Column By John Young
In June of 2004, the tiny mountain town of Granby, Colo., was wrecked, literally, by a man in a steroidal bulldozer.
Believing himself wronged by a host of townspeople, Marvin Heemeyer turned a dozer into a monster armored vehicle by which he destroyed City Hall, the police station, and several businesses. The crisis ended when he killed himself.
Watch this real-life horror — youtube.com/watch?v=qlZh9-NQEyI — and admit: What the “Killdozer” did was a sandbox fit next to the defacement being wrought by the 47th president of the United States.
We could focus on what he’s doing to the planet: climate scientists “stupid” — a tragic-comic masterpiece of projection by a rich-boy class clown.
We could focus on alliances he’s ruptured — handshakes that defined civilization since our grandfathers won World War II.
We could focus on a health infrastructure riddled with holes shot by crackpots.
No, for lack of time and space, not even for what he did to the East Wing, our focus here is what he’s done to the infrastructure of justice in America.
“I am your retribution,” he told supporters as he sought power again. What he meant: “Allow me my retribution.” And he got his maniacal wish.
With every acidic word and eye roll before Congress, Attorney General Pam Bondi made clear her Justice Department harbors no pretense of independence or jurisprudence. It is the tip of the president’s spear to attack political enemies and protect loathsome friends.
Career prosecutors wept when the largest federal criminal case in history resulted in blanket pardons for the 1,600-plus Jan. 6 goons who bloodied Capitol police and defecated where laws were made.
Then those prosecutors were fired for doing their jobs.
Prosecutors resigned when the president ordered to prosecute former FBI head James Comey, Sen. Adam Schiff, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Federal Reserve Board governor Lisa Cook. So far, judges have treated each case like the partisan hit job it is.
More prosecutors said, “No way,” and so did a grand jury, when Team Vendetta charged Sen. Mark Kelly, Sen. Elissa Slotkin, and four members of the House – each having served in the military this president dodged – for reciting on TV the military’s policy on refusing illegal orders.
Meanwhile, the president has made more than a mockery of civil adjudication. No one will ever match his record of harassing those who displease him with SLAPP – strategic lawsuit against public participation – actions.
A SLAPP is the definition of a frivolous lawsuit filed by someone with the resources to force someone with fewer resources into the costly ordeal of facing frivolous claims.
News organizations have been among his chief targets. That includes the Wall Street Journal for reporting on a certain obscene birthday greeting to good-bud Jeffrey Epstein that he said didn’t exist, but – yeah — we’ve all seen.
He’s sued The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, the Des Moines Register, and ABC and CBS. It was a betrayal of the First Amendment that the latter two settled.
The weirdest lawsuit is against the Pulitzer Prize board for honoring great reporting about Russia and the 2016 election. But that could backfire bigly.
In a free-speech fight, the Pulitzer Board seeks a trove of evidence that the president would otherwise hide, most prominently his finances. Steve Bannon once said that if the boss-man ever went down, it would be because of foreign money laundering. Go for the gold, Pulitzer board.
Several terms apply when depicting how this president has abused the courts: “malicious prosecution,” “frivolous lawsuit,” “bullying lawfare,” “abuse of process,” and “vexatious litigation.”
There is no federal remedy for malicious prosecution, but a state civil court can sock a practitioner for it.
And then there’s that other remedy. Writing in the conservative National Review, former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy – an assistant U.S. attorney under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush – said this president’s abuse of the court system could very well lead to his third impeachment should Democrats retake one or both chambers of Congress.
That’s right, Grandpa. Surrender the keys to the dozer.
Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email him at jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author.
