A Democrat congressman admitted there is a “risk” that political opponents may now use the justice system against each other following the historic conviction of former President Donald Trump.
In an unprecedented perversion of U.S. justice, the presumptive Republican nominee was found guilty of 34 charges of falsifying business records in a show trial in Manhattan last week. And while Republicans and other conservatives sounded the alarm over the Pandora’s box that was just opened by the lawfare against a former U.S. president, Democrats like Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) can’t see the forest for the trees.
Speaking with CNN’s Jim Sciutto, the Democrat admitted that Trump’s trial and conviction have set a precedent for members of each party to pursue their political opponents using the courts.
“[A]re you worried about the precedent here? I’m not asking you to judge the decision of twelve jurors. They listened to the evidence, they did their work, they sent questions back to the judge, and they came to a guilty verdict. That’s how the system works,” the CNN host said.
“Are you worried, though, that this does lay the groundwork for politicians of each party to attempt to, at least, go after their political opponents via the courts?” he asked.
“There’s always that risk,” Quigley replied.
“But the opposite of that is perhaps worse,” he added. “If you take the opposite argument to, as you would, to the logical extreme, you’d never be able to prosecute a president or a former president, regardless of what their crimes are. And here, a jury of his peers decided unanimously, in rather short order, that the president was guilty.”
Republicans have blasted the polarization of the case against Trump and last week, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) demanded that prosecutors Alvin Bragg and Matthew Colangelo testify at an upcoming hearing on the “weaponization of the federal government” and “the unprecedented political prosecution” of the former president.
“Chaos is not a conservative value, and we have to fight back, and we will, with everything in our arsenal,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News host Shannon Bream on Sunday.
“But we do that within the confines of the rule of law. We believe in our institutions. We are conservatives, and we are trying to conserve the greatest country in the history of the world, and its institutions are an important part of that. Our system of justice is an important part of that,” he said.
House Republicans are investigating Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and Special Counsel Jack Smith for targeting political opponents.
The American people deserve answers, and we will not tolerate this two-tiered system of justice. pic.twitter.com/gHe5CgtsDT
— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) June 2, 2024
“So what we’ll do with our tools that we have in Congress, in the House, is we’ll use our oversight responsibility. We’ve already done that. You saw our Judiciary Chairman, Jim Jordan, issue requests for Alvin Bragg, the DA in Manhattan, and for the lead prosecutor, Colangelo, to show up for a hearing on June 13th in our Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government because that’s what they’ve done,” he added.
“And the purpose of the hearing is to investigate what these prosecutors are doing at the state and federal level to use politics, political retribution in the court system to go after political opponents of federal officials like Donald Trump,” Johnson said.
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Author: Frieda Powers
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