The "No One Above the Law" That Never Was

There are many things which will determine President Biden's legacy, including probably being the last President of our democratic republic (representative democracy, if you wish). This is the least of them:

Biden's pardon of his son erodes the rule of law, shrinks the distance between the Dems and the GOP, and objectively aids whatever nonsense Trump is about to do.

In this last year, he torched what might have been a decent legacy.

— Joe Stieb (@joestieb) December 2, 2024

The distance between Democrats and Republicans on the rule of law now has shrunk by almost one millimeter.The distance remains as vast as the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, together. Nonetheless, as this is typed, the tweeter's notion is a popular one on Twitter. A political strategist and editor of The Bulwark a conservative, anti-Trump organ, takes the same position.when she tweets (quote marks hers)

“Pardoning Hunter, who has pleaded guilty, would persuade those who still believe in impartial justice that it’s all a pretense—that Democrats mouth the words about nobody being above the law but when it comes down to it, they don’t believe it and they don’t act on it.”

Longwell has been listening too much to the lawyers, many of them former federal prosecutors, on cable news who have assurred us for several years that "no one is above the law." On this, at least, most Americans have been well ahead of the legal geniuses who either believe this or have been blowing smoke up our posterior.

Left, right, or center, people without a law degree- without a stake in vouching for the credibility of the legal system- have recognized that some people are above the law. At the least, this always has applied to the wealthy. And then five months ago- that would be five months before President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter- the Supreme Court told us so when in Trump v. United States it ruled

that former President Trump is at least presumptively immune from criminal liability for his official acts, and is absolutely immune for some “core” of them — including his attempts to use the Justice Department to obstruct the results of the election. With respect to Trump’s other actions, the court left to the lower courts much of the work required to determine which are immune and which are not. At bottom, though, the court’s 6-3 majority freed presidents to use their official powers to engage in criminal acts substantially free of accountability.

Six days ago, exasperated by the request by Special Prosecutor Jack Smith for Judge Chutkan to dismiss (without prejudice) the January 6 case against Donald Trump, Charlie Pierce wrote in part

Of course, Smith’s case against the two Mar-a-Lago orcs who did (literally) the heavy lifting in the Pool Shed Papers Case will go forward because, as we know, No Scrub Is Above the Law. Comin’ soon to the ID Network: Walt Nauta: Threat of Menace? This is nothing short of pathetic. In fact, it’s well past pathetic.

Oh, just shut up and go away, will you? Tell me no more lies about the rule of law and about how no man is above it....  Let the chroniclers write that the only people who did not lie to us about all that star-spangled folderol were local prosecutors in Manhattan and Atlanta, and a New York jury. In the name of God, go, all of you. Leave us to learn how to live under the crumb-scattering oligarchy that you have done so much to spawn. That will be the order of the American idea probably for the rest of my lifetime, and the only thing we can hope for is that it won’t always be run by a vengeful, lunatic crook. That seems to be the consensus of my fellow citizens, as expressed by the recent election results. The one thing that Trump voters and nonvoters alike have in common is that participatory democracy is just too...damn...hard. Here we are now, entertain us.

That rant applies also to the hand-wringing over the HB pardon. The idea that "no one is above the law" had been in hospice care for a very long time. Donald Trump put it onto life support and the United States Supreme Court killed it on July 1, 2024. President Joe Biden's decision about a family member will not change that.

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