Former 2016 Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush defended his old rival in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed.
The column, which was co-authored by Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, slammed the recent civil fraud trial against Trump, which resulted in a nearly $355 million fine and barred Trump from operating his business in New York for three years.Â
“Every American has a right to be critical of Mr. Trump’s politics—one of us ran against him in 2016,” reads Bush’s op-ed, titled, “Elon Musk and Donald Trump Cases Imperil the Rule of Law.”
“…But equality before the law is precious, and these rulings represent a crisis not only for the soundness of our courts, but for the business environment that has allowed the U.S. to prosper,” the opinion piece continued. “If these rulings stand, the damage could cascade through the economy, creating fear of arbitrary enforcement against entrepreneurs who seek public office or raise their voices as citizens in a way that politicians dislike.”
The op-ed marks a defense of Bush’s former 2016 rival, albeit not for Trump’s political stances. Instead, Lonsdale and Bush are calling for a “dispassionate” legal system that will not throttle businesses and lead to a weakened economy.
“​​New York and Delaware have played an outsize role in business in the U.S.” the pair wrote. “Many major companies are incorporated in Delaware owing to the state’s body of corporate legal precedents; and a significant number of banks operate in New York, the world financial capital. The appellate courts in those states now have a chance to review these dangerous judicial rulings and try to stop further damage to the reputations of their respective judiciaries.”
“If they don’t, blue-state politicians may have the satisfaction of ‘sticking it’ to Messrs. Trump and Musk, but the loss to those states will be significant,” they continued. “The damage to the legal fabric of the country will be even worse. A dispassionate justice system is at the heart of American exceptionalism, and the country will be poorer if we lose it.”
WHERE have U been since 2016??