The Left’s Faux Outrage Over Settlements to Victims of Lawfare

The left, along with a couple of RINOs, successfully stopped President Donald Trump’s anti-weaponization fund for victims of lawfare. Democrat senators, along with RINO Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Tom Tillis (R-NC), refused to approve Todd Blanche as attorney general unless he agreed to drop his plans to create the fund, so he did. 

Mary McCord, a leftist lawyer writing for MS NOW, asserted that “Trump’s settlement to Michael Flynn could set a dangerous precedent.” Flynn sued the government for malicious prosecution, and the DOJ settled with a $1.25 million payout. 

But the left ignores the fact that these payouts are nothing new. It isn’t setting a precedent; the left has been handing out these settlements like candy to their cronies for years. It’s become routine for them. Blue cities forked over millions in settlements to BLM and other violent protesters. Minneapolis gave George Floyd’s family $27 million. 

In Phoenix, violent George Floyd protesters turned the situation around on their prosecution and got the prosecutor’s law license suspended for two years. The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors then awarded the protesters $6 million. The State Bar of Arizona’s disciplinary counsel acknowledged that the protesters marched in the middle of the streets, moved traffic barricades into the street, carried umbrellas to shield their behavior, deployed at least two smoke bombs and flashed lights at the police. One carried firearms. Officers ordered them to disperse, and when they refused, arrested 18 of them. 

Similarly, when Joe Arpaio was the Maricopa County Sheriff, the county paid out $475,000 to pro-illegal immigration activists who were arrested for disorderly conduct and briefly incarcerated for a few hours. 

Former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas attempted to prosecute Maricopa County Supervisors for corruption several years ago. One of them, Don Stapley, raised about $140,000 for a campaign where he had no opponent, then spent most of it on personal and luxury items, including expensive stereo equipment, three vacations for his family and pricey women’s clothing from New York City boutiques. However, since Thomas was an ardent conservative, the leftist State Bar of Arizona disbarred him, and the judges wouldn’t allow the prosecutions to proceed. The supervisors awarded Stapley $3.5 million of taxpayers’ money over the “stress” of being prosecuted and another supervisor $975,000.

Spending campaign money on personal expenses should result in severe penalties. In contrast, when former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. spent $750,000 raised for his campaign on unauthorized expenses, he was sentenced to 30 months in prison. At least Jackson had an opponent, so he needed to raise money. Cook County used to be considered the most corrupt county in the country, but perhaps Maricopa County is now. In 2014, around when much of this corruption was taking place, Arizona was ranked the number one state in the country for corruption.

Leftists in office claim that settlements save taxpayers the costs of full-blown trials. But what they won’t tell you is that their corrupt cronies would likely LOSE at trial. It is common knowledge that a large settlement almost always costs taxpayers more than simply defending the case and winning, because the payout to the plaintiff is usually far bigger than the extra litigation expenses the government would have incurred by continuing to trial.

When these left-wing activists actually go to trial, they lose. Melina Abdullah, the co-founder of Los Angeles Black Lives Matter, sued Los Angeles for wrongful arrest. Abdullah was arrested during a Los Angeles Police Commission meeting for interfering with the arrest of a BLM activist who threw a powdery substance at the chief of police. Abdullah went to trial and lost, because the jury found the arrest was supported by probable cause. A short two-day federal civil trial defended primarily by city attorneys would typically cost taxpayers in the low tens of thousands of dollars for staff time and incidental expenses, far less than the high-profile settlements usually awarded to left-wing activists.

Trump’s anti-weaponization fund would have compensated many victims of lawfare who didn’t engage in violence, unlike the violent rioters the left pays off. These are people like Trump’s former attorney John Eastman, largely considered the top constitutional scholar on the right in the country. He has worked his entire career to become one of the most revered figures in the country, only to have it all destroyed with lawfare. The California Supreme Court disbarred him, and leftist Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes is prosecuting him over his work combating wrongdoing in the 2020 election. 

Eastman’s finances are drained, and he has been forced to operate in constant fundraising mode in order to pay his attorneys. He fled California, but the left found him anyway in New Mexico, protesting outside his home and putting spikes in his driveway.

The highly publicized lawfare against conservatives has ruined their careers. Disbarred conservative lawyers can no longer make a high enough income to pay back their law school loans. Whereas the disreputable violent protesters on the left are nobodies who will have no problem continuing in their jobs as Uber drivers, Amazon warehouse workers or living in their parents’ basements. The payouts serve no purpose other than to reinforce their crazy views and mental illnesses, encouraging them to continue engaging in violence. 

The left gives out these huge settlements purely in order to make the right look bad. They don’t actually care about the violent rioters, who are mostly lowlifes who will just squander the money.  

Claiming that settlements to victims of lawfare is something novel is typical of how the left operates. They ignore history and pretend things never happened in order to bolster their arguments — what they’re currently doing now with communism. They act like they haven’t been handing out these settlements for years, but thanks to AI, it is now much easier to refute their lies.

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