Are we destroying the Rule of Law?

"Rule of Law" is a philosophy that attempts to insure that all entities are held to the same standard.  You can make the argument that Rule of Law has been egregiously ignored based on the status of those involved, and you may be right.  Many times those with power, influence, wealth, connections, and any other advantageous element , have been able to get a result in the legal system that the average Joe does not.  While it is hard to swallow it has been going on for as long as the law has been written.  The entities that should be held to the highest standard when it comes to this are elected officials and government agencies, yet we seem to to allow them to divide us further as we rush to defend our letter of choice.

The email server:

The Hilary Clinton private email server saga began in 2009 when some officials with the National Archives expressed concern about the server and potential violations with regard to normal record keeping procedures.  In 2012 the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a Freedom of Information Act request regarding Clinton's emails.  It really entered the public forum when the panel investigating the Benghazi incident revealed the existence of the server in 2015 as Clinton was planning to announce her run for President in 2016.  While many had their opinions and others were looking to do damage control.  If you were a Clinton supporter it was a witch hunt to make sure she wouldn't win the Presidency, if you were a detractor you believed she should have been prosecuted.   The FBI did find that laws were broken but did not find that it rose to the level of prosecution.  That didn't change the beliefs of either camp.  Fast Forward to........

Mar-a-lago

On August 8th the Department of Justice conducted a raid of former President Trump's private residence at Mar-a-Lago in Florida looking for documents they believed to be classified and in the possession of Trump.  The raid in and of itself was unprecedented because of the subject being a former POTUS.  Approximately 20 boxes of records were taken with 11 sets of information believed to be classified.  The Trump camp has said the records were declassified and other protected under attorney client privilege.  We won't know if there was wrongdoing until the investigation is complete, but supporters and detractors of the former President have dug in firmly in their beliefs of guilt and innocence.

One thing Clinton and Trump supporters shared during the investigations is a distrust of certain government agencies.

The problem in today's environment is the results may not matter.  We live in such a polarized climate we don't want to acknowledge those we support may have done something wrong, even to the degree of breaking the law.  "We The People", that we keep referring to from the preamble of the Constitution, must be the ones that demand the Rule of Law be observed in all instances, not just for those with whom we disagree.  We have to stop allowing the political machines to divide and distract us, it works to their benefit not ours.  Electeds not being held accountable for bad, potentially criminal, behavior is nothing new (Ted Kennedy anyone).  Each time we stand aside we encourage it further.  Of all the things we allow to divide us along ideological lines, the Rule of Law is not supposed to be among them.  It is not ideological to expect all to be held to the same standard.