'A huge crook': Conservative claims of Trump persecution shredded in new op-ed

A member of the Wall Street Journal's editorial board this week declared former President Donald Trump to be the victim of a "legal jihad" -- and was promptly shredded Thursday by a New York Magazine writer who says one simple point disproves the conservative newspaper's thesis.

"Trump is a huge crook," writes commentator Jonathan Chait.

Chait on Thursday targeted Wall Street Journal editor Matthew Hennessey's column that opined the former president faces three criminal trials — and has a criminal conviction behind him — because the justice system has been "politicized."

"Justice is supposed to be blind," Hennessey declares. "The legal jihad against anyone who ever did political business with Donald Trump has many wondering whether that’s still true."

Chait challenged this assertion by citing the Wall Street Journal's own previous reporting on one of the Trump "political business" partners named by Hennessey: Paul Manafort.

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"The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial in 2015 headlined 'Trump and the Goodfellas,' criticizing his history of working with and continuing to praise mobsters," Chait writes. "When Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was sentenced in 2017, the Journal scolded his 'poor judgment for hiring the notorious Beltway operator' who committed a 'financial and lobbying scam, which is exactly what Mr. Trump risked in hiring a swamp denizen.'"

The Journal's transition toward defending Trump is credited by Chait to a new political climate that demands Republicans line up behind the controversial leader and presumptive presidential nominee.

"Republican critics had to either swallow their criticisms of his crookedness (the Journal itself spiked a second editorial on Trump’s mob ties after he won the nomination) or leave the party," writes Chait.

Chait then examines Hennessey's claim that “anyone at the FBI who actually did meddle in the 2016 election” was “never prosecuted.”

"This does sound kind of unfair until you consider three points," Chait writes.

The first two pertain to investigator Robert Mueller's position in the Republican Party and the Trump-directed probe by famed prosecutor John Durham, who was never able to prove the FBI plotted against the former president, Chait writes.

Chait's third point is that Trump is a "Mob Crook."

"Of course Trump’s various goons are being convicted of crimes at much higher rates than the Democrats," Chait concludes. "The 'lamentably long list of Trump-world legal woes' is basically what you’d expect if you handed the most powerful office in the world to a mobbed-up professional swindler."