There is a great moment in Robert Bolt’s 1960 play, “A Man for All Seasons,” where Sir Thomas More champions the rule of law over the reckless pursuit of supposed good.
“So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law!” William Roper, lawyer and parliament member, protests after More refused to arrest a man who had broken no law.
More responded, “Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”
“I’d cut down every law in England to do that!” says Roper.
“Oh?” asks More. “And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man’s laws, not God’s — and if you cut them down — and you’re just the man to do it — d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.”
The New York Times’ editorial board, which published a piece this week titled “The Law Is Coming, Mr. Trump,” would do well to think hard on this passage from Bolt’s play. The paper is correct to challenge President Trump’s dubious claim Tuesday that a recent FBI raid on his personal lawyer’s office represents a violation of attorney-client privilege. The board writes, “The privilege is one of the most sacrosanct in the American legal system, but it does not protect communications in furtherance of a crime.”
The Times is terribly mistaken, however, to suggest that only a guilty person would protest a raid by government officials.
“One might ask, if this is all a big witch hunt and Mr. Trump has nothing illegal or untoward to hide, why does he care about the privilege in the first place? The answer, of course, is that he has a lot to hide,” the editorial reads.
One can believe that Trump is guilty of a great many things without also promoting the insidious notion that only a criminal would protest a perceived violation of personal privacy, individual liberties, etc.
If this is all just a big witch hunt, why does Trump care so much about preserving attorney-client privilege in the first place? https://t.co/elVOiv4XhF
— NYT Opinion (@nytopinion) April 10, 2018
This is the sort of thing said by tiny bureaucrats in spectacles as government officials ransack the living room. Just wait until the “only the guilty protest” line of thinking is weaponized further by one of the two major political parties.
Imagine the scene:
“What’s the matter? Don’t you support the troops?” asks the government official.
The private citizen replies, “Of course I do.”
“Excellent, patriot. Then you won’t have any problem quartering these men,” the nameless bureaucrat smiles.
You laugh, but there is little daylight between this scenario and the position pushed by the Times’ editorial board. It’s laughable, yes, and dangerous. So dangerous, in fact, that the Times vigorously disputed this sort of thinking in 2006 during the Bush-era National Security Agency spy programs. If you subordinate all else to the zealous pursuit of a perceived good, you’ll have nothing left if someone decides similarly that your prosecution (or persecution) is a matter of righteousness.
Always side with the rule of law, for your own safety’s sake.
