In any other year, the following criminal indictments, tawdry revelations and appalling scandals -- presented here in no particular order -- would have dominated their news cycles easily. But it was hard to compete with the daily twists and turns of Mueller and the feds vs. Trumpworld. Will 2019 be the breakout year for these ongoing legal stories? Wait and see!
The indictment caucus
United States Reps. Chris Collins of New York and Duncan Hunter of California have much in common. Both are Republicans indicted by federal grand juries on separate corruption charges and then, incredibly, re-elected in the 2018 midterms. In discussing charges, prosecutors always go out of their way to indicate that an indictment is merely an allegation, and subjects should be considered innocent until proven guilty. For these two indicted politicians, their constituents happened to agree. We will have to wait and see whether a jury of their peers sees things differently.
Georgia election's so-called hack
Two days before this year's Georgia gubernatorial election, the office of Secretary of State Brian Kemp, the Republican candidate for governor, dropped a bombshell. It announced that it had opened an investigation into the state's Democratic Party for what it described as an attempted criminal intrusion into the state's electronic voter registration system.
Democrats denied wrongdoing and largely saw the announcement as a dirty ploy to sway public opinion and manipulate voters. Kemp won the election, and has since remained silent on details of the serious allegations he proffered as voters were heading to the polls. Was there in fact a criminal hack, or was he playing politics with law enforcement? Watch this space in 2019.
'Spygate!'
Did the Justice Department under Barack Obama conspire to throw an election? President Donald Trump sure seems to think so. As part of his ongoing campaign of attack against our institutions of justice, the President took to Twitter and made a remarkable claim, suggesting law enforcement implanted a spy into his 2016 campaign for political purposes. "We now call it 'Spygate'," he declared to reporters outside the White House in May, adding on Twitter that his yet-unfounded allegation "could be one of the biggest political scandals in history!"
He then used his favorite social media platform to demand a Justice Department investigation into alleged FBI wrongdoing. The Justice Department quickly punted the issue to the department's inspector general, who has yet to release an assessment of the claims.
Will "Spygate" prove a bombshell in 2019 that unearths dark political forces operating in secret to elect Democrats? Or will it merely be the latest in a series of unfounded allegations Trump has thrown at the wall in hopes something will stick?
Wrestling with the truth
For Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, 2018 was a year marked by serious allegations that the tenacious politician failed to report widespread sexual abuse decades ago when he served as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University. More than 100 students have since come forward with allegations of assault by the team's doctor, who died in 2005.
Jordan has denied turning a blind eye to any wrongdoing, even as the university continues to investigate. With a leadership change coming in the House of Representatives, will the legislative body launch its own ethics investigation of Jordan?
The media moguls
Last year was a busy one for journalist Ronan Farrow, but busier still for the alleged criminals his reporting and that of other journalists helped bring down. Writing for The New Yorker, Farrow had previously reported on more than a dozen women who accused Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein of harassment, assault or rape. Weinstein, who has denied the allegations, turned himself in to police in May after being criminally charged.
While the Weinstein case was moving its way through the criminal justice system, Farrow dropped another blockbuster story, this time reporting on allegations from half a dozen women that CBS chief executive Les Moonves engaged in harassment and other misconduct.
Moonves denied wrongdoing, but was sent packing, and after a detailed investigation by two law firms was denied a generous severance package. Will these reports of high-profile people facing justice now cause other victims of abuse to come forward to tell their stories? We'll have to continue refreshing Farrow's Twitter feed to find out.
Silent coup
In September, The New York Times rocked the political world by publishing an anonymous op-ed from an official apparently inside the Trump administration, who claimed there were people secretly "thwarting Mr. Trump's more misguided impulses." The riveting piece was met by mixed reviews, with some thankful there were "adults in the room" saving the country from collapse, while others viewed it as nothing short of a silent coup d'état: unelected officials co-opting the President and threatening a constitutional crisis.
To date, an increasingly angry President has yet to start World War III, so it is possible the constraints are working, but will 2019 bring about the unmasking of this anonymous modern-day Machiavelli?
Mad bomber?
Fear spread across the nation after someone mailed suspected package bombs to CNN and to several prominent Democratic officials and critics of Donald Trump. While the manhunt was still underway, it became increasingly clear that the targets of the attack all happened to be entities Trump had verbally gone after in the past.
Once a suspect, Floridian Cesar Sayoc, was arrested, we learned that his vehicle was plastered with images that celebrated the President, raising the question of whether Trump's incendiary rhetoric was a factor motivating the alleged bomber. Will his trial, set for July, revive the national conversation of how culpable politicians are when their harsh words appear to inspire others to act with violence?
Stay tuned.
No comments:
Post a Comment