OPINION:
Will former President Donald Trump wind up in a New York prison rather than behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office? From behind my own prison walls in Miami, I can’t rule that out. Indeed, the parallels between my own case and Mr. Trump’s are striking.
I am the first senior White House official ever charged with contempt of Congress. This is all the more outrageous given that for more than 50 years, Department of Justice policy decreed it was my duty to do what I did — refuse to testify before Congress once Mr. Trump invoked executive privilege, which was not my privilege to waive.
Mr. Trump is the first former president ever to be charged with a felony. What’s most outrageous here is how a Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, was allowed to string together minor misdemeanors into felonies with lengthy prison sentences.
Next, consider that the prosecutions of Mr. Trump and me have involved nothing but Democrats on a lawfare rampage. The House of Representatives voted on a straight Democratic Party line to hold me in contempt, a Democratic attorney general in Merrick Garland prosecuted me, a Democratic judge stripped me of any possible defense, and the kangaroo court jury itself was drawn from a District of Columbia pool in which over 90% voted for President Biden.
In Mr. Trump’s case, Democrat-Marxist George Soros bankrolled the campaign of Mr. Bragg. Mr. Trump’s inquisitor, Democratic Judge Juan Merchan, was not randomly drawn for the case. He was handpicked for the hit job despite numerous conflicts of interest.
My own judge, Amit Mehta, was similarly handpicked. Because of similarities and judicial economy, my case should have gone to the judge who presided over Steve Bannon’s contempt of Congress case. Instead, I got tagged with Judge Mehta — a Democrat who put a down payment on his appointment to the bench by bundling large campaign contributions for Barack Obama.
Judge Mehta would deny my defense team critical discovery, ignore legitimate claims of selective prosecution, prevent a key witness from appearing, and make an admitted “uncharted waters” ruling about Mr. Trump’s invocation of executive privilege that would take my executive privilege defense off the table and by Judge Mehta’s own admission “hamstring the defense.” For the kill shot, Judge Mehta let numerous jurors who openly expressed anti-Trump sentiments render my verdict.
Mr. Trump’s judge, Juan Merchan, used the same Mehta playbook — and then some. Judge Merchan left on the jury some of the most blatant Trump-haters in Manhattan. Virtually every ruling Judge Merchan made on admissible evidence, witnesses, points of law and jury instructions strongly favored the prosecution.
Like mine in the District of Columbia, Mr. Trump’s Manhattan jury pool was drawn from a list of voters who had favored then-candidate Joe Biden in 2020 by more than 90%. While wishful thinking analysts at Fox News kept floating the possibility of a hung jury — surely there must be at least one member of the jury who would see through the insanity — it was not and never to be. And guilty, on all counts, was a foregone conclusion by simple math.
Here’s that math in my case: My legal team had only six preemptory challenges, and there were simply too many biased jurors to strike. On the other hand, the prosecution had more than enough challenges to strike the few potential jurors who might have gone my way. It was the same biased math with Mr. Trump as judge, jury and executioner Merchan allowed jurors who openly and loudly admitted they loathed Mr. Trump.
The next milestones in the case will involve the actual sentencing and whether Mr. Trump will be released pending his certain appeal. The big questions here, which, not coincidentally, will be answered on the eve of the Republican National Convention the week of July 15, are whether Judge Merchan (1) will give Mr. Trump prison time, and (2) release Mr. Trump pending his appeal so he can campaign for the November election — or even appear for the Republican National Convention to be nominated.
Again, my case is instructive: Given the facts in the case, my judge, Amit Mehta, should have given me, at most, a 30-day suspended sentence and put me on probation for a few months. Judge Mehta himself admitted that I had done what I had done out of an unshakable belief that I was doing what my oath of office and the Constitution required. My conviction was contrary to Justice Department policy.
Yet instead of showing respect or mercy for a public servant who had created thousands of jobs and saved countless lives during the pandemic, Judge Mehta not only threw the book at me. In his sentencing, the Machiavellian Mehta cleverly and strategically made sure I would not get any sentence reduction from the 2018 First Step Act — which, ironically, I myself had helped lobby for.
But that’s not all: Unlike Steve Bannon’s judge, Judge Mehta threw me in prison immediately rather than release me pending my appeal when he knew damn well that my case would almost certainly be dismissed or sent to a retrial.
Judge Merchan is likely to take these very same pages out of Mehta’s lawfare playbook. My bet is that Judge Merchan will not only order prison time, like Judge Mehta, he will also send Mr. Trump to prison immediately rather than release him pending appeal.
Moreover, nothing guarantees that Mr. Trump will win his appeal despite the overwhelming evidence that he should. Again, my case is instructive.
When I appealed Judge Mehta’s decision to send me to prison immediately, the D.C. Circuit stacked my three-judge panel with “woke,” never-Trump Democratic judges rather than draw the judges randomly. These three politicians in black robes then denied my appeal in a way that, in turn, made it impossible for the Supreme Court to rule in my favor. Mr. Trump will face the same stacked deck of appeals court judges in the deep blue state of New York.
The best thing we can do right now for Mr. Trump is to work 24/7 toward his reelection, whether or not he himself is allowed sufficient time out on the campaign trail. So please send the Trump 2024 campaign a contribution. Recruit as many friends and family to register to vote and get them to the polls. Get involved with your local precinct, and make sure through peaceful citizen actions like monitoring illegal drop boxes that the Bidenites can’t steal the 2024 election like they did in 2020.
• Peter Navarro is the author of “The New MAGA Deal” (www.newmagadeal.com), the unofficial guide to the Trump 2024 campaign platform.
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