No. of Recommendations: 12
That said, the common man sees a two tiered system and is naturally losing confidence in government.
The "common man" is being told that there is a two-tiered system. As we have discussed over and over in these conversations, there are usually some pretty ordinary reasons why different cases end up having different results - reasons that have nothing to do with political affiliation.
For example, the primary reason that Steve Bannon was charged with contempt and Eric Holder wasn't is because Bannon failed to respond to a subpoena in his individual capacity for his private-party records, and Holder failed to respond to a subpoena in his governmental capacity as custodian for federal government records. There simply was no legal basis for Holder to be subject to personal criminal liability. Yet pundit after pundit, analyst after analyst, will go out there and tell the "common man" that this is proof that there is a two-tiered system....even though a short conversation with someone who knows about these things (or heck, even a Google search) would inform them that it's not.
Giuliani is being treated exactly the same way any other party would be treated if they failed to comply with discovery. It's not an example of a two-tiered system. If the "common man" believes this to be an example of a two-tiered system doesn't make it any less false - nor does that present any reason for government to change how it treats party litigants.
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Look, there's a much simpler Occam's Razor type of explanation for much of this. Donald Trump was elected to office with absolutely no prior government experience. Almost all of his prior business experience was as the President/CEO of closely-held private companies. He's never had to deal with a board of directors - much less a board of directors as powerful and activist as Congress is to the Executive. He came into office with absolutely no background knowledge of the many, many rules that govern how public officials have to act - both the official ones, and the practical ones that help you navigate a world where most of the people you interact with and the records you generate aren't "your" employees or records, but are employees and records of the government. Not only did he have no idea where the "lines" were, he showed absolutely no interest in learning where the lines were or treating those lines as important - or hiring/listening to people who did.
That hampered the functioning of his Administration - he had numerous policy efforts struck down by the courts because he didn't understand that (unlike a CEO) the Executive has to "show their work" for new policies. And it's put him in criminal jeopardy. Cunning, experienced, and savvy political operatives who have spent a lifetime in government (Clinton, Holder, Biden) are able to get a lot of what they want done without exposing themselves to criminal jeopardy because they pay attention to what the rules are, have people around them to make sure that the rules are followed carefully, and listen to those people. Trump doesn't do any of that.
