Experts who have read the indictment against Donald Trump over his actions following the 2020 election have noted the weakness of the allegations.
Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett called the indictment “an amateurish joke.” He argued that Special Counsel Jack Smith “should be indicted for stupidity” because of how bad the indictment is, because everything Trump did that he’s being treated like a criminal for is perfectly legal and protected speech.
According to the indictment, “for more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, [Donald Trump] spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false. But [Trump] repeated and widely disseminated them anyway-to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.”
Ah. So, claiming an election was stolen is illegal? Well, that’s news to me. Because Hillary Clinton has been claiming for years that the 2016 election was stolen from her. There were multiple investigations into whether Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election, all of which came up with nothing. In fact, the entire Russian collusion narrative was a fiction that was manufactured to undermine Trump’s campaign and presidency. Hillary knew it was bogus, but she spread those lies anyway. The Obama administration knew they were bogus, but it spied on Trump’s campaign anyway.
Jack Smith’s indictment boils down to the criminalization of claiming that an election was stolen, so can someone tell me when Hillary will be indicted for insisting for years Trump stole the election from her?
Does anyone think she’ll be charged for “disseminating false claims?” Get real.
Hillary isn’t the only Democrat who claims Trump stole the election. Rep. Adam Schiff lied repeatedly, claiming to have seen evidence proving collusion. Even in the aftermath of the Mueller report and the Durham report, he hasn’t given up on the lie.
Even Joe Biden is guilty of the crimes that Jack Smith has indicted Trump for. In 2019, when a Biden supporter told him she thought Trump was an “illegitimate president,” he agreed with her. Of course, Donald Trump isn’t the only Republican president Joe Biden has suggested stole an election. In 2013, he said he believed that Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election against George W. Bush.
In fact, since 2000, every single presidential election won by a Republican has been called “illegitimate” by Democrats. After George W. Bush beat Al Gore in 2000, Democrats said he was “selected, not elected.”
Related: Trump Indictments Conveniently Follow Bad News Days for Joe Biden
What about acting to contest election results? In 2004, John Kerry came close to contesting the results in Ohio based on weak claims of problems with voting machines. Some Democrats also didn’t want Ohio’s electoral votes to be counted and tried to delay certifying the results of the 2004 presidential election. As recently as 2018, John Kerry has maintained that Bush stole the election from him.
He was never indicted for creating “an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger” and “eroding public faith in the administration of the election.”
The truth is, questioning the results of an election is a Democrat pastime, which countless Democrats (and the mainstream media) have done with impunity, undermining faith in our elections and the authority of Republican presidents. But you didn’t see Republican administrations criminalizing their freedom to make their absurd claims.