“A Man Should be Hung for What He’s Done, Not for What He Ain’t Done.”

Daniel Keith was a notorious con man and swindler in Rutherford County, North Carolina. “His biggest swindle took place in 1879 when he took a sixty-eight pound rock and rubbed it with brass. He sold this ‘gold’ mine to many men in Western Carolina making him one of the most unpopular men in North Carolina. Many swore that they would get even with him; and in January of 1880, a tragedy would give them the opportunity to rid Rutherford County of Daniel Keith once and for all.”

That year, a young girl was found brutally raped and murdered. Suspicion fell on Keith when “a witness came forth and said that he had seen Daniel Keith in the area and that he appeared to be drunk and belligerent. A couple of hours later Sheriff (NE) Walker contacted Keith at his cabin. He was sober, but there were bloodstains on his shirt. The Sheriff asked him where the stains had come from, and Keith stated that he had ‘been skinning rabbits.’ His story was not believed even though the carcasses of the rabbits had been found. Keith was arrested (and) was found guilty…in spite of evidence produced in the trial that there was an escaped convict from neighboring McDowell County who had been sighted in the area by several persons. This fugitive had been awaiting execution for the same (type of) crime (of which) Keith was accused.”

After having the appeal of his conviction denied, Keith “professed his innocence up to the moment” he was hanged, saying, among other things, “a man should be hung for what he’s done, not for what he ain’t done.”

There can be no doubt that former President Donald Trump is a very polarizing figure. There seems to be no middle ground with Trump – you either hate him, or you love him. Unfortunately, the people who hate the former President the most are currently in power.

One of those who clearly “has it out” for Trump is Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. While campaigning for the office he currently holds, Bragg “repeatedly touted his experience suing Trump…while serving as the state’s chief deputy attorney general from 2017 to 2018, leading to the shutdown of the Donald J. Trump Foundation and payment of $2 million in court-ordered damages…following his election, Bragg, who took office Jan. 1, 2022, again invoked his experience suing Trump in response to the stunning resignations of prosecutors Mark Pomerantz and Carey Dunne, who had led the Trump investigation until clashing with their new boss.”

According to the Atlantic News Telegraphic, “(n)o, Bragg did not specifically pledge, ‘If elected, I will indict Donald J. Trump.’ But he promised to pursue Trump and hold him ‘accountable,’ which is progressive code for going after Trump in any way possible.”

No one can say that Alvin Bragg isn’t a man of his word. As is well known, a Manhattan Grand Jury recently voted to Indict former President Trump for 34 counts of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree, a violation of NY Penal Law Section 175.10. On April 4, 2023, Trump was arraigned in New York County Supreme Court on this indictment, and entered a plea of Not Guilty.

Let us put aside the unprecedented nature of these events, that is, the fact that a local District Attorney has brought state criminal charges against a former President of the United States for the first time in the history of our nation. Let us also ignore (for now) the emotional arguments from both left and right as to whether Trump is a martyr, being prosecuted for trying to “drain the swamp” of Washington DC politics, or a villain like Daniel Keith, someone who deserves to go to jail for something, anything, just so long as he is stopped.

Instead, let us consider this case as if Trump were any other defendant accused of a crime. Objectively speaking, are there facts sufficient to substantiate the charges brought against Donald Trump?

Judge John Wilson’s (ret.) Report concludes tomorrow

Illustration: Pixabay

Quick Analysis

Putin’s Saber Rattling

Earlier this week, President Biden reversed his 2022 decision, authorizing the provision of antipersonnel land mines to the Ukrainian government. It follows an earlier Administration authorization to allow the use of an advanced American missile system capable of striking as deep as 100 miles inside Russian territory. The US election season may be ending, but both Russia and the West show no indication of stepping down the conflict. Russian propaganda continues to swell as the Kremlin increases its threats to use nuclear weapons against the West. Last week Andrey Sushentsov, program director of the pro-Kremlin think tank Valdai Discussion Club (VDC), published an article on growing nuclear tensions in the region. Official Russian language in the last few years has been threatening. Since the US election, rhetoric like that in the Sushentsov article, has approached the level of nuclear blackmail. The VDC article’s main theme centers on Russia’s intent to directly confront the West militarily if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) becomes involved in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine. “On the one hand, these threats are intended to frighten the West, but on the other, Russian propagandists themselves are starting to believe in the inevitability of escalation,” according to Ksenia Kirillova of the Jamestown Foundation. On November 11, Sushentsov wrote that “The conflict will reach a completely new level, with unpredictable consequences for Europe and the entire world.” Kirillova points out that Putin’s distorted image of the world is divorced from reality and is causing the Kremlin to issue demands that are impossible to fulfill. Financial and other Russian resources needed to support Putin’s war are growing scarcer at the same time. This week the Kremlin announced a reduction of payments to its soldiers. Recently North Korea acknowledged it was sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine as Putin is running out of bodies to use as cannon fire. The war is not going well for Russia. One question floating around the Washington intelligence community is whether Putin will act out of desperation before President-elect Trump assumes office. In recent months the Russian propaganda machine is spewing out materials from fairly reputable analytical platforms inside the country. Kirillova says that “Kremlin ‘experts’ do not conceal that such threats are only intended to break the West psychologically, as they themselves are not prepared for full-scale nuclear war.” Despite Russia’s lack of preparation for an all-out war with the West, the expanding nuclear rhetoric carries with it an increase in the threat of a full-scale war in multiple theaters of operation. In June 2023 a founder of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Sergey Karaganov, called for “delivering a pre-emptive strike of retaliation” on Poland to force the West to surrender. In the previous month, Dmitry Suslov, a direct of research programs at the policy center proposed organizing “a demonstration nuclear explosion” aimed at intimidating the West. In September, President Putin announced a reappraisal of Russian nuclear doctrine after speaking earlier in the year at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and jokingly calling Suslov a “scary person.” Pavel Baev, writing in the European Daily Monitor, says “Putin intends his announcement to mark an escalation of nuclear brinkmanship and influence the proceedings of future Ukrainian peace efforts.” Putin is expanding the list of environmental conditions that are acceptable for using a nuclear weapon and incorporating it into Russian military doctrine. Baev adds that “The ups and downs of Russian brinkmanship are disconnected from the kinetic battles of the war, correlating instead with Ukrainian peace offensives, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first peace summit in Bürgenstock, Switzerland.” Despite the increase in vitriolic language, in a You Tube video published a week before the US presidential election, Karaganov openly assured the West the primary goal of the escalation is to break the American spirit and that of the West, not outright nuclear war. By Election Day in the US, with political prognosticators predicting a win for former president Trump, Karaganov changed his tune and called for an increased role in nuclear deterrence. Kirillova points out that Western concessions to Russia are unlikely to reduce the risk of nuclear escalation. The distorted reality inside the Kremlin continues to push that President-elect Trump is an adherent of “world government,” that Ukraine will create a nuclear weapon, and Russia must prepare for a nuclear conflagration to achieve its ambitions for a new world order. President-elect Trump has indicated he will not agree to concessions that destabilize Europe, the Middle East or other regions. Going forward a strong US foreign policy may be the most stabilizing course the West can count on to restrain Putin and his intent to rebuild the Russian empire. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept. Illustration: Pixabay

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