Investigation for one thing, even a failed thing, is still useful for fishing.
Other tarnish-worthy things will come up. And the investigation process
itself keeps negativity thriving. So Democrats have been playing the
game of politics well.
The problem here is that we aren't supposed to use dicey investigations in order to go on fishing expeditions. It's against the whole idea of the law. I'm not sure it's not downright unconstitutional, frankly.
Something about 'the fruit of the poisonous tree...' where evidence of a crime that is discovered by doing unlawful searches being inadmissible in court?
I know that there are other examples of when this sort of thing turns around and bites the investigators on the behind, but the one that springs immediately to mind with me is the raid on the FLDS compound in 2008. I'm familiar with that because I was taking a class at the time in ...I forget the class, actually. Whatever, I ended up writing a paper on it, doing the research as it happened. Now the FLDS are major embarrassments to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints, the church I belong to. It is a polygamous offshoot, with a leader who absolutely is one of the nastiest pedophile creeps on the planet. I don't agree with their doctrine or their practices.
Just wanted to get that out there.
Well, the state of Texas Child Protection Agency got a call from a women who claimed to be calling from inside the FLDS compound, claiming that she was a prisoner and needed rescuing. As it happened, that call was really from a woman in Wyoming who had a habit of making such calls in order to get groups she hated in trouble. Here's the fun and important part: the CPA KNEW that call was phony before they invaded the compound. They knew it almost as soon as they got it. They used it anyway as an excuse to send SWAT teams, tanks, K-9 corps and snipers after the folks in the compound, and carted away all the women and children in Baptist Buses. BTW, that's the part that caught my attention. Over the next weeks and months Texas had the children separated from the mothers, claimed that 22 year old women were really fourteen and victims of child abuse, put those kids in foster care....and they used what they learned in the process to justify keeping the women in detention centers, and to gather evidence against their husbands and sons.
They kept doing that even after the courts told them to turn everybody loose and leave them alone. Their excuse for not doing so was that if they did, they wouldn't be able to fish around for more stuff to use against the group. Eventually, the Texas CPA was forced to turn the women loose and give them back their children, and almost all the evidence gathered through this process was thrown out. The FLDS women are still fighting, because the Texas CPA just doesn't seem to want to give up.
I predict, however, that every man who was indicted and convicted as a result of that raid and the aftermath will end up freed, if they can afford to kick the cases upstairs, and Texas would be in for one heck of a lawsuit. If, of course, the state legislature approves. Texas can't be sued unless the legislature allows it. Somehow I don't think, given the probable outcome, that it will.
This thing with Trump is the same thing. Doesn't matter whether you agree with him or not. Doesn't matter if you like him or not. What is happening is a real miscarriage of justice, and the Dems should think ahead. If they get away with this, someday the Republicans WILL be in the position to do the same thing to their leader. What defense can they make when that happens?