He Must be Guilty of Something - Update 1

This morning on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Joe and Andrew were arguing about each other’s interpretation of the felony conviction of former President Trump by a New York court. Joe (a conservative) was saying loudly and repeatedly that the American system of justice was corrupt. Andrew (a liberal) was more measured and stated that he had covered many trials and some people were wrongly convicted and some guilty people escaped justice. He then went on to say (and I paraphrase), “I believe in the justice system – you can’t not believe in the system because if you can’t trust the system you can’t believe in the country.”

And Andrew is correct. We have to believe in the justice system because that is the rule of law. And the rule of law is one of the foundational principles of America. But the justice system is made of people and people are inherently flawed and biased. So the justice system can make mistakes as Andrew noted. But the justice system is more than just one supposedly biased judge. The justice system is more than one jury pool that wrongly convicted someone.

The founders understood that the justice system would be flawed just as any system created by man would be. Benjamin Franklin stated (paraphrasing Maimonides), “That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer.” So there are appellate courts that can correct the erroneous decisions of lower courts. The appeals process of Mr. Trump’s conviction has only just started.

The January 6th riot was an attack on the American Constitutional order. But the use of the justice system to target political opponents is also an attack on the American Constitutional order. If Mr. Trump was just another annoying New York real estate developer no district attorney would ever have brought this case to trial. This conviction is just another example of the perilous path we are treading in America right now. We need a leader that can guide us back into the light. Neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Biden is such a leader.