(In)justice in America

Even if Donald Trump doesn’t go to prison, it will remain an interesting bet as to how many of his so-called “friends” actually will.  Obviously, there are the household name felons like Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Steven Bannon and the rest, but forget about them for a moment.

This coming September, uber-wealthy private equity investor Tom Barrack will go on trial for his blatantly illegal lobbying of his close buddy for the benefit of the UAE.

At the decree of a federal judge:  Tom Barrack will go on trial with a (27-year-old) business associate in September on charges of illegally lobbying former President Donald Trump, his close friend, on behalf of the United Arab Emirates.  The trial of Barrack and his associate Matthew Grimes will take place in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, N.Y.

If you or I had done this, we’d need a good lawyer to get off with five years in prison.  Barrack will whine like a baby if he gets a few hours of community service.

An interesting question: how hard do you come down on Grimes? It’s reminiscent of the American movie classic “Wall Street,” where an impressionable and ambitious young person, Bud Foxx, breaks multiple laws after being introduced to a filthy rich white collar criminal, Gordon Gecko, who is no more culpable than Barrack. The film left his sentence unclear, other than what he told his agonized father, “I’m going to prison.”

I won’t moralize on the matter, other than to say that it’s shame we live in such times. It’s not easy to raise kids in a day of such conspicuous consumption where most of the crimes of the Matthew Grimes of the world go undetected and they become multimillionaires, to the envy of our kids.