(Editor's Note: The following column does not constitute legal advice of any kind, and is not an endorsement for any political party, or political candidate, on the part of Newsmax.)
With television cameras obsessing over former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial in New York, the Florida case against him is quietly collapsing. The very prosecutors accusing Trump of mishandling documents were caught mishandling documents.
U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team allegedly mislabeled documents, removing them from the sequential order in which they were taken.
Whether this was accidental incompetence or deliberate malice is irrelevant for now.
The vital chain of custody was broken.
Judge Aileen Cannon delayed the trial indefinitely until this critical government snafu can be sorted out. The delay means there is a realistic chance that this case will not be resolved until after the 2024 election.
Liberal partisans have already accused Judge Cannon, a Trump appointee, of deliberately shilling for him. Zero evidence exists that Judge Cannon has violated her oath.
Yet the real issue is that this Florida case against Trump never should have been brought to begin with. A reading of the book "Law for Dummies" would have given anyone but the most rabid anti-Trump partisans cause for pause.
The case facts are boring, simple, and plain as day.
The Biden administration alleges Trump illegally took and kept documents that are the property of the government National Archives.
Biden’s government is charging Trump criminally for refusing to return the documents.
The government badly overreached for one simple reason: Trump insists the documents are his personal property.
This is a fight over papers and who owns them.
That is a civil dispute, not a criminal one.
The government had every right to sue Trump in civil court for the documents.
A judge could have already heard that very routine matter.
Had a civil judge ruled against Trump, he could have appealed. Yet had he lost all his appeals, he would be legally obligated to turn the documents over.
If he refused to do so, only then would he be criminally liable for defying judicial orders.
The government got greedy and skipped several key steps because they are concerned about the election calendar.
They put political concerns over legal ones.
The rest is noise.
Arguments about presidential immunity are a separate matter altogether. Presidential immunity is peripheral to the key issue in this case of who exactly owns the documents in dispute.
Trump cannot and must not be prosecuted for possessing documents until ownership of the documents can be determined. The government rushed to pursue criminal charges because they were terrified of pursuing civil charges. Trump has a very strong argument that the documents are his personal property.
A law cliche is that when the law is on your side, you pound the law. If not, but the facts are on your side, you pound the facts. When neither are on your side, you pound the table. The Biden administration pounded the table.
Judge Cannon saw through this, but the Biden administration has only itself to blame.
They tried to turn a boring administrative civil matter into a sensationalized criminal matter that never was. This was done in the name of partisan politics, and Judge Cannon properly put the law over politics.
Liberals will complain that Trump escaped on a technicality, but technicalities are the heart of constitutional law. Defendants frequently have their criminal convictions overturned due to state or federal government procedural violations.
The message is a clear one.
The ends do not justify the means.
No one is above the law, but they are not below the law either.
The Eighth Amendment to the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution protects Americans from cruel and unusual punishment.
The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.
President Joe Biden, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Jack Smith must stop trying to bring criminal charges over a civil matter until and unless a judge rules that the matter itself is criminal.
Barring that occurrence, the Florida case against Trump must permanently disappear.
Eric Golub is a comedian, author and retired stockbrokerage and oil professional living in Los Angeles. His interests include football, politics, Judaism, the stock market, and Angela Lansbury’s “Murder, She Wrote.” He has written for the Jewish Journal, The Daily Caller, and Breitbart's Big Hollywood. Read more of Eric Golub's reports — here.