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Archive for February, 2026|Monthly archive page

ONCE AGAIN, ACCOMPLICES TO OUR OWN DESTRUCTION: PART THREEE (OF SEVEN)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 2, 2026 at 12:10 am

On January 13, 2021, Donald Trump was impeached for the second time for “incitement of insurrection”—inciting the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol.  

The reason: To try to stop the counting of Electoral College votes, which he knew would prove that former Vice President Joseph Biden had won the 2020 Presidential election.

The evidence against Trump was overwhelming—including video of his inciting a mob of his followers to storm the Capitol Building.

But Republican Senators again acquitted Trump on February 13, 2021—choosing ambition over patriotism.

Had they done so, he could not have again been a candidate for President. 

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Donald Trump

Even after Joseph Biden took the oath of office as President, his Justice Department treated Trump with a deference never shown any other criminal defendant. 

Only on November 18, 2022—a year and a half after becoming Attorney General—did Merrick Garland appoint Jack Smith Independent Counsel to investigate Donald Trump’s role for: 

  1. Inciting the January 6 attack on Congress; and
  2. Illegally seizing and storing highly classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach Florida.

This gave Trump time to play his “deny and delay” game. Had he been prosecuted and convicted before the November 5 Presidential election, the results might well have been different.

Even hardcore supporters might have proved unwilling to vote for someone found guilty of inciting a riot and//or stealing highly classified documents.

Even while under multiple indictments, Trump was allowed to hurl insults and threats at Special Counsel Jack Smith and even Smith’s family.

One such post, published on Trump’s website, Truth Social, went: “Deranged Jack Smith, who is a sick puppet for A.G. Garland & Crooked Joe Biden, should be DEFUNDED & put out to rest. Republicans must get tough or the Dems will steal another Election. MAGA!” 

Laura Rozen on Twitter: "Jack Smith bio from the Hague court https://t.co/5iOsfwMSAa https://t.co/wAG6RmQ7N4" / Twitter

Jack Smith

By “A.G. Garland” Trump meant Attorney General Merrick Garland. By “put out to rest,” he meant that his followers should assassinate Smith. 

Not even Mafia bosses like Charles “Lucky” Luciano and Albert “The Executioner” Anastasia dared issue such threats.

By contrast: Jimmy Hoffa was president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. But that didn’t prevent Robert F. Kennedy’s Justice Department from indicting him for jury tampering—and convicting him on March 4, 1964. He was sentenced to eight years in prison and a $10,000 fine. 

No one in the Kennedy Justice Department said: “He’s the elected president of the Teamsters Union—so we can’t touch him.” Yet that is precisely how the Biden Justice Department repeatedly acted toward Trump—simply because, in 2016, he won a Presidential election.

In June, 2023, Trump was indicted for illegally seizing and storing hundreds of highly classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee as Federal Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, presided over the case.

She repeatedly ruled in his favor and finally dismissed the case in July, 2024. claiming that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional. 

Aileen Cannon

Many legal experts, citing her handling of the civil case against Trump, called for her recusal from the case. Jack Smith could have requested her removal from the case but did not ask a Federal appeals court to do so.

MSNBC analyst Barbara McQuade told Newsweek that Smith likely refused to do so to “return public trust” to the Justice Department, which had been challenged in recent years.

Cannon’s kid-gloves treatment of Trump echoed that of the Right-wing judge who presided over Adolf Hitler’s trial in 1924 for trying to overthrow the government of Bavaria. 

Throughout his struggles to stay out of prison, Trump was aided by the unrelenting support of the Republican party.  

Republicans loudly and repeatedly claimed that Donald Trump was the legitimate winner of the 2020 Presidential election—despite overwhelming evidence that he wasn’t.

They also claimed that, by appointing Special Counsel Jack Smith to investigate Trump, the Democrats had weaponized Federal law enforcement.

They also fully supported Trump’s demand for the release of those who attacked the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.

Republican Disc.svg

For example: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) depicted these coup supporters as persecuted martyrs.

On March 24, 2022, members of the Republicans’ House Oversight Committee toured a Washington, D.C. jail where some of these defendants were held. “Their due process rights are being violated. And they have been mistreated and treated as political prisoners,” Greene told reporters after the tour.

Adolf Hitler similarly portrayed as martyrs the Nazis who tried to violently overthrow the government of Bavaria on November 9, 1923.

A March 2, 2020 Washington Monthly story concluded ominously:  “U.S. democracy wasn’t set up to deal with a president openly behaving like a James Bond villain while being protected by a political party behaving more like a mafia than a civic institution.” 

While Congressional Republicans relentlessly investigated President Joe Biden and his family, Democrats refused to similarly investigate Trump’s family.

The Republican House Oversight Committee opened its investigation into the Biden family on January 11, 2023. The investigation included the foreign business activities of Biden’s son, Hunter, and brother, James. 

By November 023, the investigation had not found any evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden.