OPINION:
Since then candidate Donald Trump’s come-from-behind victory over the Clinton machine in 2016, Democrat strategists have waged unrelenting lawfare against the former president and his advisers. This “ends justify the means” lawfare is corroding faith in the American justice system while imposing costs on American citizens and taxpayers in excess of half a billion dollars.
To paraphrase Clausewitz, lawfare is politics by other means. It describes the abuse of legal and regulatory systems to destroy, damage, or otherwise gain an advantage over an enemy in the economic or political arena.
Globally, Communist China is the reigning Grand Dragon of lawfare. It wields the World Trade Organization like a mercantilist sword to steal American jobs. It raises the flag of the Law of the Sea treaty to seize disputed islands. At the United Nations, Communist China barters its veto for cheap access to Iranian natural gas and Russian oil. And so it went during the four years I spent in the White House helping Mr. Trump defend our nation against such outrages.
Here in America, the Democrat Party is lawfare’s undisputed Grand Master. A poster child is its hydra-headed attack on our election system leading up to the 2020 presidential election.
As I have documented in the eponymous Navarro Report, Democrat strategists led by Perkins Coie’s Marc Elias pursued a Grand Stuff the Ballot Box Strategy through sweeping changes in election law. Such lawfare was an open invitation to fraud as it dramatically increased the number of absentee ballots cast by Democrats while reducing ballot verification through safeguards like signature match.
To understand the ability of such lawfare to alter results, under an illegal consent decree virtually eliminating signature match, Georgia’s rate of rejection of absentee ballots dropped from more than 6% in 2016 to virtually zero in 2020. This drop was likely sufficient alone to swing the election to President Biden.
Meanwhile, George Soros-backed Secretaries of State in Michigan and Pennsylvania issued questionable or illegal rulings that further swelled the Democrat vote. Still another billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg, bankrolled drop boxes and ballot harvesting – a particularly toxic form of lawfare prominently featured as tools of fraud in the film 2000 Mules.
Today, the lawfare most corrosive to the constitutional principles of this nation is the unrelenting war on Mr. Trump and his advisers by Democrat prosecutors. Such lawfare began in 2016 as Clinton campaign-financed black ops at the FBI sought to fabricate a bogus Russia Hoax case against Mr. Trump.
Early casualties included George Papadopoulos, Gen. Michael Flynn, and Paul Manafort. Mr. Flynn alone had to spend more than $7 million defending himself, while Messrs. Papadopoulos and Manafort both served prison time.
In 2019, through two phony impeachments, a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives targeted other Trump advisors, including Don McGahn, Hope Hicks, Corey Lewandowski, Rob Porter, Rick Dearborn, and Kellyanne Conway. Today, the latest lawfare victims besides Trump range from Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman, and Jeffrey Clark to Mark Meadows, Dan Scavino, and Steve Bannon.
The Democrats’ first best lawfare outcome is to imprison all of us in Trump World – wipe us off the political map and flush Mr. Trump out of the 2024 election. Yet, the Democrats also know they can reelect the feckless Mr. Biden if they distract us from the 2024 campaign, drain our resources dry, break our spirits, and cut Trump off from anyone who might seek to serve his legal or policy needs in a future administration.
In my case, I’m charged with a “crime” no senior White House advisor has ever been charged with – and for good reason. For more than 50 years, to protect the Constitution’s separation of powers, the very same Justice Department now prosecuting me has heretofore asserted absolute testimonial immunity for senior advisors and “alter egos” of the president.
Yet, in a world of lawfare, a Democrat-controlled House recommended my indictment on a party-line vote. A Democrat-controlled DOJ is now proceeding with the prosecution in defiance of its own policy. A guilty verdict carries a maximum two-year prison term – effectively a death sentence at my age.
It’s not just the specter of prison the Democrats’ lawfare seeks to haunt Trump World with. A key campaign goal is to inflict financial pain.
To date, my legal defense has cost over half a million dollars and will top out at trial at about $750,000. If convicted, my appeal will cost another $1 million. (If you’d like to contribute to my legal defense fund, please go to www.defendpeter.com)
For me, there are also the opportunity costs of my having to fundraise and spend time on the case. This is time away from campaigning for Mr. Trump, delivering speeches, writing articles and books, or just kicking back with family and woman I love.
Scale my trials of Job up to the other Trump defendants – more than 20 — and the lawfare bill just for us will easily exceed $100 million. To this lawfare bill, we must add the more than $500 million Mr. Trump will have to spend fending off four phony indictments in three different jurisdictions.
Meanwhile, in the ultimate outrage, American taxpayers will foot a bill in excess of another $100 million for the government show trials, increased security, and legal machinations from Atlanta and Manhattan to Washington, D.C.
Of course, the far biggest costs to this country are the corrosive and divisive effects of the Democrats’ lawfare on public attitudes. In poll after poll, we see more and more American voters across party lines rapidly losing faith in our justice system while viewing the show trials of Mr. Trump as brass-knuckled election interference.
Yet, it would be naïve for any of us to believe Democrat strategists will ever put God, country, and the Constitution above their thirst for raw power. Revenge, in this case, must be a dish served cold at the ballot box in 2024.
Throw the lawfare-waging rascals out must be our battle cry!
• Peter Navarro served as President Trump’s manufacturing czar and chief China strategist. Follow his work at http://peternavarro.substack.com where this article originally appeared. Contributions to his legal defense fund may be made at http://www.defendpeter.com.
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