How did the Bill of Rights become a hit list of our liberties?

Lawfare against Trump has violated nine of the first ten Amendments to the US Constitution

"What would Jesus do?" is a question often posed by Christians. It's a pithy way to summarize the central tenet of Christianity: people should use the actions and proclamations of Jesus as a guide to their own behavior in their everyday lives.

The reverse approach to living a life of virtue is to think about what an evil person would do, and then do the exact opposite. George Orwell wrote the novel 1984 as a dire warning against totalitarianism. Many wags have criticized bad governments by sarcastically reminding them that 1984 was intended to be a dark satire, not a how-to guide. Dante's Inferno serves a similar purpose, as he takes the reader on a tour of Hell and delivers a stern warning against committing the sins that send the souls of the damned to increasingly deeper and nastier levels of the underworld.

The Democrats have invented an entirely new “double reverse” approach to governing. They do not use a paragon of goodness as their moral compass. They do not heed warnings against committing acts of evil. The Democrats have taken the Bill of Rights, the first ten Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, the foundation of our American liberties, and used it as a hit list of targets to destroy. All but one of these ten Amendments have been violated in their fanatical lawfare against Donald Trump. It's as if a Satanist asked himself, "What would Jesus do?", and then did the exact opposite.

Top ten lists have been a popular trope on late night talk shows and are often used as clickbait on the Internet, but this is a far more serious matter. Trump has said, "They're not coming after me, they're coming after you and I just happen to be standing in their way". Once a legal precedent has been set, it can be used and abused by a tyrannical government forever afterwards. If the Bill of Rights is reduced to a dead letter, then every court of law in America will become a kangaroo court.

Here’s a list of all ten amendments, with explanations of how each has been violated:

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The prosecutors in the cases against Trump have asked for a multitude of gag orders to prevent him from complaining about legal misconduct. Several requests have been granted. In the one case where a verdict has been issued, the judge has kept Trump gagged even after the trial has ended. When he appealed, the appeals court said no “upon the ground that no substantial constitutional question is directly involved.”

The most odd thing about this sudden gaggle of gags is that these orders are usually created to protect the accused, not to protect the prosecutors or the judge or the adult child of the judge from criticism by the accused. Gag orders are designed to be a shield for the accused, but the government has stolen this shield and is now using it to defend itself. It's a very sinister act of lawfare to reverse the intent of the law, and turn a protection of the accused from the government into a protection of the government from the accused.

How can a person "petition the Government for a redress of grievances" after a judge slaps a gag order on him and threatens him with imprisonment if he speaks his mind and airs his grievances? A court order to shut up, or else go to jail, most definitely counts as “abridging the freedom of speech”.

Amendment II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The State of New York strips all firearms rights upon conviction for any felony. Most other states restrict loss of firearms rights only for certain serious felonies. Vermont does not automatically restrict firearms rights for felonies.

In the New York hush money case, the bizarre upgrading of state misdemeanor counts to state felonies based upon an unspecified federal felony had the effect of upgrading the penalties to include forfeiture of firearms rights. This unprecedented act of lawfare created a legal Rube Goldberg machine where listing payments to a lawyer as 'legal expenses' by Trump's bookkeepers somehow turned state misdemeanors into state felonies by means of a mysterious federal felony that Trump was never formally charged with. Trump will lose his guns without even being charged with the federal felony that was used as a pretext to transmogrify 34 misdemeanors to 34 felonies by the State of New York.

The judge apparently didn't know exactly what the phantom felony was either, as he instructed the jury that they could convict Trump even if different members of the jury thought that he was guilty of different federal felonies.

A crime that is conjured out of thin air isn't a valid reason to take a man's guns. Confiscation of firearms based on a case that imputes guilt for a phantom felony, without even telling the defendant or the jury exactly what crime he has been accused of committing, is obviously bogus. Trump's Second Amendment rights have been infringed.

Amendment III

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

This has, thankfully, not been violated so far. There are no troops stationed at Mar-a-Lago - yet.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

When Mar-a-Lago was raided, the FBI didn't search only the rooms where Trump’s records were kept, or seize only papers that appeared to be government records from the official archives. They went into the rooms of his son and his wife, and took items that included clothes, books, magazines, and newspaper clippings. A properly limited search would not have removed items that are clearly not government records.

More importantly, they also seized his medical records, tax records, passports, and documents covered under attorney-client privilege. The FBI took far more than it had the authority to seize under the terms of the warrant, and the seizure of his personal medical, tax, and legal papers violated multiple laws that guarantee personal privacy. That meets the definition of an illegal search and seizure.

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The key phrase here is "due process of law". It should be obvious by now that the small army of prosecutors going after Trump aren't investigating crimes first and then seeking suspects afterwards. They are targeting Trump, and only Trump. They have invented dozens of completely novel felonies that are uniquely tailored to fit only one man. They desperately hope that they can take out Trump by sheer volume of fire rather than by shooting true and straight. It's the lawfare version of "spray and pray".

The proper thought experiment to conduct is to ask the question, "Would anybody other than Donald Trump be prosecuted if he did the exact same thing?" If the answer is no, then it's not due process of law, it's a witch hunt. It's not prosecution, it's persecution.

In the case of the allegedly misplaced classified documents, President Biden and former Vice President Pence were investigated for the exact same actions. No charges were levied even when the investigators found ample evidence that they did the exact same thing.

"Rules for thee but not for me" is a litmus test that determines if a government is a democracy or a tyranny. Right now, the American legal system is in the middle of a transition to tyranny.

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.

After the trial has ended and Trump has been convicted of 34 felonies and faces up to 136 years in prison, it is still not clear exactly what federal crime he committed to get the 34 state misdemeanors upgraded to 34 state felonies. Was it federal election fraud? If so, which specific federal statute was violated?

How could Trump be properly "informed of the nature and cause of the accusation" if nobody in the courtroom knew which federal law he had been accused of breaking? There was no federal indictment, there was no federal trial, and there was no federal conviction of Donald Trump. Trump was essentially found guilty of a federal felony, of some sort, without ever being charged with a federal felony.

The judge even instructed the jury that they could convict Trump if different jurors thought that he was guilty of different federal felonies. The gold standard for conviction for any crime in America is a unanimous vote by a jury on each specific charge. For these putative federal felonies, there not only were no votes to convict, there were no specific charges. The judge set a much lower bar for conviction for Trump, and only for Trump. That's beyond absurd, it's Kafkaesque.

Trump was never convicted of violating a federal election law. Trump was never even charged with violating a federal election law. When Trump tried to get a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission to testify that paying hush money is not a campaign expense, the judge ruled that he could not offer such testimony. The "process for obtaining witnesses in his favor" was improperly blocked by the judge.

Trump's constitutional rights to a free and fair trial were not simply violated, they were repeatedly raped.

Amendment VII

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Even if we take "twenty dollars" to mean the value of a one-ounce gold coin with a face value of $20 when minted, and adjust it to about $2333 to account for Bidenflation, the $464 million dollar fine imposed by Judge Engoron upon Trump far, far exceeds the amount where a trial by jury should have been allowed. That's almost 200,000 gold coins, or more than six tons of gold.

Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

A fine of more than six tons of gold, for making a different guess than a judge when estimating the current market value of your real estate, is most definitely an "excessive fine".

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

This very general statement may seem a bit nebulous when it is applied to the specific charges against a single individual. However, "due process of law" is a phrase that dates back over 800 years to the Magna Carta:

Magna Carta’s Clause 39, one of the most oft-cited, states, “No free man is to be arrested, or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any other way ruined, nor will we go against him or send against him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.”

Clause 39’s reference to “lawful judgment of his peers” is the foundation for the present-day right to a trial by jury, secured by the Sixth Amendment in our Bill of Rights. The reference to the “law of the land” quickly became understood in England to mean “due process of law.”

The right to due process can thus be traced back to the Magna Carta, which makes the violation of Trump's rights to due process and trial by jury not simply a violation of the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Amendments, as detailed above, but also a violation of the Ninth. It's bad enough that these judges repeatedly violated the Bill of Rights passed more than two centuries ago. It's even worse that they either didn't understand, or simply didn't care, that they were breaking the rules for due process that date back to more than eight centuries ago.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

It's unprecedented for a state court to upgrade state misdemeanors to state felonies due to the commission of a federal felony, in the absence of any federal indictment, trial, or conviction of the accused for such a felony. That's an usurpation of the authority of the federal government to enforce federal law.

The Federal Election Commission, which has been tasked by Congress with investigating violations of federal campaign laws, did not charge Trump with any such crime. A former chairman was even willing to testify that payments of hush money do not violate federal election law, but the judge disallowed him from offering that testimony in the defense of Trump.

It's quite clear that both the District Attorney of New York County and the New York State courts have usurped the authority of both the federal court system and of Congress, which are specified by the US Constitution. Nobody ever imagined that a District Attorney of New York County would try to arrogate to himself the power to supersede the federal judiciary and the Federal Election Commission, but personal animosity against Trump was so great in New York that the D.A. has succeeded, at least temporarily.

Just imagine the chaos that will ensue if every single county D.A. in the nation tries to pull the same stunt in the future. Wikipedia lists 3,143 counties and county-equivalents in the USA. If this verdict stands, then each and every county D.A. can cite it as a precedent and launch legal attacks on any political opponent in the entire United States for imaginary violations of federal law. Political parties will wage unlimited lawfare against each other. They will not only try to imprison their political enemies by using local and state laws, but will also attack them for imagined abuses of federal laws. The effect would be similar to upgrading 3000 multiple launch rocket systems from short-range missiles to ICBMs, and giving the keys to launch the ICBMs to junior lieutenants.

It may at first seem to be entertaining or even amusing to recognize that our government is operating in the exact diametric opposite of the proper way to behave. After a bit of reflection, this list won't seem quite so funny anymore. There is nothing amusing about the death of liberty and the birth of a new tyranny. It is especially sobering to recall the phrase that Trump used, "They're not coming after me, they're coming after you and I just happen to be standing in their way". If a former President of the United States can't win a fight against an evil legal system, then an ordinary citizen has no chance at all in any American court of law.

The Democrats are somewhat restrained at the moment because they can't quite go 'full Satan' in an election year. If they win, then all bets are off until 2029. Any deviation from their woke agenda, even something as innocuous as reading this article, may retroactively be declared a 'thought crime' if they win, and the Democrats have shown that they are perfectly willing to abuse the legal system to prosecute completely bogus and contrived crimes.

You could be next, and that's no joke.