On January 10, 2025 – ten days before President-elect Trump is to be inaugurated as the nation’s 47th President – New York State Judge Juan Merchan “imposed a sentence that ensures Donald Trump will be the first convicted felon to enter the White House when he is sworn in as president on Jan. 20.”
Previously, Merchan had hinted that his intent was purely political, which might reasonably have been suspected for other reasons. But aside from the short-lived publicity for the Left, including for the judge himself, what will be the consequences of this “unconditional discharge” sentencing, which involves no jail time, fines, or probation?[1]
It reminds me of December 2019, the month of Trump’s first impeachment and also the month in which the United States Space Force was formally brought into existence. Rushing to break for Christmas, on December 18th the Nancy Pelosi-led U.S. House of Representatives voted to impeach President Trump over a phone call to Ukrainian President Zelensky five months earlier in which he allegedly linked the providing of U.S. arms to Ukraine with an investigation of his leading political opponent (and son, Hunter) in the ongoing 2020 presidential campaign. Of course, Americans now know the corruption concerns which included Hunter’s role with Ukraine’s energy holding company, Burisma, were fully justified, but that is another story.
Only two days after the impeachment, in a packed, rock concert-like event held at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, the President signed the 2020 national defense authorization act, and, in doing so, authorized the establishment of the U.S. Space Force. In Standing Up Space Force: The Road to the Nation’s Sixth Armed Service, I wrote, “with the stroke of a pen, President Trump not only signed into law the $738 billion defense bill; the United States Space Force was born. Whether or not it was a commentary on the seriousness—or the lack thereof—of what had transpired nearby at the Capitol two days earlier, amid the excitement of the signing ceremony if any attendees were distressed over the president of the United States having been impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives . . . it did not show.”
The politicizing of presidential foreign policy – arguably, including irregularities – did not mean a thing to millions of Americans who understood it was merely one more attempt in the unending frenzy, first, to delegitimize Donald Trump’s candidacy in 2016 and, later, his presidency; demonizing him in the process. The vote in the House was 230-197 on the first charge, 229-198 on the second.
One representative voted “Present”: Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), who stated, “After doing my due diligence in reviewing the 658-page impeachment report, I came to the conclusion that I could not in good conscience vote either yes or no. I am standing in the center and have decided to vote Present. I could not in good conscience vote against impeachment because I believe President Trump is guilty of wrongdoing. I also could not in good conscience vote for impeachment because removal of a sitting President must not be the culmination of a partisan process, fueled by tribal animosities that have so gravely divided our country. When I cast my vote in support of the impeachment inquiry nearly three months ago, I said that in order to maintain the integrity of this solemn undertaking, it must not be a partisan endeavor. Tragically, that’s what it has been.”[2]
Recall that in 2019 Gabbard was a House Democrat. Encouragingly, she is now a key member of the incoming Trump administration.
Five years later, Judge Merchan’s decision confirms the discouraging reality that what led Gabbard to vote ‘Present’ is unlikely to end anytime soon. Leftist lawfare likely will continue to have precisely the opposite effect that its promoters intend: enhancing the status of President Trump and endearing him even more to millions who grasp that he has endured yet another instance of a corrupted system of justice engineered by those who have little respect for the principle of equality before the law in our constitutional republic.
Have they learned nothing?
But the more consequential result of all this is that it rubs off a little more of the thin veneer that separates a civilization . . . from barbarism.
Forrest L. Marion, VMI graduate (pre-2020), is a retired military historian, and author of Flight Risk: The Coalition’s Air Advisory Mission in Afghanistan, 2005-2015 (Naval Institute Press, 2018), and Standing Up Space Force: The Road to the Nation’s Sixth Armed Service (Naval Institute Press, 2023).
[1] Reuters, Jan. 10, 2025.
[2] “Statement by Tulsi Gabbard on the Impeachment of President Trump,” The American Presidency Project, Dec. 18, 2019.
