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How Democrats and Real Journalists Should Respond to the Trump Criminal Conviction [1]

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Date: 2024-06-04  

For months, long before the 12 jurors in Judge Merchan’s courtroom in Manhattan found Donald Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsification or records, Trump and his constantly mendacious minions have been preparing for the moment of his conviction by falsely claiming that Joe Biden and the Democrats are behind the case against him. On a daily basis Trump, a man who has been found liable for sexual assault for raping E. Jean Carroll, whose family’s company has been convicted of fraud, whose Foundation was closed down because he used donations improperly, who has been found liable of defamation against Carroll , whose CFO has been found guilty twice for perjury, whose campaign managers were found guilty, whose lawyers have been prosecuted, has made comments repeatedly about the judge in his case which would have clearly warranted jail time if he was not a former president of the United States and who still faces indictments in 3 other jurisdictions, has railed against the justice system claiming it is rigged against him. And yet he has not spent a single day in jail.

Before journalists had a chance to report the outcome of the trial, Republicans and their propaganda organs at Newsmax, Fox News and the Epoch Times (among others) were howling without evidence that the “Democrats” had rigged the legal system against Trump and they will respond with unmitigated vengeance — apparently suggesting that they now have license to prosecute, if in power again, any Democrat they want as justified retaliation. (Ironic considering Biden’s own DOJ is currently prosecuting his son, Senator Robert Menendez and Congressman Henry Cuellar of Texas).

Meanwhile, Democrats , with some exceptions, have remained fairly silent about the verdict believing naively, that, because the facts speak for themselves, they have no role in reminding voters who Donald Trump is and what kind of misrepresentations he himself has made in the past and what actions he took to assert such misrepresentations. This kind of approach was followed years ago after Trump claimed that there was something wrong with the birth certificate of the first African-American president. Such silence helped to ensure that Donald Trump would succeed Barack Obama as president of this country.

What is exasperating about this approach by Democrats is that they have an important opportunity here not only to reiterate who Donald Trump is but also to point out correctly that our legal system in this country, while deserving of respect, has been far from perfect for much of its history. And to point out that it has never been rigged against Donald Trump or many other politicians but it was systematically rigged against scores of African-American men who were convicted for crimes they did not commit.

Exhibit “A” in this list are the Central Park 5: Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Yusuf Salaam and Korey Wise. All served significant time in jail before they were exonerated by DNA samples proving they had nothing to do with the rape and murder of a female jogger in Central Park. Nevertheless, Donald Trump who had taken out prominent ads in in four New York City newspapers – New York Times, New York Daily News, New York Post and New York Newsday – calling for their execution. Democrats have an obligation to point this out to journalists now and journalists have an obligation to ask Republican lawmakers such as Speaker Mike Johnson and Senator Marco Rubio (among others) about actual victims of judicial malfeasance who served time and sometimes were killed for criminal offenses they did not commit.

Whether it is Louisiana, Florida or New York state, there are scores of African-American men and others who actually served time — sometimes for decades for crimes they did not commit. While pundits constantly talk breathlessly about what impact the conviction of Trump in NY will have on the 2024 election, they have a responsibility — a solemn and critical one — to ask Republicans making these outrageous claims against President Biden and Democrats about true victims of a historically-biased justice system against men of color. They should specifically ask Johnson, Rubio and others about specific cases in jurisdictions or states they represent whose convictions were later overturned after they served significant time in jail.

And Democrats have an affirmative duty, not only to point out the hypocrisy of these systematic lies being repeated by Republican lawmakers, but also to remind voters that, for much of this country’s history, our judicial system was rigged and patently unfair to African-American criminal defendants.

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