Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives Steve Scalise (R-La) was interviewed at Nationals Park on the night former president Donald Trump surrendered in federal court in Miami. Scalise, below in the yellow Tigers baseball uniform, claims that if Donald Trump’s name was Donald Smith, he wouldn’t be in the position he is in today — facing 37 criminal counts related to his handling of classified documents.
Scalise says he believes “most people recognize and know there’s a different level of treatment because a lot of people have just said they just want to target Donald Trump.”
Yes, Steve Scalise,
— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) June 14, 2023
If Donald Smith had taken US nuclear documents, US military secrets, and secrets about other nations' military, and then refused to return them to the government from whom he stole them, he would have been promptly arrested and most likely denied bail until… pic.twitter.com/jPmwCyGxbI
Longtime Trump antagonist Ed Krassenstein — a Florida-based self-described “independent journalist” — replied to Scalise: “Yes, Steve Scalise, If Donald Smith had taken US nuclear documents, US military secrets, and secrets about other nations’ military, and then refused to return them to the government from whom he stole them, he would have been promptly arrested and most likely denied bail until a trial was conducted.”
Krassenstein added: “Donald Smith would probably have received a lengthy prison sentence, possibly even life imprisonment, for his crimes. So, indeed, if it were Donald Smith instead of Donald Trump, he would have undoubtedly faced arrest. The arrest would have been swift and far less pleasant.”
Krassenstein’s summary has received backlash from MAGA supporters including one who claims that “in the end” Trump will “get off as he always does because at best his ‘crimes’ are paper crimes and America has always been about hustlers ‘breaking the rules’ to reach for the stars.”
Nobody has been hunted more aggressively than Trump. You know that. In the end he'll get off as he always does because at best his "crimes" are paper crimes and America has always been about hustlers "breaking the rules" to reach for the stars. You know that, too.
— Anthony Mountjoy (@asmotek) June 14, 2023
Krassenstein replied with a reiteration: “if any random citizen did what Trump did, they would have been locked up long ago.”
A middle ground, wherein politics finishes second to a fact-based consideration of what the charges entail, and what Trump is accused of doing, is hard to find.
Looking not at the political poles, but nearer the middle, GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie points out that even Trump-appointed Attorney General Bill Barr — who has historically gone to great lengths to protect Trump against what he viewed as unfair politically-motivated treatment of the former president — views the DOJ’s current case against Trump as legitimate and Trump’s alleged crimes as “reckless and totally wrong.”
Donald Smith might not fare well against Bill Barr.
When your own handpicked AG calls your conduct reckless and totally wrong, then you know you’re in trouble. This is what happens when you keep top secret government documents in a spare bathroom at your country club. https://t.co/Wmkike6cS6
— Chris Christie (@GovChristie) June 11, 2023
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