Our local paper had a political cartoon today with a dude exclaiming to his wife:

“Just think — if Donald Trump can be indited for misappropriating funds to pay hush money to a porn star he slept with while his wife was home with their newborn baby … WHAT’S TO PREVENT THAT FROM HAPPENING TO *ME*?”

And the cartoon answer? “Me, dear. Me, and the second amendment.”

But that skips the reality of the potential charge — what’s to stop that from happening to you? Are you running for office and getting undocumented campaign contributions to pay someone off? Are you misappropriating business funds (and falsifying records to cover up the misappropriated funds)? If not … then you CANNOT misappropriate funds (and lie about it) full stop. For the small percentage of Americans for whom the answer is “why, yes I am running for office”? Then the answer is YOU. Make your bribe and extortion payments from YOUR money. Dude isn’t being investigated for making a hush money payment. He’s being investigated for falsifying business records so he could use that for a hush money payment. He is being investigated for receiving illegal campaign contributions.

On a similar thought, I am certain Republican governors (attorney generals, district attorneys) are going to start threatening to prosecute former Democratic presidents. And, if they have jurisdiction and a real crime? Good for them! If Arkansas wants to finally investigate things like Clinton using the state cops to cover up his affairs? It’s about time! Because, unlike the quippy comments about unjustified political persecutions want you to think … Trump lived in New York for a very long time. If he committed crimes there, it’s reasonable for law enforcement in that area to investigate it. Just like it’s reasonable for the state of Arkansas to investigate things Clinton did while he lived there. It is, however, not reasonable for, say, the state of Texas to try arresting Biden for federal laws that they don’t like or things he did in Delaware. That would be political persecution.

The hush money thing reminds me of an experience I had early in my career — the company had a lot of rules around spending money, and there were employees who decided to exploit those rules. There were some things you could “expense” — basically use the corporate AmEx to cover & never have to account for. A local manager had an agreement with a supplier to submit invoices for items that qualified for expense purchasing — “LAN Cables”, “CD-R Media” — in spite of the fact he was actually picking something else up. I was sent to pick up the handheld radios he ordered, and I couldn’t because the invoice they wanted me to sign was for cat6 cables. I wasn’t trying to make a moral stand (at the time, I didn’t realize there was a moral stand to take) … I just didn’t see how I could submit an expense report with a receipt that didn’t match up with what we were purchasing. The manager explained it to me … and, yeah, I refused to partake in that scheme. I’m sure he sent someone else to subvert company purchasing policies for him. But he wasn’t the manager for long after the lies were discussed with his manager — a new site manager was brought in & they discovered that the office had purchased tens of thousands of dollars of “fun stuff” — pool table, big screen TV, sofas, alcohol — and outfitted a hidden room in the warehouse. Employees were taking computers, TVs, etc home too. None of those people were fired for buying a TV or computer — they were fired for stealing from their employer and falsifying purchase records. And it might have been possible for an over-zealous prosecutor to attempt to charge the company (or the company execs) with falsifying business records. There were falsified business records. But the company, and it’s executive team, didn’t know the records were false. The individuals who did the lying were punished, and the victims of the lies were left to clean up the mess. And that’s what seems to be happening to Trump — except he appears to be one of the “in the know” people and not an innocent employer who hired scammers and cheats.