A Historic First: Indictment of a U.S. President

Eric Zuesse

As the Washington Post headlined on 24 November 2014, “federal grand juries indict 99.99 percent of the time”. Until now, no U.S. President even sought to indict a former U.S. President — much less one who is his chief political rival and who now is campaigning to replace Biden, but Biden has done it; and, since, as the adage goes, “A federal prosecutor can indict even a ham sandwich,” Biden fulfilled on that 99.9% probability, and he (through his agent, Merrick Garland, whom the President possesses the unchallengeable power and authority to fire at any time) won this indictment, against his chief competitor. This indictment shows how desperate Biden is to avoid there being another political contest between himself and Trump. Perhaps Biden’s indictment of Trump will make Republican voters even more determined to vote for Trump in their primaries, and to show up yet again at the polls on Election Day, all in order to end Biden’s political career ASAP (regardless of what they think of Trump). But, in any case, this is the real “banana republic” that the U.S. Government has become. It’s happening not in Latin America, nor in Africa, nor in any other of the ordinary oligarchies, but in the rapidly declining (now plunging, and apparently desperate) still most powerful Government in the world: today’s America.

New York — a state not a country — had earlier indicted Trump for this, and that was the actual first-ever indictment, of any kind, against a sitting or former U.S. President. But this federal indictment is much more serious, because it’s an indictment by a political candidate against his chief competitor, and that is politics not merely in the gutter, but in the sewer.

As USA Today headlined on June 8th, “Donald Trump indicted for allegedly mishandling classified documents seized at Mar-a-Lago”; but, on June 9th, the New York Post bannered regarding another case, “Biden classified documents probe shows few signs of ending soon: report”; and, of course, Hillary Clinton wasn’t indicted when she did essentially the same thing as a Secretary of State, but I headlined about that on 5 July 2016, “In Clinton Case, Obama Administration Nullifies 6 Criminal Laws”, and listed there the six that she had clearly violated, and then I commented about that matter:

Those laws are consequently null and void, by Executive action. When Congress (which is supposed to be the Legislative branch of the government) passed those laws, what were they describing, if not this? Of course, they did describe there what Clinton has, in fact, done. [And, it is also what both Biden and Trump are alleged to have done.]

If we are a nation “of laws, not of men” (as that old basic description of democracy phrased it), then Ms. Clinton will be prosecuted, at least through the grand jury stage, on (at least) those grounds. The decision regarding her innocence or guilt will be made by jurors (first by the grand jurors, of course, and if they find there to be a case, then by a trial jury), not by the broader public – and also not by the nation’s Executive: the President and his appointed Administration. That is what it means for a government to be a functioning democracy. Any government which violates this principle – that it is “of laws, not of men [including women]” – is not functioning as a democracy: it’s something else.

In addition to these criminal laws, there are also federal regulations against these matters, but violations merely of federal regulations (such as these) are far less serious than are actions that violate also federal criminal laws (such as the six laws that are listed above).

She isn’t even being sanctioned for the violations the the State Department’s own regulations (or “rules”).

This is not a partisan issue. I was until recently an active Democrat, and I joined with millions of other Democrats who expressed condemnation when George W. Bush was allowed to get away with many severe crimes (such as this) while he was in office; and one of the reasons why I was trying to find someone to contest against President Obama in Democratic primaries for the 2012 Democratic Presidential nomination was that Obama had refused to prosecute his predecessor’s crimes against this nation. But now this same Obama is nullifying at least these six laws in order to win as his successor Hillary Clinton, who surely will not prosecute Obama for his many crimes (such as this and this) while he has been leading this nation and destroying our democracy.

I parted company from the Democratic Party when I gave up on both Parties in 2012 as they and the government they operate have been since at least 1980 — not at all democratic, but instead aristocratic: holding some persons to be above the law (that researcher there called the U.S. an “oligarchy,” which is simply another word for the same thing — rule by the top wealth-holders, not by the public: not a “democracy”).

There can be no excuse for Obama’s depriving the public, via a grand jury decision, of the right to determine whether a full court case should be pursued in order to determine in a jury trial whether Hillary Clinton’s email system constituted a crime (or several crimes) under U.S. laws. The Obama Administration’s ‘finding’ that “clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information” would need to have been proven, in order for her to have been prosecuted under any U.S. criminal law, is a flagrant lie: none of the above six U.S. criminal laws requires that, but the only way to determine whether even that description (“clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information”) also applies to Clinton would be to go through a grand jury (presenting the above-cited six laws) and then to a jury case (to try her on those plus possibly also the charge that there was “clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information”). But now, those six laws are effectively gone: anyone who in the future would be charged with violating any one of those six laws could reasonably cite the precedent that Ms. Clinton was not even charged, much less prosecuted, for actions which clearly fit the description provided in each one of those U.S. criminal laws. Anyone in the future who would be charged under any one of these six laws could prove discriminatory enforcement against himself or herself. (In the particular case discussed there, discriminatory enforcement was ruled not to have existed because the enforcement of the criminal law involved was judged to have been random enforcement, but this condition would certainly not apply in Clinton’s case, it was clearly “purposeful discrimination” in her favor, and therefore enforcement of the law against anyone else, where in Clinton’s case she wasn’t even charged — much less prosecuted — for that offense, would certainly constitute discriminatory enforcement.) So: that’s the end of these six criminal laws. The U.S. President effectively nullified those laws, which were duly passed by Congress and signed into law by prior Presidents

And that’s the end, the clear termination, of a government “of laws, not of men”.

Obama didn’t seek an indictment of her. Unlike in Biden’s case against Trump, there was no issue there of one competitor seeking prosecution against another. It was simply Obama’s (and James Comey’s) decision that, henceforth, America’s is a Government of men, instead of a Government of laws. She was held to be above the law. It is purely selective prosecution. It is a dictatorship, by and for the dictators. And, now, America’s politics has finally come down to the lowest of the low, not only protecting the ones who are in power, but targeting for persecution-prosecution their top competitors: this is the sewer-level.

What makes this especially harmful is that this happens in the country that pretends to be leading ‘democracies’ against ‘autocracies’ — it is, instead, a government of liars, against not only foreign publics, but even against their own public. It is a government of the publics, by traitors, and for those traitors. In international matters, it should therefore stand aside, and stand down, in abject shame, not continue to pontificate, about ‘democracy’ — not add hypocrisy, to their shame. The sewer already smells bad enough, as it is.

In fact, Biden now is competing for the title: “worst President in all of U.S. history.” None has ever done anything like this.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.