Our legal system likes to pretend it is just.
There are entire cable channels that play variations of this theme: Cops arresting suspects, busting down doors, catching crooks… subconsciously equating government authority with power, strength, and justice.
People who watch legal dramas and police reality shows are conditioned to believe in the essential fairness of the American justice system. Wife beaters, drug abusers, and other low level offenders are paraded before the cameras as sacrificial lambs to quench a natural thirst for justice everyone possesses.
But our legal system is far from just. People who threaten the establishment are considered a threat. Sometimes those people are unfairly persecuted by American legal authorities because they threaten the class interests of our establishment. People at the top want to stay at the top. Next thing you know, someone like Daniel Ellsberg is having his psychiatric records stolen by the Watergate plumbing crew.
Ellsberg worked for the RAND Corporation in the 1960s and helped write the Pentagon Papers, which documented how the Johnson administration had systematically lied to the public about how much bigger the war in Vietnam was getting. The government didn’t just illegally break into Ellsberg’s doctor’s office to steal his files, they illegally wiretapped him, and even hid evidence from his attorneys.
After Ellsberg was charged, his legal defense was completely blocked by the judge, who ruled it “irrelevant.” This would have handed the case to the government for an easy win. However, when the judge found out about all the illegal things that were happening… specifically the break-in and illegal wiretaps, he had to drop the case. The public would never have accepted Ellsberg’s conviction at that point, the fix was so obviously in.
Something similar just happened in Chicago with onetime democratic candidate Kat Abughazaleh. She and 5 other protesters had the book thrown at them after an incident at the Broadview ICE detention center last summer. Around here they were called the Broadview 6. This was a big test for the U.S. Department of Justice, dropping the hammer down on people for showing dissent. Instead, the government, totally ate shit. Not literally that’s gross. The judge here in Chicago had to toss the case because the government mislead the grand jury. Here are the juiciest quotes collected by Ben Bradley of WGN Chicago:
Attorney Josh Herman: “I have never seen such a warped approach to a case.”
Attorney Nancy Podesta: “It was absolutely sickening to me to listen to Judge Perry describe what went on in the grand jury. It breaks my heart as a former federal prosecutor, as somebody who cares greatly about the office that I came from and was so proud to be a part of.”
Attorney Chris Parente: “You want an example of weaponization, you have prosecutors going into the grand jury targeting political candidates and political figures improperly. These guys should be exhibit one to get part of this DOJ weaponization fund.”
Prosecuting political candidates for their views is clearly illegal. That goes against everything our country is supposed to stand for with the First Amendment. But Kat Abughazaleh was a pro-Palestine candidate running for Congress. What an amazing coincidence!
Our government regularly targets people for prosecution based on their political opinions. President Trump is essentially trying to legalize this with his executive order targeting antifascists as terrorists. The idea is to make the political position of being against fascism not just a thought crime, but an actual crime. That means federal agents can start wiretapping, surveilling, and prosecuting anyone with the wrong opinion.
There’s an old gag that a federal prosecutor could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. This is because of the power our government “authorities” have to intrusively pry into our privacy until they find a reason to throw someone into a federal prison labor camp, no doubt answering customer service calls for AT&T for 10-20 years.
That’s not justice. Our legal system is a fraud. The authorities do not represent the public, which means their authority is illegitimate.
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