JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The leaders of both major political parties have argued this nation’s justice system is politically biased.
President Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter, after promising he wouldn’t because he felt the Justice Department, his own Justice Department, treated his son unfairly.
He said, “raw politics” had “infected” Hunter Biden’s prosecution on gun and tax evasion offenses and “led to a miscarriage of justice.”
On the other side of the political spectrum, president-elect Donald Trump long maintained that his galaxy of legal woes — both the criminal and civil charges against him -- were politically motivated attacks orchestrated by his adversaries.
Then his re-election to a second term in the Oval Office led to cases against Trump being dismissed.
There are several ironies here. No. 1 is that during his first term, Trump pardoned a host of political allies and even a family member, and yet he is deriding Biden’s decision to pardon his son -- calling the pardon an “abuse and miscarriage of justice” itself.
This from a leader who for the longest time condemned the Justice Department as “politicized and in need of an overhaul.”
Among other ironies are the president-elect’s nominations, who have the potential to fulfill the threats he made both on the campaign trail and since winning the election to build a proverbial firewall between prosecutions and politics.
Those include Trump’s first nominee for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, and his second, Pam Bondi.
Add to the list of loyalists the man he wants to be FBI director: Kash Patel.
All of them are willing to bulldoze customary boundaries and back Mr. Trump’s plans to retaliate against his enemies.
Does all of this not further politicize the American justice system and cause the public to question whether there is justice in the justice system? Will people wonder if legal boundaries will be broken in the process?
Sure, Joe Biden pardoning his son, Hunter, gives Trump grounds to argue that both sides are doing the same thing.
Bernadette Meyler, a constitutional law professor at Stanford University called it “a disturbing moment for American justice,” in that the leaders of both major American political parties have now argued that the system is politically biased.
She said that the way things are being applied “suggests that there is just widespread distrust in the system and how the law is being applied, and I think that’s quite worrisome.”
The bottom line is if Trump goes through with his vow to enact retribution against those who investigated him -- and the emphasis is on the word IF -- that would mean further weaponization and politicization of the justice system.
Could the system be irretrievably damaged in the eyes of the American public? And at what cost?
Nationally respected former prosecutor, defense attorney and legal analyst Jeremy Rosenthal will join me this week on “Politics & Power” to sort things out.
Watch at 7 p.m. or 9 p.m. Tuesday on News4JAX+ or catch up any time on demand, starting Wednesday morning, on News4JAX+, News4JAX.com or our YouTube channel.