The indictment of former president Trump is the leading news these days. Expectingly, it polarizes public opinion to the greatest extent possible. “No one is above the law” versus “Political witch hunt” and “Egregious weaponizing of the legal system” – depending on which side of the political spectrum you are at.
I spent my entire life dealing with laws. I started law school when the law was a tool of the totalitarian government to promote “social justice and equity” in my homeland. I graduated after the fall of the Iron Curtain when the legal system in Bulgaria was being transformed into the principles of an independent judiciary. For most of my legal career, I was working in a legal field framed by modern European judicial principles. When I came to the U.S., I immediately fell in love with the American legal system and the freedoms it guaranteed. U.S. Constitution, Freedom of speech, Equal protection under the Law, Due Process, Right of Jury Trial, and Presumption of innocence – all these far exceeded the respective standards I was familiar with.
And now – we have the New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his indictment of Donald Trump. For a misdemeanor, for which the Statute of limitation has passed, which was denied being charged by federal authorities and Bragg’s predecessor, that was brought after the leading Republican presidential contender became clear. All this – amid unprecedented corruption scandals surrounding President Biden and his family, during humiliating failures of domestic and foreign policies of the current U.S. administration. How can I classify this legal move from the perspective of all the judicial systems I had the chance to work on throughout my prolonged legal carrier?
To be honest, it cannot be compared to any on the list above. Even totalitarian persecutors in Bulgaria in the 80s were trying to hide the ideological motives of their charges against the opponents of the regime. Here, “get Trump” promise was the milestone of Bragg’s election campaign. “Promise made, promise kept”. How do the law and the facts even matter?
Thus, Trump’s indictment reminds me of judicial practices I have never experienced personally, but which I well know from history, family, and friends. Practices, which I have never imagined will be possible in America. It called to my mind my wife’s grandfather. He was thrown in prison for 12 years by the so-called “People’s Tribunal”, created by the socialist regime in Bulgaria to punish their political opponents (imagine BLM thugs wearing a judge toga). His only “crime” was being a director of a prison before the regime change. It also reminds me of dozens of Bulgarian evangelical pastors, thrown in jail as “American spies” for the “crime” of preaching the Bible. Further, I recalled my friend Alex, whose father was brutally killed only for drafting a caricature of the supreme socialist chief. For some of these politically motivated killings, the regime instigated formal judicial proceedings afterward, to make them “legal”. Yes, they criminally charged those who they have already killed. No one is above the law, right?
“No person, no problem”, the Soviet satrap Stalin once had said. That statement was the core of the entire “judicial” system that perverted justice and persecuted political opponents of the totalitarian regimes in Eastern Europe for decades. 80 years later, the same legal concept is making history in the U.S. The case is Bragg v. Trump. The arraigned are all “We, The People”. The convicted is America and her freedom.
Will we allow it?
