Will Democrats analyze why the case against George Norcross implio?

Democrats have good reasons to be terrified, President Donald Trump will twist the law out of form to attack their enemies and help their friends. Already, principles Prosecutors resign in protestAnd Trump is just starting.

But what happens if a Democratic prosecutor is guided by the same low reasons? Will the Democrats protest that too?

That is the question raised by the star Victoria of George E. Norcross III, Jersey’s political chief of South I just cleaned criminal irregularitiesSpeaking what he estimates was $ 5 million in his defense, not to mention the innumerable hours of preparation and a massive dose of stress since he was accused last June.

Norcross and his team charge that Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin It is the triumph of this story, abusing his office to promote his political career trying to burn Norcross at the stake.

Norcross is a conservative democrat who made Common cause with former governor Chris Christie And he has never been forgiven by the progressive wing of the party, where Pathin lives. He has ruled on his fief in southern Jersey with an iron fist for more than two decades, turning the south of red to blue in 2001and ensure a Democratic majority in the Legislature That has lasted a generation.

Even so, progressives despise him not only, but for many Democrats outside his region who resent his intimidation and arrogance, and say that his political power has It allowed him to enrich himself and his friends. So, yes, if Platkin were the man to finally dethrone North, that could be a giant political score.

“He thinks that the progressives will raise him on his shoulders and take him to a public office somewhere, and he is dreaming,” Northcross told me. In a telephone interview after dismissal.

Pathin is appealing the loss. He denies any political reason, although he will not rule out a career for a position.

“It’s not about political ambition,” he told me. “Sometimes people do things because they feel it is right.”

We cannot look at Platkin’s heart to know with certainty. But the deeper looks in this case, the more suspicious it looks. Pathin not only lost; They hit him. His prosecution was so out of place that the judge dismissed the accusation before a jury could consider it. That is weird, as even Platkin recognizes.

Even if he assumes that each fact presented in the accusation is true, Judge Peter Warshaw, Pathin still lost because Nothing that the accusation describes equals a crime. What Pathin called extortion, according to the judge, was a difficult negotiation between two hard -nose entrepreneurs. And even if a crime took place, the judge ruled, everything happened so long that the statute of limitations has been exhausted.

Platkin not only lost; They hit him.

In other words, this was not even close. Federal prosecutors in Pennsylvania and New Jersey had investigated Norcross during this same period and never presented positions. They seem to agree with the judge who did not take the crime.

If Trump prosecutors presented a defective case like this against a political enemy, the Democrats would scream as stuck pigs. But so far, we have not heard almost anything like that. The former president of the Senate, Steve Sweeney, an ally of Norcross who runs for governor, described the accusation as a “Political prosecution” and Republican leaders asked Platkin’s accusationciting this case and some others High profile failed prosecutors by Platkin’s corruption unit.

But most of the Democrats were silent or supported.

Senator Andy Kim, a hero for the progressives later Brink the machine candidateFirst Lady Tammy Murphy, in the primaries of the Senate last year, said Pathin was “Trying to change our broken policy” and “assume the hard fights that many avoid.” And a progressive main, Antoinette, miles of the party of working families, criticized the judge for dismissing the case, denouncing it as a “Mockery of the Justice System”.

Trump does not hide his political designs. When your team He raised charges against the mayor of New York, Eric Adams,They explicitly said that the decision was political, based on the provision of Adams to help Trump to the application of immigration, and that it was not the merits of the case against him.

Prosecutor’s misconduct is usually more subtle. But it is always intolerable, from the left or right.

Tom Moran is a columnist of Advance Media and former editor of the editorial page in Star-Ledger in Newark.