The new wave of indictments of GOP members has spread turmoil in the political environment of the country.
As many Trump associates have been brought to justice, now Tom Barrack’s indictment over alleged criminal offenses has further strained the matter for the Trump administration.
Barrack has become the 11th Republican political member who has been accused of a crime.
Tom Barrack, a former advisor to President Donald Trump, has been charged with illegal foreign lobbying on the behalf of the UAE.
Eleven of Trump’s men have been involved in criminal offenses overall, not a surprise considering the president who himself mobilized a mob to siege Capitol Hill, just to influence the party members later on to stop approving the commission to investigate the same.
Let’s see how the rule of law became an absentee in Trump’s administration.
Absence of Rule of Law Under Trump: When Indictment Became a Norm in the Country
Roger Stone
Roger Stone was the first person to kick off the indictment crisis in 2019 against Trump.
As he lied to Congress regarding the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 general elections, the misery awaited him.
Moreover, he was also convicted of threatening a witness over his efforts for Trump’s campaign.
According to the grand jury, Stone’s false information led to an inaccurate, incorrect, and incomplete report, resulting in a sentence of three years and four months in total against him.
Michael Cohen
Cohen has remained Trump’s personal lawyer and is serving three-year home confinement due to the coronavirus.
Cohen has been convicted of a series of crimes. First, he was involved in secret hush-money payments made during the final months of the 2016 presidential campaign to two women alleging affairs with Trump.
Secondly, for lying to Congress about negotiations regarding the Trump Tower in Moscow, he faced misery.
Moreover, he also confessed that Trump knew about the hush money, and he explicitly directed him to lie regarding the Trump Tower.
Paul Manafort
Manafort remained the manager of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. He pled guilty to a series of crimes in August 2018, including tax and bank fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice due to attempts to tamper with witnesses.
According to the federal prosecutor, Manafort tried to hide his millions of dollars, which he was paid as a political consultant for pro-Russian politicians. He was sentenced to 47 months in prison.
Michael Flynn
Michael Flynn, who has also served as a lieutenant general in the Army, remained a national security advisor to Trump for a very short period.
He pleaded guilty in 2017 for lying to the FBI about his relations and secret meetings with the Russian Ambassador and lobbying for Turkey against the interests of the United States.
In January 2020, Flynn’s legal team tried to reverse his conviction. But that effort was declared moot when Trump pardoned him in November 2020.
The same person encouraged Trump for martial law in the wake of the 2020 elections, a step that could have made the presidential transition deadly.
Rick Gates
Gates worked as a deputy chairman for Trump’s 2016 campaign. He pleaded guilty in February 2018 for assisting Paul Manafort in concealing $75 million in foreign bank accounts and lying to the FBI investigators.
Afterward, Gates flipped on President Donald Trump in the Mueller investigation and became the government’s informant to help find Russian influence in the 2016 general elections. For his attestation, he was jailed just for 45 days in December 2019.
George Papadopoulos
Papadopoulos remained an advisor to Trump’s 2016 campaign. He also pled over his false statements to FBI agents about his connections and meetings with pro-Russian individuals.
He was sentenced to jail for twelve days in October 2017, though he remained defiant about his innocence.
George Nader
A businessman and former foreign policy advisor to Trump, Nader pleaded guilty to child pornography and bringing a boy to the United States for sex. Moreover, he was also involved with Manafort for concealing money.
But after Gates’s statement, he also became a government informant and helped in probing the Russian interference in the 2016 elections.
Ultimately in June 2020, he was sentenced to ten years in jail by the court of Virginia.
Elliott Broidy
Broidy, one of the main individuals and fundraiser for Trump’s 2016 campaign, pleaded guilty to taking millions of dollars from foreign countries in exchange for using his associations with Trump for lobbying.
He was also charged for stopping and influencing the criminal investigation into a massive fraud at a Malaysian investment fund. He was sentenced to 36 months of jail in October 2020.
Steve Bannon
Bannon, Trump’s former advisor, was charged with fraud in the “We Build the Wall” campaign.
According to the federal prosecutor, Bannon, with three others, was involved in a fundraising campaign purportedly aimed at supporting Trump’s border wall.
But instead of using those millions of dollars for the campaign, he used that money to pay for his lavish personal expenses.
Final Thoughts
All Republican presidents follow the same pattern. The indictment under them is always high compared to the Democratic presidents. This makes Republican tenures full of offenses and the absence of the rule of law.
Under three recent Republican presidents, 142 people have been indicted, far more than three who faced indictment in the last three Democratic terms.
This signifies the gigantic difference between the Republicans and Democratic presidential felonies and arrests, portraying the notion that rule of law under Republican presidents is of the least importance.
Eli is a Political Data Scientist with over thirty years of experience in Data Engineering, Analytics, and Digital Marketing. Eli uses his expertise to give the latest information and distinctive analysis on US Political News, US Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, and Racial Justice equipping readers with the inequivalent knowledge.