by James A. Bacon

From time to time, I highlight the bad behavior of Virginia elected officials as warnings that the public must remain ever vigilant in protection of honest government. These days, I can’t keep up. Wrongdoing has become so widespread that I could make it the subject of a blog all its own. More profoundly worrisome than run-of-the-mill graft, though, there is a deeper malaise in our country: a nationalization and politicization of local grievances that threaten respect for the rule of law.

Such is the case of Scott Jenkins, the former Culpeper County sheriff who was convicted of fraud and bribery charges in 2023, sentenced in March, and then pardoned yesterday by President Trump. Jenkins and his family, Trump posted on his Truth Social media platform, “have been dragged through HELL by a Corrupt and Weaponized Biden DOJ.”

(Lest anyone jump to the conclusion that I’m singling out Trump for his complicity in this trend, I see the problem as Democrats and Republicans engaging in a string of escalating abuses. There is plenty of guilt to go around.)

Jenkins had served as county sheriff for 12 years, running as both a Republican and an independent. He courted controversy in 2019 when he announced plans to deputize county residents if the Democratic-controlled General Assembly passed “further unnecessary gun restrictions” and to safeguard the right of “law-abiding citizens to protect their constitutional right to own firearms.”

At some point, the principle of protecting constitutional gun rights for all degenerated into a racket of doling out deputy-sheriff privileges in exchange for cash.

Federal authorities indicted Jenkins in June 2023 on charges that he accepted more than $70,00 in bribes in the form of cash or campaign contributions from more than a half dozen men, including two FBI agents, whom he had appointed as auxiliary deputy sheriffs. He gave them sheriff badges and identity cards, which he said authorized them to carry concealed firearms without obtaining a permit. Taking the stand, Jenkins testified that there was no quid pro quo between making the appointments and taking the payments.

A jury found him guilty of one count of conspiracy, four counts of honest services fraud, and seven counts of bribery.

Trump granted Jenkins a pardon just before the ex-sheriff was scheduled to head to prison. Reportedly, Jenkins had asked for clemency during a webinar hosted by the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association. His call for help reached Trump’s ears, presumably through the intermediation of a team of Trump appointees dedicated to clemency grants.

Here is the justification Trump gave for the pardon (as excerpted from the ABC News account — I don’t have a Truth Social account to view the original Trump statement).

“During his trial, when Sheriff Jenkins tried to offer exculpatory evidence to support himself, the Biden Judge, Robert Ballou, refused to allow it, shut him down, and then went on a tirade.”

“As we have seen, in Federal, City, and State Courts, Radical Left or Liberal Judges allow into evidence what they feel like, not what is mandated under the Constitution and Rules of Evidence. This Sheriff is a victim of an overzealous Biden Department of Justice, and doesn’t deserve to spend a single day in jail.”

Jenkins’s defense — that there was no connection between his appointments and the cash he received — strains credulity. People whom he just happened to deputize so they could skirt the concealed-carry law just happened to give him large campaign donations. Not just once, but repeatedly.

If Jenkins thought the jury came to an unjust conclusion, he could have appealed the case. But he didn’t.

He claimed that he didn’t have the money to pay for the attorneys. Actually, that is plausible, although it’s a problem that thousands of Americans encounter, and they don’t get pardons.

But that is a subsidiary issue. What I find disturbing is that Trump, seemingly knowing little more about the case than what Jenkins told him, substituted his judgment for that of the judge and the jury. Did Judge Ballou err in forbidding Jenkins from presenting supposedly exculpatory evidence? Wouldn’t that be a matter of legal interpretation for the courts to decide — not some political team scouring the landscape for unjust legal rulings to be rectified?

The rule of law is under assault from all sides.

It is an article of faith on the far left — especially in elite law schools — that the law is systemically racist, designed to perpetuate White supremacy, hence illegitimate. Likewise, the left assails the legitimacy of a U.S. Supreme Court dominated by conservatives on conflict-of-interest grounds that never troubled them when progressives legislated from the bench.

On the flip side, it is MAGA doctrine that Democrats weaponized the legal system to destroy Trump (a claim that I believe has considerable credibility) and to persecute participants in the January 6 riot (a claim that may have validity in individual cases). Rather than rein in abuses of legal power, however, Trump says, “Hold my beer,” and uses the same legal tools to afflict vengeance upon his tormenters and bring succor to his supporters.

Not to be outdone, activist federal judges are using their judicial powers — national injunctions — to block Trump’s rule by executive order. When the dust settles from all the appeals and Supreme Court rulings, I expect we will find that Trump was abusing his executive authority in some instances, and the activist judges were abusing their judicial authority in others. Political considerations pervade everything.

It once was possible to publish Bacon’s Rebellion with an exclusive focus on state and local issues. But so much power has been concentrated in Washington, D.C., and politics has become so nationalized, that the Godzilla-King Kong battle between Trump and his enemies is trampling institutions under foot at all levels of government.

What is the message to state and local officials here in Virginia who, like Jenkins, might be using the power and authority of local office for personal gain? Make yourself a political martyr. You didn’t do anything wrong — it’s those awful people in the other party who are abusing their power! Jenkins did not invent the tactic. Just ask those whose defense is, “they’re after me because of my race.”

One side uses the evils of the other to justify its own sins… which the other side in turn uses to justify its own. Where it ends, I don’t know. But if it doesn’t stop soon, we will be living not under the rule of law but rule by the powerful and the remorseless.