‘Therein is the most dangerous power of the prosecutor: that he will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted.’Of late, several local cases have aroused disquiet amongst the public as to whether the moral ground our lawmen in suits stand on are still of solid construct. Most Singaporeans had some misgivings in 2017 when Lucien Wong was appointed the chief lawmen of the land. The theft of some documents in his younger days, a felony no doubt, and for which no action was taken by anyone that mattered, no Law Society meeting, no Tribunals, no nothing, was a character flaw that somehow has freedom of passage in the corridor of power. His coming to the AG's office from his role as personal lawyer of the Prime Minister, was accompanied by a silent trepidation the holy grail of prosecutorial integrity is slipping further away for politically tainted cases.
Robert Jackson
Recently I have had some digital exchanges with an opposition party volunteer worker. He is just a social media pal who seemed a pretty brave and patriotic soul. I think we share same fanatical hatred for injustices and so we had our petty exchanges to past time. Given his stand on fighting injustices, I was stunned when he was adamant in his anti-Trump stand, especially pertaining to the indictment by NY DA Alvin Bragg. Throughout our exchanges I presented legal arguments while he was merely lambasting the Orange Mop. The irony not apparent to him was the injustice of a political prosecution against the man who is a very strong contender for the next presidential election 2024. Bragg's action amounted to election interference.
There are 2 things that always happen in social media arguments. Goodwin's Law prevails. As an online discussion grows longer (regardless of topic or scope), the probability of a comparison to Nazis or Adolf Hitler approaches 1. Thank goodness my Facebook pal didn't go there. But he called me what every Trump-hater will call someone who cannot out argue a conservative view. A Qanon lover. I have been called this many times before as I had lots of discourse with many folks who are liberal and progressive Left.. This is distasteful because I am actually the opposite of that accusation. Qanon to me is pure nonsense. In fact, I think it might be a Liberal's conspiracy to create a trap for conservative arguments.
There is no leading constitutional attorney in practice and academia that has spoken out in favour of Bragg. Certainly, Hillary Clinton is cheering Bragg on. In her interview with Nancy Pelosi, an esteemed lawyer herself, Clinton made no effort to correct Pelosi who said Trump has his right to a fair trial where "he can prove his innocence". Democrats have turned the US justice system on its head.
The same case had been investigated by the FEC (Federal Election Commission) and the DOJ and both never proceeded with indictment because there was no case.We know Alvin Bragg's case is so weak and ludicrous when prominent Trump-haters ex-US AG William Barr, ex NY governor and ex NY AG Democrat Andrew Cuomo, and the RINO of RINOs Mitt Romney, all who have no love loss for Trump, condemned the shit show. A further confirmation is reports from several liberal anti-Trump media that ridiculed the flimsy charge sheet.
There are so many things going against the case. First and foremost, it is statute barred, outside of time limitation. Trump legally has nothing to do with the Trump organisation. To avoid a conflict of interest situation, Trump had divested management of the organisation to a Trust when he became president in 2017. The payments were made in 2017 could not have influenced the 2016 election. Bragg is out of jurisdiction in trying to charge Trump for a federal offence.
The real felony that needs to be investigated in the case is the DA himself who leaked information of the sealed indictment to the press. Bragg's use of federal funds to investigate a state case may be his downfall. This opens up his office to Congressional inquiry. The Committee on Judicial Oversight wants to understand what happened here. Of course the Republican congress wants to know who is behind the move to influence election 2024.
Bragg is one of the thousands of DAs that George Soros have placed in offices all across the US. These progressive DAs is the Trojan Horse of the Left that is responsible for the violent carnage all over the country as the natural outcome of their soft-on-crime policies. Bragg and fellow leftist DA Letitia James came to office on a platform of "Get Trump". They had no evidence. Just follow the mantra of Lavrentiy Beria, head of Joseph Stalin's secret police - “Show me the man and I'll show you the crime”. If one wonders why Bragg is going ahead with the case against Trump after he had initially dropped it when he assumed office, the answer is simple. Follow the money. Bragg received campaign funds of US$1m from Soros. The philanthropy capitalist now holds him to deliver.
Trump was arraigned in a DC court on Apr 4. There was no public mug shot, no handcuffs, no jail, and the judge did not put a gag order on Trump. It was a great disappointment for the liberal New Yorkers and leftist partisan hacks of CNN, MSNBC, NY Times etc, they did not get the spectacle they fantasised since 2016. So, unlike Pilate, the court did not give way to the crowd. That much to credit for.
Nevertheless, Trump will loose in a DC court played out by partisan leftist prosecutors, partisan liberal jurors and a partisan Obama appointed judge. A two-tiered judicial system under the Biden administration assures no conservative will ever get a fair trial in a predominantly liberal DC with progressive DAs. In the Special Counsel John Durham's prosecution of Trump-hater Andrew Weissman, the defendant had basically admitted guilt, but DC jurors found him not guilty. Conservatives all want their cases to get it over with at the lower courts so they can move faster to the Higher Courts where they get a better shot at a fair hearing..
To bring the story home, let me narrate a local anecdote, one in which I need to tread with the utmost circumspect. Glenn Knight was once a much feared crime buster who ran the CAD which is the Singapore white collar crimes investigation agency. He acted as deputy public prosecutor for several high profile cases in the good old days. His star was shining extremely bright. Then suddenly on 23 Mar 1991, a bombshell development. He was replaced as CAD director and Singapore was told Knight was under investigation by CPIB. The events that followed proceeded at a heady speed. 27 May arrested, Sept trial commenced, in Sept he pleaded guilty, Oct he was sentenced to 3 months imprisonment. There were 2 basic charges. One was an investment scam in that he tricked 3 persons to invest in his project. The other was about providing false information for an employee car loan. Only fools will wade into the muddy waters and discuss the investment scam. It's complicated and I'm not a fool. But if my memory serves me right, the investment charge sort of faded away. He was caught on the car loan. It had something to do with car sales practice of how invoices were presented without showing discounts. He presented the invoice to obtain the staff loan. A touchy technicality that was argued against the defendant. On his appeal in Mar 1992 his sentence was reduced to 1 day's jail and a fine of $17,000.
How hard the mighty fell. No more public offices for him. Knight was dis-barred but managed to secure a job as consultant to a public-listed company. But life was not going to be easy for him. In 1998 he was charged with CBT, for misappropriating $4,200 during his time in office in CAD in 1991. Some murkiness here. It was a charge based on an unnamed tipoff, the amount misappropriated beggars the imagination that a director of a crime busting agency stood so low, and Knight claimed no money was lost. I'm just guessing Knight knew what he was up against. He pleaded guilty and got a $10,000 fine and another day in jail. But this time, he lost his consultancy job and his life went downhill. He was practically unemployable.
The speed of the case and the light sentence is open to speculation. Some dark alley conversation tried to connect the dot to a secret investigation Knight conducted in 1990. Knight had sent a couple of CAD officers to the Land Of The Rising Sun to check out a disturbing matter that was brought to his attention. I cannot proceed further than this and have to advise it is all heresay, albeit from folks I trust.
In 2007 Knight applied successfully for his re-instatement as a lawyer. Shanmugan was a great help by providing his recommendation. Was it possible he sensed some injustice done and wanted to help right a wrong? The following year 2008, Shanmugan became Law Minister. Now sitting on the other side of the table, sensibilities how they change a man.
In my previous blog on LKY's last will I reminisced national service days "when the brass is out to get you, there is no escape route. You fall in line with the best polished boots, well-pressed uniforms, clean-shaven, all ready for inspection, and the brass will zoom in on one single button that showed a tiny frayed thread protruding out". Gotcha! Trump's bookkeeping vouchers are definitely the frayed thread that DA Alvin Bragg found. It looked like Knight too showed some frayed threads from his buttons.
We have to be thankful Singapore courts have not succumbed like the American institutions. Prosecutorial integrity is a holy grail, a never-ending self-seeking journey. None has articulated more powerfully than Robert Houghwout Jackson (1892 – 1954). Jackson was an American lawyer, jurist, and politician who has served as Solicitor General, US Attorney General and Associate in SCOTUS. Most notably is his role as Chief US Prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials. In his speech to US attorneys in 1940 he said :
‘If the prosecutor is obliged to choose his cases, it follows that he can choose his defendants. Therein is the most dangerous power of the prosecutor: that he will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted. With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him. It is in this realm—in which the prosecutor picks some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass, or selects some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an offense, that the greatest danger of abuse of prosecuting power lies. It is here that law enforcement becomes personal, and the real crime becomes that of being unpopular with the predominant or governing group, being attached to the wrong political views, or being personally obnoxious to or in the way of the prosecutor himself.’
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