Below is a slightly expanded version of my column in the New York Post on the verdict in the Trump trial. The Manhattan case, in my view, was a raw exercise of political manipulation of the criminal justice system. It is only the latest example of the use of the justice system for political purposes and harkens back to the Adams Administration at the start of our Republic. I discuss that period in my book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage (which is available this month).

Here is the column:

After years of trying — in the words of the judge — “to get the damned rascal in this court,” it was a conviction that many welcomed.

But those words were not from Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, and the conviction was not that of former President Donald Trump.

Rather they were from US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase, at the end of the 18th century, when America embraced political prosecutions to target critics and opponents