The Left sticks together. Even through crime.
And now a Democrat criminal got a lifeline out of nowhere.
Funny how quickly the rules of fairness change when the person in the dock belongs to your own party. Virginia Democrats who spent years declaring that “no one is above the law” when Donald Trump faced criminal charges are now urging patience, due process and caution after one of the most powerful members of their party was indicted on federal charges.
State Sen. L. Louise Lucas, the Portsmouth Democrat who serves as president pro tempore of the Virginia Senate and chairs its Finance and Appropriations Committee, was indicted alongside six others. Federal prosecutors allege a years-long criminal enterprise involving marijuana distribution, money laundering, bribery and fraud.
FBI Director Kash Patel laid out the government’s case in a statement. “Lucas and a close-knit group of family members and associates orchestrated a multi-year scheme to enrich their own criminal marijuana enterprise, ‘the Lucas Enterprise’ — using Lucas’ position as Chairwoman of the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee to insulate the enterprise from criminal scrutiny and influencing legislation to financially benefit themselves.” Those are allegations, and they have not been proven in court. Lucas, 82, has served in the state Senate since 1991.
Her defenders have responded in language that is perfectly reasonable on its own terms. Virginia Senate Democratic leader Scott Surovell said the indictment contained “serious allegations” but emphasized that “Senator Lucas has the right to defend herself, and she has my full support as she does so.” Attorney General Jay Jones said the allegations must be tested in a “full and fair” legal process. Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi stressed Lucas’ “constitutional presumption of innocence” and said she “is fully entitled to legal due process.”
Nobody should quarrel with any of that. Presumption of innocence is a bedrock American principle, and it applies to Lucas just as it applies to everyone else. The problem is not the principle. The problem is the double standard on display, and Fox News has laid it out in detail.
Start with Hashmi. She rejected Republican claims that Trump was being selectively prosecuted after his 2023 classified-documents indictment. Jones, who now insists the case against Lucas be handled in a manner “free from political interference or bias,” said last year that Trump tried to “incite a riot” and “overturn an election.” And Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who is now stressing Lucas’ presumption of innocence, called congressional defenses of Trump’s handling of classified documents “deeply detrimental to our national security” just days after his indictment, in a case that was ultimately dismissed without a trial.
The Democratic Party of Virginia went even further. It declared Trump had been “rightfully indicted” and that “no one is above the law” immediately after a Manhattan grand jury indicted him in March 2023, more than a year before a jury heard the case. The party also criticized Republican claims that federal law enforcement was being politically “weaponized” against Trump. Lucas, notably, currently serves as a vice chair of the same party.
In other words, indictments of Trump were treated as proof, and criticisms of the process as attacks on the rule of law. Now that one of their own is facing charges, the same people are pleading for restraint and warning of political interference. That is not a principle. That is a pattern.
Lucas herself has framed the case as persecution. “Today, the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the full weight of the federal government have been wielded against an 82-year-old great-grandmother,” she said after surrendering to authorities. “I grew up under Jim Crow. I’ve seen what happens when people in power try to silence those who stand up to them.” She added, “I will not be bullied,” and “I will not back down.”
It is worth giving her argument a fair hearing. Lucas has been a target before: in 2020, local police charged her with felonies in connection with a protest at which demonstrators toppled a Confederate statue, charges that civil rights groups called political and that were later dropped. Her allies will argue that this history makes her claim of selective targeting more credible.
But the facts cut the other way in an important respect. The federal investigation that produced the indictment predates Trump’s second administration, according to Fox. That undermines the story that this is a brand-new vendetta launched after Inauguration Day. Attorney General Todd Blanche has also rejected the idea of political motivation, saying simply, “We don’t do political paybacks.”
Neither side should be too certain. A grand jury returned the indictment, which requires a lower standard than a conviction, and a trial will test the evidence. If prosecutors cannot prove their case, Lucas will walk free and the Justice Department will have to answer for it. If they can, then Democrats who rushed to question the case will have some explaining to do.
For voters, the lesson is simple. The standards you apply to your opponents should be the standards you accept for your friends. If a presumption of innocence is sacred, it is sacred for Trump, for Lucas and for the next person who finds himself in the crosshairs. If “no one is above the law” is a slogan worth repeating, it should not stop being true when the defendant has a D next to her name.
Many Americans, on the left and the right, have lost trust in a justice system they believe is applied unevenly. The way to restore that trust is not to defend every indicted ally or to cheer every indictment of an enemy. It is to demand that evidence, not party, decides who is held accountable.
