Since 1976, when I was a sophomore at Yale University, I have been studying the process by which democracies collapse and turn into dictatorships. One of the main causes of the death of democracy is the criminalization of political dissent. Politicians are tempted to paint their opponents as not only crazy but also frauds, a temptation that must be avoided. Imprisoning people who cannot win free and fair elections has destroyed democracy and led to authoritarianism in many democracies.
Only 231 years have passed since the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution ultimately sent 50,000 people to the guillotine, including former King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette. This situation inevitably led to Napoleon's dictatorship. Americans must resist, at all costs, heading down this very same dangerous path.
In last night's State of the Union address, President Biden presented himself as a champion of democracy who jailed former President Donald Trump. I criticized President Trump's actions on January 6, 2021 in scathing terms and argued that his second impeachment should end with a verdict disqualifying him from holding future office. But I said then, and I continue to believe, that a former U.S. president should never be sent to prison because of the impact it would have on his 35-40% of the U.S. population. I did. Respecting a particular president who may have committed a crime. Gerald R. Ford's best and most memorable acts during his time in office were President Richard M. Nixon and the Vietnam War to heal the country from the toxic political atmosphere of the late 1960s and early 1970s. At the same time, he pardoned draft evaders of the era.
Nevertheless, the Biden administration is currently criminally prosecuting Donald Trump on charges that could lead to Trump's incarceration and could easily result in him being killed by other prisoners. President Trump has thus, quite rightly, likened himself to Alexei Navalny, an opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putting. Navalny was recently killed in prison, where he was being held for running against President Putin in his re-election bid. What's even more offensive is that President Trump is being prosecuted by an unconstitutionally appointed special counsel, rather than a Senate-confirmed U.S. attorney appointed by the federal special counsel. The reasons why this is unconstitutional are meticulously explained in a law review article by myself and Professor Gary Lawson. Why was Robert Mueller's appointment illegal? 95 University of Notre Dame Law Overview 87 (2019). We have made similar claims in numerous amicus briefs regarding Jack Smith's unlawful appointment as special counsel, and in 2023 and 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and the U.S. submitted to the court. Trump is being prosecuted in Florida District Court by Jack Smith.
If President Biden is serious about being a friend of democracy, he should also call out New York Attorney General Letitia James. Donald Trump just happens to be wasting everything on his civil suit seeking $450 million in civil fraud fines and fines for highway robbery. He needed money just as the national elections were starting. This is a despicable abuse of the legal system and poses a direct threat to democracy.
Add to all this the fact that Donald Trump has not even been charged with incitement of insurrection under the Insurrection Act, whose penalties include disqualification from office, making it possible that he is guilty. It is the most sexual „crime.'' . Instead, the Biden administration waited nearly two years to bring charges against President Trump for his actions on January 6, 2001, but ultimately filed dubious indictments and, as is currently occurring, did so in the midst of the presidential election. It was almost guaranteed that a criminal trial would be held. Joe Biden and Merrick Garland's pretense of depoliticizing the Department of Justice is nothing short of a fraud on the American people. Any serious attorney general would have appointed a special U.S. attorney to investigate Trump for violating the Insurrection Act on January 20, 2001 at 12:01 p.m. If he had, he would have made it clear that he was seeking only disqualification, not imprisonment. I have no plans to hold any position in the future. At best, President Trump should have been treated the same as former President Richard M. Nixon.
Former President Trump and House Republicans are just as guilty of criminalizing politics as the Biden administration. They have hounded Hunter Biden, a sad, middle-aged drug addict, time and again for criminal prosecution. Many of these complaints have some merit, and I believe Hunter Biden committed a crime, but given the norm of not criminalizing political dissent, he deserves a lot of money. I don't think he should be fined and jailed. Former President Trump also threatened to weaponize the Justice Department against his political opponents if he is elected president in November.
It's understandable that the former president feels that way, given what Democrats have put Trump through, but he shouldn't turn the cheek or seek revenge. President Trump needs to restore American democracy, and partisan criminal prosecutions alone will not accomplish his goal. Back in 2016, when President Trump called for Hillary Clinton to be detained for using a private server for classified information in his home, I wrote an article opposing the prosecution of Hillary Clinton. Ta. As President Trump has discovered in his lifetime, prosecution for mishandling of classified documents is a very double-edged sword, and it is now being used completely unfairly against President Trump himself.
Former President Barack Obama has been accused of recent political crimes after the Justice Department launched a secret criminal investigation on completely false grounds into Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, when he was still a presidential candidate. began to fall into a state of deterioration. President Obama's FBI actions were reprehensible, as was the absurd Special Counsel Mueller investigation that resulted.
It takes Democrats and Republicans to start the process of criminalizing politics, and it takes both parties to stop it. The media, academia, and the judiciary should come together and make a major contribution to this country's democracy by ending the criminalization of political dissent, which risks resembling the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution. Never before has our 235-year-old constitutional democracy been at greater risk.