Recent actions involving former President Donald Trump threaten to harm all Americans. In The People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump, New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg sullied his office, perhaps irreparably. In concert with New York State Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan, Bragg not only obtained convictions against the former president on 34 felony counts, he indicted the American legal system as administratively corrupt.
The trials of Trump are the trials of America. The transformation of our judiciary into an instrument of politics will destroy vital elements of our republic if not remediated without delay.The major legal cases against Trump represent bills of attainder and ex post facto law, which are expressly forbidden by the U.S. Constitution at both the federal and state levels.
Bills of Attainder
Bills of attainder were used by various kings of England to destroy persons of high station; “attainder” references an “attainted” individual or group whose rights are obliterated. This means that those so designated may be executed or severely punished and their property seized by the state. The condemned suffered “corruption of blood,” wherein their heirs could not inherit any aspect of what had been the estate.
A bill of attainder designates the person or group to be scourged, with the bill written not to punish a type of crime but to select for destruction those who are targeted by a tyrant. For example, Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII, and her lady-in-waiting, the Viscountess Rochford,
