Whether Trump is (technically or substantively) "guilty" or not is pretty much completely irrelevant to any of this. His ostensible "guilt" is entirely orthogonal to the actual motives and purpose of his indictment and prosecution.
If I read this statement correctly (and I'm sure you'll tell me if I'm not), you're saying that it doesn't matter if Trump really did all of the things the indictment charges him with, because the DOJ had purely political motives in getting the indictment.
No, that is not what I am saying.
Maybe Trump "really did all of the things the indictment charges" - or maybe he only "really did" some of them - or maybe he "really did" none of them at all. I don't know - and I haven't offered any answer for that particular question (because I don't have one to offer).
But if he "really did all [or even just some] of the things", then I am not "saying that it doesn't matter" - I am saying that
that is not why the indictment is being pursued by Jack Smith and Biden's DOJ. Even if he is "guilty" of whichever of the charges (and even if this can be said to "matter" in whatever respect), his indictment on those charges is not being pursued in the interests of justice - it is being pursued in the interests of politics. That is why I said his "guilt" is orthogonal to the motives and purposes of his indictment and prosecution.
I see no reason to think that Jack Smith,
et al. really care one damn bit that some fiddling rules, regulations, or bureaucratic protocols regarding archival and/or classified documents were (or might have been) abrogated. Such rules, regulations, and protocols are customs "more honoured in the breach than the observance", so to speak. They are broken all the time without indictments being issued (or even sought). Leaking such materials is
de rigueur in Washington (as is storing them in one's sock drawer or private garage, apparently). Jack Smith & friends only care that Trump is the one they can presently accuse of breaking those rules, regulations, or protocols - and this is so regardless of whether Trump actually did (technically or substantively) break any of them.
This assessment, in turn, seems to be based on the following assumptions:
(a) the DOJ doesn't have sufficient evidence against Trump to get a conviction, [...]
My assessment does not imply or require any such assumption - see above (and below, regarding what is or is not "sufficient").
(b) the DOJ did have sufficient evidence against the Clintons, Obama, and Biden but chose not to seek indictments, [...]
This assumption is also neither implied nor required (though it would certainly reinforce my assessment if it actually is the case). It is neither difficult nor unreasonable to suspect that any lack of "sufficient" evidence might be due to a politically-motivated lack of diligence in seeking, finding, assessing, or evaluating such evidence. (Those famously easy-to-indict ham sandwiches are every bit as easy to avoid indicting, if that is what the investigators and prosecutors want.) IOW: It is entirely possible the DOJ didn't have "sufficient" evidence in any of those cases because it didn't
want to have it. (And after all, why would they? Because of an intransigent devotion to seeking justice "blindly" and exposing the truth, no matter where it might lead? LOL plz)
(Also, I trust it isn't really necessary to point out why a similar lack of desire and diligence might not apply with respect to seeking, finding, assessing, or evaluating "sufficient" evidence against Trump - but I suppose that depends upon just how willfully obtuse one is prepared to be.)
(c) what Trump is charged with is equally or less serious than what Clintons, Obama, and Biden did, and [...]
Nothing I have said is contingent upon the assignment of any relative or comparative degrees of "seriousness" to any of the allegations regarding Trump or the Clintons, Obama, Biden,
et al.
(d) the DOJ wouldn't go after someone else outside of politics in similar circumstances (and it's not that hard to envision such a scenario).
Quite regardless of how hard it might be to envision, I still have no idea what this hypothetical "someone else outside of politics" (or whether the DOJ would "go after" such an imaginary person) has to do with anything I've said.
In any case, whatever you think the relevance is, I was quite explicit in making no assumptions at all regarding what the DOJ might do with respect to such a figment. To quote
my previous reply to you: "I have no idea what they would or wouldn't do in the case of some supposed 'person who wasn't a political figure' [... It] would depend entirely on the politics of the situation [...]". (I don't know how I could have been any clearer than that.)
I [do not] think the DOJ was unaware of the political backlash that would result from the indictment, with Trump supporters screaming about "weaponizing the DOJ" and "it's all politics!". It remains to be seen whether the indictment will hurt Trump politically, but it's hard to think the DOJ would have sought it unless it thought it had a strong case. But your views may differ.
I am sure they were perfectly well aware that such a "backlash" would occur.
They simply don't care - they're playing brazen hardball, and they aren't ball-shy.
If Obama or Biden conducted themselves in such a way as to expose themselves to the same allegations, I see no reason to think we would be discussing their indictments, because there is no particularly compelling reason to think there would even be any indictments to discuss in the first place. (At most, there might be some perfunctorily cursory "investigations" which would fail to find "sufficient" evidence of any indictment-worthy wrongdoing.)
And I think that would probably be true even with respect to a Republican administration's DOJ. That's certainly not because Republicans are noble and fair-minded devotees of the fairy tales told in grade-school civics-class textbooks. Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans just don't seem to have the balls to engage in much that is more bold or daring than the theatrical posturings of toothless (but occasionally illuminating) congressional "oversight".
