Just A Slip?
Public officials wasted no time in issuing statements or posting Tweets following last Thursday’s indictment of former President Donald Trump…despite the fact that no one actually knows anything about the sealed grand jury indictment.
When you are asked for, or offer, comment all the time, there are bound to be slips of the tongue, or misstatements. Trust me, I talk on the radio live a lot…every day, there are mistakes given that much opportunity. The key, however, is to limit those to impromptu or live situations—not scripts, in radio, or things that live on forever, like social media posts.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…no fan of Trump’s, of course…tweeted that “The Grand Jury has acted upon the facts and the law. No one is above the law, and everyone has the right to a trial to prove innocence. Hopefully, the former President will peacefully respect the system, which grants him that right.”
I’m pretty sure in law school, I was taught that everyone is innocent until proven guilty…in other words, you don’t prove your innocence—the prosecutor has to prove guilt.
I’m under no illusion that the former Speaker tapped that tweet out on her smartphone herself…but it’s under her name, and presumably under her direction with her words.
Sure, it may have been some junior staffer with a poor education who got it wrong, and it’s just a slip. But that’s a pretty big slip, and for it to remain on the timeline long after Twitter itself flagged it as misinformation suggests something more discouraging—that either the former Speaker is completely ill-informed about the fundamental premise of our criminal justice system, or that when Trump is concerned, the only thing that matters is getting him.
Prosecutors used to object when I would tell a jury that the standard really shouldn’t be “innocent until proven guilty”…it should be “innocent unless proven guilty”. That’s because saying “innocent until proven guilty” presumes a certain outcome…and the word “unless” is far more accurate.
There is already a bias in our system, where once someone is charged we presume they did it, or did something. The Pelosi tweet is of concern at so many levels—if ignorance, how can a Speaker of the House be that ignorant…and if deliberate, it’s another attempt to improperly interfere with elections and judicial processes. And it explains a lot about the fate of January 6th defendants.
