In theory, or at least in cocktail lore, there’s still one last Japanese soldier in a cave somewhere who hasn’t heard that World War II is over—and, as the Emperor of Japan announced on the radio, that it was concluded “not entirely to Japan’s advantage.”
That last soldier may also be the only person who doesn’t realize that the various lawsuits filed against Donald Trump have nothing whatsoever to do with the stated substance of the suits but are designed and brought solely to interfere with the coming presidential election, which, polls currently tell us, Trump may win.
Chief among the lawsuits, and most disgraceful, is the suit brought by Jack Smith, the so-called Special Counsel, who is just a hitman for disgraced Attorney General Merrick Garland (hereinafter “DAGMG”). Smith’s suit contends that Trump sought illegally to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“So-called” is not just a throw-away appellation for Jack Smith; former attorney General Edwin Meese and others have filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court arguing that Smith’s appointment is illegal. “This Court should reject Mr. Smith’s request for certiorari before judgment,” they write, “for the simple reason that he lacks authority to ask for it. Nor does he have authority to conduct the underlying prosecution. Those actions can be taken only by persons properly appointed as federal officers to properly created federal offices. Neither Smith nor the position of Special Counsel under which he purportedly acts meets those criteria [emphasis added].” The problem, as Meese et al write, is that none of the statutes relied on by DAGMG, nor any other statutory or constitutional provision authorizes the appointment by the Attorney General of a private citizen to receive extraordinary criminal law enforcement power under the title of Special Counsel.
That alone may dispose of this case—and not entirely to Merrick Garland’s advantage.
Meanwhile, a three-judge panel of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals has rejected Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution because the actions he took were taken while he was president. That ruling was not a surprise. What was a surprise was that the appellate court gave Trump only six days to appeal to the Supreme Court.
What should the Supreme Court do—or more precisely, when should the Court do whatever it does?
The answer is obvious: the Court should ice the puck. They should just sit on the case and do nothing—until after the election.
No one, except possibly the extinct Dodo bird, believes that these cases against Trump (there are numerous others) have been brought for any purpose other than to interfere with the 2024 presidential election. If they were really important, genuine cases, they could and should have been brought years ago. All the facts were known. No facts needed three years to be discovered.
But the Democrats—and it is Democrats only who have been bringing these cases—waited until they could have maximum effect on the 2024 presidential election.
There is no reason why the Supreme Court should aid and abet the Democrats’ cynical actions.
Oh, the left will scream and call for the resignation of this or that justice, but they are already doing that. This will be a good lesson for them: don’t say the sky is falling unless it actually is. Who will listen to Senator Whitehouse’s (D-RI) broken record now about this or that Supreme Court Justice?
Given not just the hostility toward Donald Trump but also the legal actions against him, the US is looking more and more like a banana republic. What a disgrace!
The Supreme Court may not be able to stop the Democrats’ demeaning of America. But the justices don’t have to be part of it.
Daniel Oliver is Chairman of the Board of the Education and Research Institute and a Director of Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy in San Francisco. In addition to serving as Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission under President Reagan, he was Executive Editor and subsequently Chairman of the Board of William F. Buckley Jr.’s National Review.
Email Daniel Oliver at Daniel.Oliver@TheCandidAmerican.com.