By Bruce S. Ticker in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
It is not sufficient for President Trump to wreck America’s legal system, but now he is extending his crusade to twist the law overseas. Last Thursday, he demanded that Israeli President Isaac Herzog pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over long-standing bribery charges, thus exposing his ignorance of Israel’s judicial process.
The president – our president, that is – tore into Herzog, who has held off on the pardon request. “The people of Israel should really shame him,” Trump told reporters at the White House, The New York Times reported.
His demand quickly raised suspicions that Netanyahu put him up to it during a visit to the White House the day before, which the prime minister’s office denied. Netanyahu also denied wrongdoing in three separate but interlocked cases focusing on charges that he arranged favors for tycoons in exchange for gifts and sympathetic media coverage for himself and his family, according to the Times.
Experts said that Herzog is abiding by a general rule that he can only pardon defendants who have been convicted, not those whose legal fates have yet to be determined. We can excuse Trump for his neglect in understanding Israel’s legal policies. After all, he does not comprehend his own nation’s legal policies.
Trump falsely accused Herzog of refusing to grant the prime minister a pardon. Herzog’s office stated, “Only upon completion of that process will President Herzog consider the request in accordance with the law, the best interests of the State of Israel, guided by his conscience, and without any influence from external or internal pressures of any kind.”
That means you, Donald, when Herzog says, “…Without any influence from external…pressures of any kind.”
Perhaps Bibi, Netanyahu’s nickname, will call upon Congress to lay off impeachment after Democrats retake control of the House of Representatives, and possibly the Senate, next Nov. 3. I’m not alone in being so confident, and I have no doubt that Trump’s prediction – that he will indeed be impeached – will materialize. Democrats have probably compiled a long list of impeachable offenses already.
Israel’s president managed to send America’s president a clever dig, with this line: “Israel is a sovereign state governed by the rule of law.”
Lordy, as Trump target James Comey (the former FBI director) would say, let us hope that America is once again “governed by the rule of law.”
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Bruce S. Ticker is a Philadelphia-based columnist.