Nelson is a retired attorney and served as an associate justice of the Montana Supreme Court from 1993 through 2012.
An article caught my eye, and at first I read it as a simple news item, probably of not much interest to most people.
That is, until the irony hit me.
Here’s the story, as reported by CNN on Jan. 29:
The man who stole and leaked former President Donald Trump and thousands of others’ tax records has been sentenced to five years in prison.
[The 38-year-old defendant] pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized disclosures of income tax returns. According to his plea agreement, he stole Trump’s tax returns along with the tax data of “thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people,” while working for a consulting firm with contracts with the Internal Revenue Service. ...
Judge Ana Reyes highlighted the gravity of the crime, saying multiple times that it amounted to an attack against the US and its legal foundation.
“What you did in attacking the sitting president of the United States was an attack on our constitutional democracy,” Reyes said. “We’re talking about someone who ... pulled off the biggest heist in IRS history.”
The judge compared the defendant’s actions to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, saying, “your actions were also a threat to our democracy.”
The defendant, Charles Littlejohn, accepted responsibility: “My actions undermine the fragile faith” in the government.
So, the defendant committed a crime (and tried to cover it up), was caught, accepted responsibility for his conduct, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to serve five years in prison.
Yes, justice was served. But here’s the irony.
As reported in various media, Donald Trump purloined and willfully retained hundreds of classified documents from the federal government when he left office in 2021, and then conspired to prevent their return to U.S. officials. These records contained national defense information, including a “plan of attack” prepared by the Pentagon that he shared with a publisher and writer. A month or so later at his Bedminster golf club, Trump showed a representative of a political action committee “a classified map related to a military operation.”
Trump was charged with over 30 felony counts of willful retention of national defense information, a violation of the Espionage Act. The charges are based on documents that the government says contain classified information ranging from top secret to secret, the two highest classification levels for national security information. Also charged was Trump’s valet, Walter Nauta, who faces several of the same charges as his boss, with whom he allegedly conspired to keep classified records and hide them from a federal grand jury.
Trump (who has been accused of instigating the Jan. 6 insurrection) has called the charges a “witch hunt.” He has never accepted responsibility for his conduct — the same sort of conduct that has landed military personnel and civilians in prison. And the judge in charge of Trump’s case (whom he appointed to the bench) has seemingly done everything possible to delay the trial and favor Trump over the government prosecutors.
The rule of law should apply equally to all who violate it. But, obviously, it doesn’t. Steal from the wealthy, you get nailed; if you’re wealthy and steal, well, that’s a witch hunt.
Abraham Lincoln believed that unpunished willful and repeated violations of the rule of law would destroy democracy. To protect the rule of law and support the Constitution was a sacred obligation of every citizen.
Indeed, Lincoln called for Americans to exercise “general intelligence, sound morality, and in particular, a reverence for the constitution and laws.”
He added” “Let reverence for the laws ... become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.”
In other words, no different rules for different folks.
An Independent Voter's Perspective on Current Political Divides
In the column, "Is Donald Trump Right?", Fulcrum Executive Editor, Hugo Balta, wrote:
For millions of Americans, President Trump’s second term isn’t a threat to democracy—it’s the fulfillment of a promise they believe was long overdue.
Is Donald Trump right?
Should the presidency serve as a force for disruption or a safeguard of preservation?
Balta invited readers to share their thoughts at newsroom@fulcrum.us.
David Levine from Portland, Oregon, shared these thoughts...
I am an independent voter who voted for Kamala Harris in the last election.
I pay very close attention to the events going on, and I try and avoid taking other people's opinions as fact, so the following writing should be looked at with that in mind:
Is Trump right? On some things, absolutely.
As to DEI, there is a strong feeling that you cannot fight racism with more racism or sexism with more sexism. Standards have to be the same across the board, and the idea that only white people can be racist is one that I think a lot of us find delusional on its face. The question is not whether we want equality in the workplace, but whether these systems are the mechanism to achieve it, despite their claims to virtue, and many of us feel they are not.
I think if the Democrats want to take back immigration as an issue then every single illegal alien no matter how they are discovered needs to be processed and sanctuary cities need to end, every single illegal alien needs to be found at that point Democrats could argue for an amnesty for those who have shown they have been Good actors for a period of time but the dynamic of simply ignoring those who break the law by coming here illegally is I think a losing issue for the Democrats, they need to bend the knee and make a deal.
I think you have to quit calling the man Hitler or a fascist because an actual fascist would simply shoot the protesters, the journalists, and anyone else who challenges him. And while he definitely has authoritarian tendencies, the Democrats are overplaying their hand using those words, and it makes them look foolish.
Most of us understand that the tariffs are a game of economic chicken, and whether it is successful or not depends on who blinks before the midterms. Still, the Democrats' continuous attacks on the man make them look disloyal to the country, not to Trump.
Referring to any group of people as marginalized is to many of us the same as referring to them as lesser, and it seems racist and insulting.
We invite you to read the opinions of other Fulrum Readers:
Trump's Policies: A Threat to Farmers and American Values
The Trump Era: A Bitter Pill for American Renewal
Federal Hill's Warning: A Baltimorean's Reflection on Leadership
Also, check out "Is Donald Trump Right?" and consider accepting Hugo's invitation to share your thoughts at newsroom@fulcrum.us.
The Fulcrum will select a range of submissions to share with readers as part of our ongoing civic dialogue.
We offer this platform for discussion and debate.