The Wall Street Journal editorial board has gone over the top with their defense of Trump.
Here is the link. I’ll include a few quotes for those who can’t get past the paywall.
Democrats have long sought an indictment related to Jan. 6, but on that score what’s striking is what’s not in the 45-page document. There is no evidence tying Mr. Trump to the Oath Keepers or Proud Boys who planned to, and did, breach the U.S. Capitol that day. That was the worst offense against democracy, and more than 1,000 people have been prosecuted in connection with it.
What Democrats want is irrelevant to what crimes Jack Smith should or shouldn’t charge Trump with. If he has no evidence of direct communication with Proud Boys, then he did the right thing by not alluding to them as co-conspirators.
And Trump’s worst offense against democracy was (1) his desire to overturn the election instead of accepting the results and (2) his actions toward that end that almost succeeded. The Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were guilty of seditious conspiracy, but they might not have ever been discovered if Trump hadn’t (generically) invited them to DC for a “wild” January 6.
The Editorial Board goes on ...
Instead the indictment charges one obstruction and three conspiracy counts related to what it claims was a broad effort to overturn the 2020 election based on “dishonesty, fraud, and deceit.” …
Mr. Smith’s theory seems to be that if a President and his “co-conspirators” are lying, and then take action on that lie, they are defrauding the U.S.
This potentially criminalizes many kinds of actions and statements by a President that a prosecutor deems to be false. You don’t have to be a defender of Donald Trump to worry about where this will lead. It makes any future election challenges, however valid, legally vulnerable to a partisan prosecutor. <emphasis mine> And it might have criminalized the actions by Al Gore and George W. Bush to contest the Florida election result in 2000.
Our legal counselors also point to Nixon v. Fitzgerald, a 1982 Supreme Court ruling that the President “is entitled to absolute immunity from damages liability predicated on his official acts.”
They are basically saying this prosecution (if successful) will strip the Presidency (i.e. all future presidents) from its immunity against frivolous prosecution.
WRONG. They are offering readers a false dilemma (black or white). They are implying is that either the President is King (no checks on his power) or the President is impotent. They offer no middle ground where the President has all the normal powers he/she needs to benefit our country - but he/she can be still be held accountable for criminal actions.
It also appears that the WSJ editors are fonder of lying than they are of democracy. Jack Smith admits that lying about politics is protected speech — but his admission carries undertones of sorrow and resignation. The WSJ editors seem to believe lying must be protected in a democracy at all costs — even it comprises an integral part of an illegal conspiracy to undo the framework of the democracy itself.
WSJ editors are political hacks just like the Fox News anchors.