"What's wrong with a little revenge?"
That's what Mick Mulvaney, former President Donald Trump's one-time acting White House chief of staff—who consumer advocate Ralph Nader once described as the twice-impeached Republican's "sadist-in-chief"—asked Tuesday in a Hill opinion column suggesting that there would be nothing unseemly if his ex-boss is reelected and decides to embark on a campaign of retribution targeting Democrats.
"Would any investigation by the next Trump administration, or by an assertive state attorney general, constitute 'revenge'? Or would it simply be applying the exact same standard to Democrats that they have applied to Donald Trump?" he asked.
"Here is my question: What is the difference between 'payback' or 'a revenge-a-thon' and simply applying the same standards to other elected officials that have now been applied to Trump?" Mulvaney wrote.
"Put another way: Now that Democrats in law enforcement have established a new standard for what justifies a criminal indictment of a former elected official or a current candidate for office, what is wrong with having Republican law enforcement apply those exact same standards to Democratic officials and candidates?" he added.
Mulvaney continued:
Don't get me wrong. I abhor the fact that the standard for pursuing government leaders has been lowered so dramatically. I cringe at what precedents Trump Derangement Syndrome is bringing to our politics and civic institutions. I am extraordinarily worried over the Machiavellian trails the left is blazing in order to 'get Trump.'
But they have set the standard now. They lowered the bar. It is now not only acceptable but praiseworthy to charge a former president of the United States with 34 felonies for a bookkeeping discrepancy of which he may not even have been fully aware.
It's not just the 34 felonies in connection with hush money payments to cover up alleged extramarital affairs for which Trump was found guilty last month by a New York jury his legal team helped select. The presumptive 2024 GOP nominee also faces 54 additional federal and state criminal charges over his alleged mishandling of classified documents—including at least one file related to a foreign nation's nuclear capabilities—and his role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election and fomenting the January 6 Capitol insurrection.
Trump argues that he should be shielded by presidential immunity from charges in the election cases. A ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court—to which he appointed three of the six right-wing justices—is forthcoming.
Last week, a Georgia appeals court paused proceedings in the election interference case against Trump and other defendants until an appellate panel determines whether the prosecuting district attorney should be disqualified for an alleged conflict of interest.
Trump has attempted to brush off last month's conviction by disparaging the prosecution and jury and declaring that the "real verdict is going to be November 5 by the people," a reference to Election Day.
The former president also raised eyebrows last week by threatening to imprison political opponents including the president, First Lady Jill Biden, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Last November, Trump was accused of using Nazi rhetoric when he vowed to "root out" those he described as "radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country" if he's elected this year.
Republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
