Trump, Netanyahu, and the Witch-Hunters

By Shoula Romano Horing, AMERICAN THINKER

As we watch the spectacle of Donald Trump being vilified 24/7 by the leftist media, leftist politicians, and the left-leaning legal establishment through lies, innuendo, and extreme pressure put on his associates to get them to give false testimony, the similarity to what is being done to the leader of one of our most important allies, the extremely popular Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, is startling.

Both men govern from the right and are supported by and represent those who feel ignored by most political leaders. Both men were lawfully elected but are not accepted by the leftist political establishment in their countries, who seem to believe that less-educated, lower-income individuals simply do not have the right to put someone the elite does not like into power with their votes. Hence, the nonstop campaign to delegitimize the elections of both men.

Sadly because of different laws in Israel the situation Trump faces pales in comparison to that facing Netanyahu.

Unlike the U.S. and most other Western democracies, where the national leader is immune from criminal indictment or prosecution in criminal courts while in office, this is not the case in Israel.  U.S. public policy and legal reasoning is the prevention of politically motivated investigations and the undoing of national elections as decided by the voters.

It seems that in Israel, not only can an attorney general indict a very popular sitting prime minister, but he can announce his intentions to indict, pending an indictment hearing, only weeks before the General Election set for April 9.  Furthermore, he will do it, not based on precedents established in Israel or other democracies, but make the decision based on past consultations with ex-Supreme Court justices and attorneys general he handpicked randomly.

According to Israeli law, after an attorney general announces his intent to indict, a preindictment hearing requested by the defendant will begin, after which the final decision to indict will be made by the attorney general and a trial will follow.

Early polling indicates that Netanyahu would easily win the election again and his Likud Party is leading by a huge margin.  The problem is that the timing of such public announcement will severely impact the election results by making a legally innocent-until-proven guilty prime minister appear guilty, without affording him the time needed to defend himself in a complete indictment hearing prior to the election.

In previous high-profile criminal cases, the preindictment hearings took several months and even longer.  In 2012, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman managed to avoid obstruction of justice and money laundering charges, after a hearing process that lasted over a year. In a past case against former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the preindictment hearing in which evidence was put forth persuaded prosecutors to drop the case entirely.

But in  the U.S.,  the prevailing view among most legal experts  is that a sitting president is immune from prosecution or indictment so long as he is in office. However, the Constitution includes detailed instructions about how Congress may remove a president who has committed serious crimes of bribery, treason, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, through impeachment in Congress, setting a high bar to convict and remove.  That’s  why in the U.S. a majority vote in the House of Representatives to impeach a President and a two-thirds majority of senators is needed to convict him and remove him from office.

Consequently, in the last 230 years of American history, only two presidents were impeached by the House of Representatives, Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton.

In the U.S., we have repeatedly seen Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller indict associates of Trump for alleged crimes not connected to any Russian collusion and apply intense pressure on them to turn against the President. Just recently we have witnessed the predawn storming of the home of Trump associate Roger Stone by 29 FBI agents in full combat gear with weapons drawn for a perjury charge against an individual with no record of violence who does not even own a weapon. But he was released soon after by posting a bond.

However, In Israel, the ability of the state to intimidate witnesses far exceeds that permitted in the U.S.  Israeli law permits the actual arrest of witnesses and suspects without being charged. Shockingly , under Israeli law, a suspect can be in jail without being charged for up to 75 days by lower courts , and the Supreme Court may order an extension of the arrest, or new arrest, for a period not exceeding 90 days.

In the U.S., as interpreted by the Fifth and Sixth amendments to the Constitution, and state laws, a suspect can be held without being charged only up to three days, and in my home state of Missouri only up to 20 hours in criminal cases. One of the purposes of such a law is to prevent false or coerced confessions and testimony by major witnesses or suspects.

The number of former confidants of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu turning state’s witness after spending time in detention has opened the eyes of many Israelis to the country’s broken and abusive legal system.  For example, the prime minister‘s former spokesman, Nir Hefetz, was the latest Netanyahu associate to agree to cooperate with police and turn state’s witness against him after being in detention for 15 days and being held in severe conditions, which included sleep deprivation, hundreds of flea bites and blisters, and a lack of access to immediate medical care.  In the U.S., such detention would be found unconstitutional and any testimony or evidence from such a witness would be inadmissible under the “Fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine.

In both the Trump and Netanyahu investigations, no actual evidence of serious wrongdoing has come to light.  The indictments against Trump associates have nothing to do with Russian collusion, which was the stated purpose of the Mueller investigation.  As for Netanyahu, it seems that there is collusion among police, prosecutors, and the media to remove him from office after 12 years as prime minister.  The minor charges against Netanyahu are part of the everyday political process and are not criminal in nature.  The attempted criminalization of political differences by those on the left is a grave threat to freedom in both nations — even more so in Israel where laws exist to make the witch hunt even easier and much more dangerous.

Shoula Romano Horing Israeli born and raised attorney. Her blog; www.shoularomanohoring.com ; her twitter @RomanoHoring  

February 3, 2019 | 4 Comments »

Leave a Reply

4 Comments / 4 Comments

  1. Yet another lawless act of tyranny by Israel’s attorney general: Where does he get the right to censor campaign photos. Infamous!!. Israel lawyers tyranny must be overthrown by constitutional action by the Knesset. And some legal way has to be found to remove from office, and from behind-the-scenes power, of the tyrannical, anti-Zionist lawyers, judges, and police chiefs. Israel’s survival depends on removing them from power and preventing them from ever returning to power.

    AG to bar use of photos of politicians with IDF soldiers in election campaign
    Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit is expected to bar politicians from posting joint photos with Israel Defense Forces soldiers on their social media outlets in order to promote their election campaign.
    Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also serves as the defense minister, as well as members of his ruling Likud Party and members of other parties will not be allowed to use photos with IDF troops on their private Facebook and Twitter pages. They will also not be allowed to appear with the troops on billboards, however, the attorney general is expected to allow posting photo ops on official social media platforms.

    Netanyahu meets with soldiers from the 51st Battalion on the Gaza border (Photo: Amos Ben-Gershom, GPO)
    Netanyahu meets with soldiers from the 51st Battalion on the Gaza border (Photo: Amos Ben-Gershom, GPO)

    Mandelblit has been reviewing the issue after the Labor Party filed a petition to the Central Elections Committee Chairman, High Court of Justice Deputy Chief Hanan Melcer, calling on him to prevent further posts involving soldiers on politicians’ private social media accounts.

    In its appeal, Labor said that using the army to promote election campaign propaganda is prohibited according to the Knesset Elections Law. “Election propaganda will not be used in the IDF as to create the impression that the army is affiliated with a party or a list of candidates,” the law says.

    Following Labor’s petition, Military Advocate General Major General Sharon Afek began formulating an orderly procedure to apply to the prime minister and additional politicians visiting military units, Yedioth Ahronoth published earlier.

    Senior IDF officials said that the procedure is being formulated due to the vast amount of politicians who visit IDF bases during the election season, rather than because of Netanyahu, who as defense minister is allowed to visit army camps.

    Likud representatives said in response that “The nature of the photos is informative and serves the public’s right to know.”

  2. The witch-hunt against Trump, centered on claims of Russian collusion, may have forced him to break a n important arms control treaty with Russia negotiated by the Reagan administration way back in 1987. The Russians have responded to this move by threatening to start World War III. They claim to have developed a 100-megaton nuclear bomb, which they will deploy on a submarine just off the coast of the United States. Thus the “witch-hunt” against Trump may lead to World War II as TRump is forced to prove that he is no stoooge of Russia by getting tough with it. This may be the first major war in history sparked purely by domestic politics. Also maybe the last war, period in history.

    Russian media threatens US with 100-megaton nuclear doomsday device after key arms treaty fails
    Russia’s military and state-sponsored media have reacted to the news that the US will exit the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with a fire and fury of their own, threatening to deploy a nuclear “doomsday device.”
    The US found Russia in violation of a key arms treaty, so the US scrapped the treaty and announced it would create its own formerly banned weapons.
    Russia responded by saying it would build its own new nukes in retaliation, and its state-controlled media said nuclear war was now more likely.
    Russian media also floated the possibility of launching an underwater nuclear doomsday device at the US’s coast. Experts say this is perhaps the most dangerous weapon ever built.
    Russia’s military and state-sponsored media have reacted with a fire and fury of their own to the news that the US will exit the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty), one of the last barriers preventing a full-on Cold War-like arms race in Europe — and there’s already talk of a nuclear doomsday device visiting the US.

    The INF Treaty banned land-based nuclear-capable missiles with a range between 300 and 3,200 miles in 1987 when Russia and the US had populated much of Europe with intermediate-range nuclear missiles. The ban eliminated this entire class of missiles and went down as one of the most successful acts of arms control ever.

    The US and NATO concluded recently that Russia had spent years developing a banned nuclear-capable weapon, thereby making the treaty meaningless. The US responded by saying it would withdraw and design its own treaty-busting missiles. Russia said it would do the same, though many suspect they have already built the missiles.

    Read more: France fires nuclear-capable missile in a rare show as Russia and US feud over arms treaty

    But Russia’s response to the US didn’t stop there.

    A BBC review of Russian newspapers, some state-owned and all adhering to state narratives or censored by the Kremlin, revealed some truly apocalyptic ideas.

    “If the Americans deploy their new missiles near Russia’s borders, and in response we deploy ours, then of course, the risk of [nuclear] conflict rises sharply,” an arms-control expert told one paper.

    “If US missiles are deployed in Poland or the Baltic states, they’ll be able to reach Russia in minutes. In such an event, the way Russia currently conceives using nuclear weapons, as a retaliatory strike, becomes impossible, since there won’t be time to work out which missiles have been launched against Russia, what their trajectory and their targets are,” he continued. “This is why there is now a temptation for both us and for them to adopt the doctrine of a preemptive strike.”

    The expert said the INF Treaty’s demise means both the US and Russia now have to consider nuking the other at the first sign of conflict because missile attacks won’t be as predictable as longer-range salvos from the continental US and Russia’s mainland.

    But the expert neglects to mention that US and Russian nuclear submarines can already fire from almost anywhere at sea, already confusing targets and trajectories and taking minutes to reach Russian forces.

    Read more: In a fiery warning to rivals, Putin says any country that nukes Russia will ‘drop dead’

    Finally, Russian media turned to what’s quickly becoming a propaganda crutch in communicating Moscow’s might: the doomsday device.

    Russia recently said it built one of the most devastating nuclear weapons of all time in the form of an undersea torpedo with a 100-megaton nuclear warhead that’s designed to be unstoppable against all missile defenses and create tsunami-size waves, and a radioactive hellstorm that stomps out life on earth for thousands of square miles for decades.

    Read more: Russia just showed off a potentially world-ending nuclear ‘doomsday’ torpedo that the US can’t stop

    Since they announced the weapon, they’ve already used it to threaten Europe. But now with the INF Treaty in tatters, a military expert told a Russian paper that the doomsday device could see use.

    “It cannot be excluded that one of the Poseidon with a 100 megaton nuclear warhead will lay low off the US coast, becoming ‘the doomsday weapon.’ Thus an attack on Russia, will become a suicidal misadventure,” the paper said.

    The paper also declined to mention that the US and Russia’s nuclear posture already guarantees any mutual nuclear exchanges would lead to the total destruction of both countries.

    Read more: A new Russian video may show a ‘doomsday machine’ able to trigger 300-foot tsunamis — but nuclear weapons experts question why you’d ever build one

    Russia’s Poseidon doomsday device doesn’t change the mutually assured destruction dynamic between Washington and Moscow. It provides only a way to destroy more natural life in the process.

    Russia’s media may swerve into bombast, but Russia’s actual military has already announced plans to build more weapons and extend the range of weapons to counter the US in what experts peg as the next great nuclear standoff.

    (from Insider).

  3. Just like the extremely corrupt “banana republics”…. If articles like this came to the attention of intending Olim, they would reverse course and unpack. It was corruption of this calibre which drove me and my idealistic family (married in Israel, 4 -Israeli born children) away… never again to even consider returning.

  4. An extremely well-informed, informative and perceptive article which exposes the complete corruption of Israel’s courts and “law enforcement” agencies. In Israel, politics, the “law enforcement” system, including judges, prosecutors and police, have become instruments of lawless and tyrannical power exercised by an unelected elite class. Laws adopted to enable police to extract information from Arab terrorists have been abused to persecute innocent Jews , including the highest elected officers of the state, for reasons solely related to internal politics.