Injustice for All is a weekly series about how the Trump administration is trying to weaponize the justice system—and the people who are fighting back.
Hell yeah, Hunter Biden keeps winning
Remember the Hunter Biden laptop guy? John Paul Mac Isaac is the computer repairman who handed a copy of Biden’s hard drive over to Rudy Giuliani, kicking off years of GOP accusations and investigations. Nearly three years ago, in a Trumpy little move, Mac Isaac sued Biden, Sen. Adam Schiff, CNN, and Politico for defaming him, whining that he was falsely smeared as a Russian agent.
But Mac Isaac’s feelings festival came to an end earlier this week when the Delaware Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s dismissal of Mac Isaac’s claims.
Mac Isaac was irate over the following comment Biden made as the laptop story exploded in 2020:
There could be a laptop out there that was stolen from me. It could be that I was hacked. It could be that it was the – that it was Russian intelligence. It could be that it was stolen from me. Or that there was a laptop stolen from me.
You’ll note that the statement doesn’t name Mac Isaac. It doesn’t mention his store. It doesn’t say a thing about him, but nonetheless, Mac Isaac was pretty sure he was the real victim here. Sure, he’s made a career out of his Hunter Biden notoriety, writing a book about it, going on Fox News podcasts, selling thumb drives of the laptop’s contents, but just imagine his heartbreak at hearing Biden say literally nothing about him at all? Mac Isaac will have to content himself with making money on the right-wing grift circuit instead. Next stop for Hunter? Continuing to laugh at Melania Trump’s threat of a billion-dollar lawsuit.
Half a billion dollars in treats is still not enough for Trump
Donald Trump ended last week with a $500 billion gift from a New York state appellate court ruling which wiped out his civil fraud penalty for his cute little habit of lying to banks—a thing which is fine and cool and good when Trump does it, but for anyone else is allegedly grounds for termination and prosecution. So Trump and his crime family are appealing his … win. He wants the sanctions in the judgment gone, because he should never ever suffer any consequences.
Of course, Trump declared TOTAL VICTORY when the penalty was tossed, which makes slinking off to the court to ask if they’d pretty please also say he didn’t actually commit any fraud even more hilarious.
Jack Smith to Tom Cotton: lol nope
Sen. Tom Cotton has always taken his cues from Trump, and makes a vicious little ferret of a sidekick. That’s why the Arkansas lawmaker filed an absolutely unhinged ethics complaint against former special counsel Jack Smith, alleging that Smith violated the Hatch Act by investigating and prosecuting Trump.
It’s so cute when Republicans pretend to care about the Hatch Act, which limits the sort of partisan political activities federal employees may engage in. Here’s a report about 13 senior Trump officials violating the Act during his first term. Here’s a whole congressional hearing about all the violations. Here’s the administration loosening the Hatch Act rules during Trump’s second term so all the goons he’s stuffed into government can wear MAGA hats. Really.
Neither Trump nor Cotton can conceive that anyone’s actions are taken honestly, rather than in the cynical, weaselly, bullying way they act. So, Cotton’s ethics complaint framed the totally normal actions Smith took as a prosecutor, such as asking the court for permission to file a longer brief or requesting a trial date, as somehow instead an attempt to influence the 2024 election.
The letter Smith’s attorneys filed in response is blistering, and points out that Cotton’s view of the Hatch Act would mean any politician could avoid prosecution simply by announcing they were running for office—which, come to think of it, is pretty much exactly how it ended up working out for Trump after all. But the mere fact that anyone ever investigated Trump’s open and obvious crimes is, as far as crony Cotton is concerned, the real crime.
Third Circuit to Republicans: lol nope
On Tuesday, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it is unconstitutional for the state of Pennsylvania to toss mail-in ballots when voters don’t include the correct date on the return envelope. Republicans have been desperately trying to suppress voting in the swing state and are fully-aligned with Trump’s unhinged war on mail-in ballots.
Judge D. Brooks Smith, a George W. Bush appointee, writing for the unanimous three-judge panel, wrote that the date requirement “imposes a burden on Pennsylvanians’ constitutional right to vote” and “culminates in county election boards discarding thousands of ballots each time an election is held. The date requirement will not protect against the vast majority of attempts at voter fraud.”
Tell that to the weirdo election denier from Pennsylvania who just landed an administration job thanks to her election conspiracy bona fides. She’s gotta be incandescent with rage.
Trump judge lets Trump do what Trump wants, as per usual
U.S. District Judge Lance Walker, a Trump appointee, helped the administration kick in the teeth of a network of Maine clinics that provide health care to low-income residents in the state. The clinics are a casualty of the GOP’s war on Planned Parenthood, with the One Big Beautiful Bill blocking all Medicaid funding to any clinic that provides abortions—despite, of course, the fact that the Hyde Amendment has barred federal Medicaid funding for abortions for decades. So, too bad, low-income people in Maine who need other health care services like birth control.
It’s not so much that Walker ruled against the clinics, but what he said when he did it. He declared that it would be a “special kind of judicial hubris” to defy the “big beautiful bill.”
Man, show some dignity and at least pretend you understand your role in the ever-eroding system of checks and balances. Caping like this is just embarrassing.