Ian Fleming once wrote that ...
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action.
Well, when it comes to attempting to use the legal system to suppress democracy, we are well past the third time with this:
And when the Left can’t incarcerate a presidential candidate, it simply prevents them from running, for no good reason, and in flagrant violation of the law, as the totalitarian creeps just did in Romania. pic.twitter.com/b9TPUwMU7J
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) March 31, 2025
Crazy https://t.co/ARqHssJMf6
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) March 31, 2025
We’ll return to the post-Shellenberger quote posting in a moment.
And this last part certainly puts this all into perspective.
Clever pic.twitter.com/rihMeWo3kV
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) March 31, 2025
Now, just to be clear, this writer is a lawyer, but not a French lawyer, nor do we even speak French, which we have jokingly called ‘Satan’s language.’ But this seems dubious as heck. Especially that last detail, saying that she won’t have to go to prison while she is appealing. According to Reuters, the prohibition on running for office stands. If they are right (and given how often legal reporting is wrong when we know more about the legal system involved, you should always be skeptical), that not only prevents her from holding the office but even running for it. Indeed, later on, we will see the claim that she has been sentenced to house arrest for two years, and that sentence is not suspended pending appeal, either, taking her out of politics in the near future.
We will note that France has what is known as an inquisitorial justice system. That means judges not only make judgments but also serve as investigators. According to one site, ‘The inquisitorial nature of legal proceedings also distinguishes the French system, with judges actively investigating cases and determining the facts.’ We are sure there are many more nuances than that, but we have never thought the inquisitorial system was a good idea.
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We have verified that each of Shellenberger’s pictures are from valid news stories, but we wanted to highlight in particular this thread that Shellenberger quoted a post from:
So Marine Le Pen is sentenced to
— Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (@pegobry_en) March 31, 2025
- "Ineligbility" (unable to run for elected office) for 5 years with "provisory execution" (meaning the sentence must be served even during appeal--inexplicable, the judge only said "it appears necessary" to impose provisory execution)
- 100 000… https://t.co/D0C1B65OgG
The cut-off text:
- 100 000 euro fine
- 4 years imprisonment, with the first two years to be served under house arrest and the remainder suspended
Why 2 years of house arrest? Is there a risk she might steal a car? The only plausible explanation is that it is to prevent her campaigning for whoever is the RN's candidate in the next elections.
— Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (@pegobry_en) March 31, 2025
To be clear, Marine Le Pen is not even accused of personally profiting from anything. The charge is that some of her aides in the European Parliament also worked for the party and not just on parliamentary work. This was a common practice for a long time and several other parties…
— Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (@pegobry_en) March 31, 2025
The cut-off text:
This was a common practice for a long time and several other parties stand accused of doing the same, including Modem (a centrist party whose leader is currently prime minister of France) and LFI (biggest far-left party). The ‘embezzlement’ charge is the idea that if parliamentary aides do non-parliamentary work their salary is being ‘embezzled’--everyone can make up their mind as to what this means.
We don’t pretend to know anything about the accuracy of any of these claims. We will note that in American law, one can be liable for the behavior of others based on conspiracy liability (when you and others agree to commit a crime together), and there are other valid ways to make one person at least partially responsible for another person’s crimes under American law, often without profit.
Just to be clear, every day criminals who steal, rob, attack get suspended sentences from French judges.
— Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (@pegobry_en) March 31, 2025
Under French criminal law, judges can decide provisiory execution if there is a risk of repeat offense, which in this case is absurd. The judge said there was a risk of repeat offense, but did not explain why.
— Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (@pegobry_en) March 31, 2025
We tend to think every actual criminal presents a risk of repeat offense, but perhaps the law requires a certain likelihood of it? Again, this author is not a French lawyer.
Marine Le Pen is set to be interviewed live tonight on France’s premier news program. Presumably this is when she will make any announcements concerning her party and her political future.
— Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (@pegobry_en) March 31, 2025
Paris, France, appears to be about six hours ahead of us. So 'tonight' would presumably be in the next four-ish hours.
We won’t go on and on about this, but we thought we would post a few more comments:
I’m curious how French globalists can defend banning people they do not like — Marine Le Pen — from running in an election somehow comports with their twisted notion that they are defending “democracy.” France is becoming an authoritarian state under Macron.…
— Matthew Boyle (@mboyle1) March 31, 2025
The cut-off text is a link to an article about all of this.
The entire free world is threatening to turn their republics into essentially a secular version of Iranian-style 'republics' where every candidate has to be approved of by authorities. Religious authorities in the case of Iran, judges in the case of these republics. Do we have to tell you this is a bad idea?
This just doesn't seem serious enough to justify the punishment handed down.
— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) March 31, 2025
It looks like they went looking for a crime. pic.twitter.com/FkR1sfq4Rx
So, let’s sum this up.
In the last election cycle, we saw four separate sets of charges against Trump from three prosecution teams, all timed to take Trump off the campaign trail during election season. Two of those prosecutions were from a federal prosecutor, Jack Smith, who successfully destroyed the political career of Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, only for his conviction to be overturned by the Supreme Court unanimously. Trump was also removed from the Presidential ballot by a Colorado Supreme Court that actively engaged in outright deception when justifying that move, only for it to be overturned by the Supreme Court, unanimously. Bolsonaro is facing imprisonment in Brazil. Front runner Călin Georgescu has been banned from running for the presidency in Romania:
Romania bans far-right frontrunner from presidential election https://t.co/LYQd3RnaNF
— Luiz (@lhgraeff) March 12, 2025
And now we have this with Le Pen. She is convicted, but while much of the sentence is suspended on appeal, she can’t run for office while appealing. And we are expected to believe all of this is a coincidence?
To quote Elim Garak:
I believe in coincidences. Coincidences happen every day. But I don't trust coincidences.
Every one of us has a point where we stop believing that a coincidence is just a coincidence. For instance, on September 11, this author remembers hearing that one plane had struck one of the towers in the World Trade Center just before class had started. Everyone in the room assumed it was just an accident. Yes, that was the same World Trade Center that terrorists had bombed in 1993, but surely that is just a coincidence, we thought. Then we heard that a second plane had struck and we knew it was not a coincidence. It was enemy action. And we suspect our experience is similar to most people who remember that day.
This author doesn’t believe these court cases are a coincidence. We believe the left has decided to try to use the courts in various countries to overthrow democracy. In each case, we are willing to bet that they tell themselves they are defending democracy.
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Editor's Note: The Deep State is working overtime to subvert President Trump's agenda and the will of the people.
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