By ADRIANA COHEN
What separates the United States from a banana republic is a fair and impartial judicial system -- a system that respects the rule of law and treats its citizens equally.
That vaunted system is crumbling before our eyes.
Look no further for evidence than special counsel Robert Mueller's out-of-control Russian "collusion" investigation, which led to the conviction of a Dutch lawyer this week who had ties to former Trump campaign associates via a corporate law firm nearly a decade ago. Alex van der Zwaan admitted to lying to authorities about communications with people associated with the probe and was accused of deleting an email. He was swiftly sentenced to 30 days in prison and slammed with a $20,000 fine.
But when Democratic candidate for president Hillary Clinton and her associates deleted over 33,000 emails, wiped servers and took a hammer to devices during the 2016 FBI investigation into her mishandling of classified information while secretary of state, they were shielded from prosecution -- proving that the levers of justice are far from balanced.
Meanwhile, a thorough and impartial investigation conducted by the Justice Department's inspector general recently found that former FBI Director James Comey's right-hand man, Andrew McCabe, misled authorities on multiple occasions, and he's a free man. In an interview on Fox News Channel with Laura Ingraham last month, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who has read the inspector general's report, said: "He didn't lie just once. He lied four times. ... He lied to James Comey. He lied to the Office of Professional Responsibility. And he lied twice under oath to the inspector general."
Following a recommendation by the Office of Professional Responsibility, Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe recently for his "lack of candor," but McCabe is not spending his nights in a jail cell.
It must be nice to have friends in high places.
What we're witnessing in modern America is that when well-connected elites lie, destroy evidence or obstruct justice, they're given a pass -- while others are shackled.
Another such example is Comey. In the fall of 2016, the FBI director told Congress -- while under oath -- that he didn't make the decision to not prosecute Clinton over her reckless mishandling of classified emails until after the FBI interviewed her in June 2016. However, evidence suggests otherwise. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Chuck Grassley discovered that Comey wrote a memo exonerating Clinton that circulated through the bureau months before the interview.
If this isn't a smoking gun, what is?
Comey was caught red-handed giving the former Democratic presidential front-runner her walking papers before the FBI interviewed over a dozen key witnesses -- including Clinton herself.
Is the Department of Justice holding Comey and McCabe to the same standards as it's holding others? Far from it. McCabe is free, and Comey is cashing in on an upcoming tell-all despite appearing to have committed two crimes: perjury and obstruction of justice for overseeing a sham criminal investigation into Clinton's rogue servers.
It's worth noting that these are some of the same elites who went after Michael Flynn, who was charged with lying to authorities, causing great harm to his reputation and family. Flynn has been subjected to goliath legal bills in the ongoing Mueller investigation and was recently forced to sell his home to fund his defense. Comey also helped to send interior design icon Martha Stewart to prison in 2004 for lying to authorities.
Different rules for different people.