Perhaps we should have expected the former San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general (who has delighted in grilling President Trump’s Supreme Court nominees from his position on the Senate Judiciary Committee) to lead the onslaught, but it’s still remarkable how easily she twists the knife in.
Harris has argued her case on multiple occasions. “Twelve jurors deliberated the evidence and the facts for six weeks and unanimously found me guilty of 34 felony charges,” she told Jimmy Kimmel last Tuesday. “There were attorneys who actively participated in jury selection, who actively decided which witnesses to call or cross-examine, and the jury made the decision, but, you know, I think the reality is that wrongdoers don’t want to be caught and held accountable.” Her delivery was crisp, businesslike and brutally frank.
She didn’t stop there. On Saturday, she told donors at a fundraiser in Detroit: “Donald Trump openly tried to overturn the last election, and now he’s openly attacking the foundations of our justice system. Since his conviction in New York last month, Trump has claimed the entire trial was fraudulent. That’s false.” She repeated her own statement that “fraudsters don’t like to get caught,” before adding, “Since the verdict, he has attacked the judge and witnesses. He has suggested this case may be a ‘breaking point’ for his supporters, and has threatened violence. … And he’s said he’ll use his second term for revenge.” Then she added a twist: “Donald Trump really thinks he’s above the law. He really does. And this should be a disqualification for anyone who wants to be president of the United States.”
The Supreme Court declined to apply the letter of the law to disqualify Trump under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, but Harris makes a compelling argument. Voters He should not be considered a legitimate candidate. How can a convict who seeks to destroy the justice system be given the presidency, which requires an oath to enforce the law? It just doesn’t make sense.
The Biden-Harris campaign seems to have figured that out. A man who despises the legal system and has a mission to destroy it and apply it against his opponents without legal basis threatens the very core of American democracy. And if there was any doubt about Trump’s evil plans, he now routinely threatens to prosecute his opponents. Trump’s former lawyer, Ty Cobb, and many legal scholars and former prosecutors have warned that Trump’s rhetoric could undermine support for the legal system and incite violence.
And after weeks of Trump threats and smears amplified by his MAGA followers, even the taciturn Attorney General Merrick Garland lamented the “escalating attacks” in a Washington Post op-ed: “They come in the form of conspiracy theories crafted and spread with the intent of undermining public confidence in the judicial process itself, including the false allegation that the Department of Justice somehow controlled cases brought by district attorneys and resolved by jury verdicts in state courts,” he said, an apparent reference to Trump and his allies.
Given that the federal prosecution against Trump is ongoing but stalled, Garland was in no position to call out Trump by name or directly suggest that someone who threatens and denigrates law enforcement should not be in the White House.
Biden spent five days in France commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings, where he stressed the need to defend democracy in our lifetimes. It is no mystery who is threatening our democracy. Biden extolled virtues like democracy, freedom, the rule of law, and decency, clearly implying that Trump has none of these. But the campaign needs Harris to challenge Trump and his MAGA supporters’ attacks on the rule of law, arguing that these should be “disqualifying” in themselves. So far, she has lived up to that expectation.
Harris will have plenty of ammunition in the coming weeks and months as Trump threatens revenge. This is what dictators do. If you do not obey your beloved leader, you will feel his wrath.That message could be so powerful that it prompts the media to place Trump in a long lineage of authoritarians who have twisted the justice system for political purposes.
And if she Really Even if it’s ineffective, she might galvanize those who don’t like his Gaza policies and threaten them to stay. After all, the latter are exactly the types of people Trump would persecute. In fact, he’s already promised to deport them. For them, it might be worth voting for the only candidate who can stop him.
