In federal justice, they throw the bookkeeping at you, a time-honored American judicial tradition: If you can’t get Al Capone for the Valentine’s Day Massacre, get him for tax evasion.
The average citizen seems to have a sneaky admiration for this artful sidestepping, notwithstanding that very few individuals gun down large numbers of people, while millions of us are vulnerable to ever-metastasizing definitions of “mail fraud,” “wire fraud,” and the other catch-alls of federal justice. It’s not the crime that gets you, it’s the cover letter.
Thus, the DoJ case rests on the novel legal theory that, as the “centerpiece of Edwards’s candidacy was his public image as a devoted family man,” his “family image” and the costs of maintaining it are a political matter regulated under Title 2, Sections 431–455 of the U.S. Code. At least Section 377B of the Malaysian penal code is about sodomy, and nothing but.
If the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 now covers “family image,” what doesn’t it extend to? So John Edwards “broke” a “law” that neither he nor anyone else knew existed. Which it didn’t, until he came along.
Edwards now faces 30 years in jail, for the crime of getting a couple of pals to pay for his baby’s diapers.
***
Indeed.
Received wisdom never fails to bore me.
I never understood why we’re all supposed to “oooh and ahhh” over the “Capone tax evasion” thing.
Whatever your opinion of Prohibition, Al Capone obviously murdered dozens of people and nobody disputed that, even Capone.
If you can’t get Al Capone for murder, then you are incompetent.
So the Chicago police force was corrupt; fix the Chicago police department first.
What’s the big whoop about locking up one criminal when you’ll still have hundreds of them armed, in uniform, on the public payroll?
It’s like the idiotic faux-wisdom:
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
The best example is supposedly that we allied with the Soviets to defeat the Nazis.
Do you really think that — barring a phone call from FDR or something — the USSR would NOT have fought to the last man to defeat the Nazis, given that Hitler was trying to take over their country, and the Russians are notorious mo-fos who will f*cking kill you and your pets and burn down your house?
This — besides all the yelling — is the main reason I don’t do TV panels anymore.
Inevitably, some doofus mentions “When I’ve lost Cronkite…” or “follow the money” or the Kennedy-Nixon debate and I have to sigh:
“No, actually…”
And everybody’s mad at me for ruining the three minute segment.
Worse, I leave exhausted and irritated from having to interact with idiots other humans.
