The New York Times Gaslights About Political Prosecutions - Meanwhile, the party in power has spent years openly plotting to throw their political opponents in jail.

[Geee]

The Federalist

The New York Times published a 5,000-word article asserting that Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy because a second term Trump Department of Justice could potentially prosecute members of the Democrat Party.

Authors Emily Bazelon and Mattathias Schwartz make this argument not only after a first Trump term with zero political prosecutions by Trump appointees but after a shocking and unprecedented nationwide lawfare campaign by Democrats against Trump and other Republicans.

 

The New York Times published a 5,000-word article asserting that Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy because a second term Trump Department of Justice could potentially prosecute members of the Democrat Party.

Authors Emily Bazelon and Mattathias Schwartz make this argument not only after a first Trump term with zero political prosecutions by Trump appointees but after a shocking and unprecedented nationwide lawfare campaign by Democrats against Trump and other Republicans.

The Times headline is “Why Legal Experts Are Worried About a Second Trump Presidency.” The subhed added, “In a survey of 50 members of the D.C. legal establishment, many warn that Trump could follow through on his threats to prosecute his political adversaries.” The term “gaslighting” has gained popularity in recent years, a reference to the 1944 movie “Gaslight” about a husband who manipulates his wife into thinking she is insane. Even in a sea of media manipulation, there is perhaps no better example of gaslighting than this piece.

The article begins with an unsubstantiated claim that Trump seeks to engage in political prosecutions. The only quote offered in support of this claim is Trump saying people who violate federal election laws will be prosecuted and sentenced. They inaccurately characterize this as “Donald Trump could not be clearer about his plans to use the Justice Department to seek revenge against his enemies.”

The opening paragraph also references Trump supporters chanting “Lock Her Up!” of Hillary Clinton, who had gotten away with setting up a secret server to mishandle classified information. Left unsaid by the New York Times is that Trump didn’t go after Clinton during his time in office, saying it would be “divisive” to pursue political opponents. The New York Times also doesn’t mention that the Democrat National Convention featured chants of “Lock Him Up!” when Hillary Clinton spoke.

Most importantly, though, the past four years saw Democrats at the local, state, and federal levels upend historic norms associated with rule of law. Here’s just a partial list:

 

• Democrat New York Attorney General Letitia James ran for office in 2018 on a Soviet-style threat of getting Trump, who she claimed had illegitimately won the 2016 election. The result was a never-before-prosecuted charge of inflated assets and an indefensible $350 million fine. After businesses began to worry that the common bookkeeping approach used by Trump officials might result in similar prosecutions for their businesses, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul reassured them this government action was “an extraordinarily unusual circumstance” — meaning it would only be used to go after Trump.
• Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg worked with a slew of Biden-connected attorneys, including Biden’s former #3 at the DOJ, to gin up a murky 34-count indictment of Trump for non-disclosure payments, even though no actual crime was alleged and the statute of limitations for looking into the payments had expired.
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