Lady justice

Lady Justice is an allegorical personification of the moral force in judicial systems. Her attributes are a blindfold, a balance, and a sword. The blindfold is to signify that justice is blind and favors no one. Today Lady Justice wears the blindfold so she won’t have to see how the justice system has been bastardized by those entrusted with its administration.

If the reports are to be believed, the Justice Department has two major investigations going concurrently. Mr. Mueller was tasked with the responsibility to investigate Mr. Trump for the possibility of collusion with the Russian government during the last presidential election cycle. What that investigation has morphed into is anyone’s guess. It appears that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has reopened its investigation of the Clinton Foundation and all the implications of Mrs. Clinton’s decision to use a private internet server. We can only hope that FBI agents who are fair and impartial will be tasked with both efforts.

In point of fact Mrs. Clinton was investigated by the FBI during the months leading up to the 2016 presidential election. Mr. Comey decided early on that Mrs. Clinton’s actions didn’t rise to the level of violating federal statutes and drafted his conclusions before finishing the investigation. Mr. Comey ignored the fact that Mrs. Clinton stored more than 120 classified emails on her server; in effect making them available to any competent hacker. Comey’s logic was that Mrs. Clinton didn’t intend to make the classified emails accessible; poor comfort to the average American who didn’t intend to run a stop sign.

After drafting his conclusions, we must presume Mr. Comey directed his minions to wipe out evidence by returning Mrs. Clinton’s electronic devices so they could be lost or destroyed. And I might add, after Paul Combetta, Mrs. Clinton’s computer guru, lied to FBI investigators about deleting some of her emails, Mr. Comey granted him immunity even though Combetta admitted he lied. Comey also granted immunity to Cheryl Mills, Mrs. Clinton’s lawyer, and Huma Abedin, Mrs. Clinton’s traveling companion and advisor. After Comey took all these questionable actions, he now spends a fair amount of time lecturing anyone who will listen regarding the virtues of having great integrity; which is about as germane as Fidel Castro lecturing on the benefits of human rights.

Robert Mueller is heading an investigation into what we are not really sure. The problem is that special prosecutors have great latitude to investigate most anything they want. Whether it is within the scope of the original “collusion” allegations which was his initial task is irrelevant. So far Mr. Mueller has charged Michael Flynn with lying to the FBI, which in the grand scheme of federal crimes is akin to jaywalking; but it can be used for coercion. Paul Manafort, a former Trump advisor, has been charged with tax fraud and money laundering; but not within the time frame that he worked on the Trump campaign. These charges against Mr. Manafort are serious if they can be proven. We don’t know if the evidence is real or if Mr. Manafort is being squeezed in an attempt to get him to implicate Mr. Trump, his family, or associates in some illegal activity.

All the foregoing is, in one way or the other, political in nature and has much less to do with truth and justice than it does with scoring political points. Using the wheels of justice to grind reputations and deter the effectiveness of the Trump Administration is asinine at best, and certainly not the intended function of the justice system. The Republicans don’t want Hillary Clinton in federal prison because it would make her a martyr. The Democrats just want Trump politically neutered or driven out of office.

Representations of Lady Justice can be found on courthouses and legal institutions across our country to serve as a reminder that equal justice for all is the American ideal. Unfortunately the highest ranking individuals in the federal justice system apparently didn’t get the memo or skipped that class in law school.

If tradition prevails, those conducting a witch hunt will find a witch; the legacy goes all the way back to Salem, Massachusetts.

Have a good week. Bill Shuey is a freelance writer in Corpus Christi, TX.