OPINION:
Former President Donald Trump is being attacked in federal and state courts in a manner that likely violates the Eighth Amendment (“Trump lashes out at ’compromised’ legal system as he confronts cash crunch,” web, Feb. 19). No one else has ever been prosecuted for what Mr. Trump purportedly did in these cases.
The fact that he is being prosecuted for possessing classified documents while President Biden — who had no authority to declassify documents when he took the files later found in his garage — gets off scot-free for doing the same is telling. If everyone were treated the way Mr. Trump is being treated, there would be hundreds of former elected officials in federal prison serving decades of jail time. Mr. Trump, however, would not be one of them, as he had absolute declassification authority as president. What is being done to him is selective prosecution on steroids with no basis in law or fact.
The Eighth Amendment prohibits certain types of punishment: excessive bail, excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishments. These prohibitions were intended to protect individuals from governmental abuses of power.
It is highly likely these prosecutions and lawsuits have all been orchestrated by the White House to break Mr. Trump financially. If this could be proved, the Supreme Court should consolidate all the cases and hold them as a violation of the Eighth Amendment, then sanction the federal government and all individuals involved. There should be punitive damages to the tune of billions of dollars.
While the government would be primarily responsible, it should be allowed to recoup any money paid from the individual government officials who were part of the conspiracy to bankrupt Mr. Trump, possibly under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
Cmdr. WAYNE L. JOHNSON
Judge Advocate General’s Corps, U.S. Navy (retired)
Alexandria, Virginia
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