, N.Y. on Monday. (Jeenah Moon/Reuters)