Opinion | The author's opinion does not necessarily reflect Sarah Palin's view.
Elon Musk criticized the guilty verdict against former President Donald Trump in a New York criminal case, arguing it undermines faith in the legal system.
Musk said the charges of falsifying business records over hush money payments during the 2016 election were “trivial” and politically motivated, rather than about justice, given Trump was not found to have directly harmed any victim.
Musk noted the Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg downgrades many felony cases, including violent crimes, and questioned the use of prosecutorial resources on this case against Trump.
Indeed, great damage was done today to the public’s faith in the American legal system.
If a former President can be criminally convicted over such a trivial matter – motivated by politics, rather than justice – then anyone is at risk of a similar fate. https://t.co/zrHCyIZazh
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 31, 2024
“Great damage was done today to the public’s faith in the American legal system,” Musk wrote. “If a former President can be criminally convicted over such a trivial matter – motivated by politics, rather than justice – then anyone is at risk of a similar fate.”
“In a vacuum, that would be accurate and it would also not matter whe[ther] someone were a ‘billionaire’ or not (there is an implied pejorative in that word),” he said. “However, as I’m sure you’ve observed, judicial resources are limited, often leaving serious crimes, where victims were directly harmed, unprosecuted.”
“Yet there is no actual victim in this crime! It is obviously politically motivated, with the goal of undermining democracy by preventing half of America from voting for their preferred candidate,” he added. “I have never provided financial support, nor have I voted, for Trump. My views on this matter would be the same for any candidate.”
“Many of these were violent crimes with victims who will never fully recover,” Musk wrote.
Legal experts also slammed the case, saying the obscure charges were unprecedented and the overall circumstances suggested it should not have been brought forward in the first place.
“Both of these things can be true at once: The jury did its job, and this case was an ill-conceived, unjustified mess,” CNN’s legal expert Elie Honig said. “Sure, victory is the great deodorant, but a guilty verdict doesn’t make it all pure and right. Plenty of prosecutors have won plenty of convictions in cases that shouldn’t have been brought in the first place. ‘But they won’ is no defense to a strained, convoluted reach unless the goal is to ‘win,’ now, by any means necessary and worry about the credibility of the case and the fallout later.”
“The charges against Trump are obscure, and nearly entirely unprecedented,” he said. “In fact, no state prosecutor — in New York, or Wyoming, or anywhere — has ever charged federal election laws as a direct or predicate state crime, against anyone, for anything. None. Ever. Even putting aside the specifics of election law, the Manhattan DA itself almost never brings any case in which falsification of business records is the only charge.”
