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As whistleblowers languish in prison, allies of the national security state get sweetheart plea deals.

In other words, the FBI’s assistant general counsel had committed forgery and then committed perjury when he submitted the sworn document to the FISA Court.

https://archive.ph/lEeSw#selection-563.0-569.102

Ted Galen Carpenter

There are rising complaints from Donald Trump and his supporters that the Biden administration has “weaponized” the criminal justice system to harass and intimidate political and ideological opponents. That maneuver, they contend, is creating a corrupt, “two-tier” system with one, very lenient standard for the president’s allies and another, far harsher, standard for his adversaries.

Now, Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin has weighed in on the debate about the existence of a two-tier justice system, but she contends that the problem is nearly the opposite of what conservatives allege. “Four-time indicted former president Donald Trump never tires of painting himself as a victim. He and his supporters claim there’s a two-tiered justice system. They have a point on that score, but not in the way they intend.” Rubin notes that “No one, for example, has seriously considered pretrial detention for Trump—even electronic monitoring or asking him to relinquish his passport. He’s not getting the same treatment as everyone else.”

Both sides make valid points. However, they also focus on secondary manifestations of a politicized justice system. Rubin, for example, is correct that wealthy, socially prominent defendants have enormous advantages and are treated differently from poor defendants facing criminal charges. However, there are more graphic and significant examples of such preferential treatment. Being a loyal member of the political establishment and committed to preserving Washington’s entrenched foreign policy appears to be the most significant factor of all.

Rubin noticeably failed to mention the Justice Department’s effort to get court approval for the brazen sweetheart plea deal for Hunter Biden. Yet that episode was a transparent attempt to derail a serious investigation into allegations that the Biden family had engaged in illegal influence peddling with respect to several foreign governments. The stench surrounding that ploy was so great that federal district Judge Maryellen Noreika took the highly unusual step of declining to ratify the deal. The mere attempt, though, illustrates the pervasive favoritism and outright corruption in America’s criminal justice system.

Worse, the Hunter Biden episode is only the latest example of politically connected establishment types receiving preferential treatment from federal prosecutors.

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