by David W. Marshall
(Trice Edney Wire) – The American people deserve to know the truth concerning the leaders they elect to political office. Specifically, the public has a right to know the truth about Jeffrey Epstein’s misconduct as a sex trafficker in addition to his connections with key public figures, which may include the current President of the United States. Congress just recently passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act for that very reason. Despite the public’s right to transparency throughout our government, too many individuals in powerful positions of judicial and legislative oversight will consistently choose to protect and shield Donald Trump, “the person,” rather than “the honor of the U.S. presidency.” I always ask, what would be the GOP’s response if it were Barack Obama lying and doing mischief instead of Donald Trump? Barack Obama once called it “the honor of my life to serve you as president.”
His words illustrated how being a president with integrity is about selfless service, upholding democracy, and having a duty to serve that overrides personal or family gain. Sometimes, we don’t appreciate what we have until we lose it. The current occupant of the White House has diminished the honor of the presidency by proving to everyone he is above the law. Today, the current occupant is not only an embarrassment to the office he holds, but also to the nation once considered the leader of the free world. The continued fall from grace for a man who habitually abuses the office he holds did not happen overnight, nor did it happen without help. Enablers such as Judge Aileen Cannon, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and Rep. Jim Jordan all come to mind. As much as the president called the Epstein affair a “Democratic hoax,” it was no surprise that the president’s allies followed his lead by initially resisting the release of unclassified documents linked to Epstein. Nor should we be surprised by the lack transparency by the House Judiciary Committee concerning the attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Former Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith was appointed in 2020 to oversee investigations into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 loss to Joe Biden and Trump’s retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Smith’s team filed charges in both investigations but abandoned the cases after Trump was re-elected to the White House, citing longstanding Justice Department policy that bars a sitting president from criminal prosecution. As a result, Trump emerged victorious and untouchable with the help from sympathizers who played a part in successfully delaying the judicial process through legal maneuvers. In May 2024, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon indefinitely postponed the start date for the trial, citing several unresolved pretrial issues. The action, combined with her slow pace on other matters, made a pre-election trial virtually impossible.
The delays by Judge Cannon aligned with Donald Trump’s legal strategy of pushing his criminal cases past the election date, thus allowing him to use the powers of the presidency to end any federal prosecutions against him. The Trump-appointed judge would later dismiss the entire indictment against Trump, ruling that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional. Whatever happened to justice being blind?
When the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Jack Smith about his prosecution of Trump, Chairman Jim Jordan refused to hold a public hearing, which Smith had sought. During the closed-door hearing, Smith told the lawmakers that his team of investigators “developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that President Donald Trump criminally conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin, sarcastically said the Republican majority “made an excellent decision” in not allowing Smith to testify publicly “because had he done so, it would have been absolutely devastating to the president and all the president’s men involved in the insurrectionary activities” of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Jim Jordan as Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Aileen Cannon as a sitting U.S. District judge, exemplify a broken system where they wrongfully used their judicial positions to shield a treasonous official from public exposure and scrutiny.
Jordan and Cannon showed that their alignment with Trump is not only partisan loyalty. They each share a sense of corrupt behavior that transcends upholding the law and justice. They each share a moral decay of patriotism where they fail to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and in this case, domestic. Unfortunately, the executive, judicial, and legislative branches are filled with Jordan and Cannon-type loyalists. This will not go away when Trump leaves office. Turning Point USA, founded by the late Charlie Kirk, has created a movement that invests in the next generation of conservatives.
“The last thing [Kirk] charged us to accomplish was to completely dominate American culture once and for all by putting Club America chapters in 20,000 high schools all over the country,” said Josh Thifault, a senior director at TPUSA and TPUSA Action. Turning Point chapters organize around conservative principles by promoting issues ranging from voter registration, free speech, and gun access, according to USA Today. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group that tracks extremism, describes Turning Point as an organization with a strategy of sowing fear that white supremacy is under attack. Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters announced plans to establish Turning Point USA chapters in every high school in the state. Walters said it would counter “radical leftist teachers unions” and their woke indoctrination. Republican officials in the states of Texas, Tennessee, and Florida are doing the same partnership. This is essentially political multiplication where the future political and cultural landscape is guaranteed to be dominated by future Jim Jordans and Aileen Cannons.
David W. Marshall is the founder of the faith-based organization, TRB: The Reconciled Body, and the author of the book “God Bless Our Divided America.”
