There was a time in American history when judges and attorneys became famous and beloved by fighting for individual rights and liberties. America’s founding fathers named cities, towns and counties after the most libertarian English judges. (For example, the Founders named many places after Lord Camden, the famous British judge who wrote a number of famed libertarian court opinions in the 1760s.)
Today’s lawyers, however, tend to rise to prominence mostly by siding with the powers of intrusive, expansive government. Many if not most judges are former prosecutors themselves.
Although Americans still revere freedom-fighting lawyers, there are fewer and fewer such lawyers to be found. Many of America’s most prominent libertarian criminal defense lawyers have found themselves targeted, prosecuted or even imprisoned by the American police state. (Clarence Darrow, F. Lee Bailey, William Kunstler, etc. were all prosecuted after becoming well-known defense lawyers.)
Now noted defense lawyer Harvey Silverglate has come forward with a chilling story about how federal prosecutor Robert Mueller attempted to entrap him during the 1980s. See here. Mueller later went on to be FBI director and is now leading an (apparent) witchhunt “special” prosecution of Donald Trump over supposed Russian influence in Trump’s election.
According to Silverglate, Mueller tried to set up Silverglate by sending a lying FBI informant into Silverglate’s office to dictate a false affidavit for a legal case. The lying informant was wearing a wire and trying to entrap Silverglate into using the false document. (Silverglate immediately told the undercover agent to leave.)
Harvey Silverglate is a well-known criminal defense lawyer, civil-liberties activist and author of the book Three Felonies A Day–which suggests that federal law has now become so prosecution-friendly that every American likely commits 3 felonies a day without knowing it.
