You have committed a federal crime.
Probably more than one. In fact, if you’re an average professional who has filled out lots of government forms, signed and mailed contracts, has semi-complicated taxes, some investments, financial relationships, and a mortgage, you’ve almost certainly run afoul of several federal statutes over the years.
Though plenty of people get swept up in life-ruining investigations by overly zealous prosecutors, most Americans go about their lives, occasionally breaking federal laws without fear of prison, because no free country would unleash its prosecutors to pursue every violation of every statute in our labyrinthine criminal code.
Federal prosecutors make choices. This vague concept of prosecutorial discretion prevents millions of technical lawbreakers from losing their freedom or suffering the devastating consequences of a criminal accusation by the government.
Not long ago, conservatives dreaded the possibility that an unconstrained executive branch might unleash its prosecutors to pursue violations of every law on the books.
In 2004, The Cato Institute released Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything, which argued that “[w]ith more than 4,000 federal offenses on the statute books, and thousands more buried in the Code of Federal Regulations, it is now frighteningly easy for American citizens to be hauled off to jail for actions that no reasonable person would regard as crimes.”
In 2010, the Heritage Foundation warned that “the federal government may have made you a criminal for very innocent actions” and published One Nation Under Arrest: How Crazy Laws, Rogue Prosecutors, and Activist Judges Threaten Your Liberty.
The best-known book from this era was Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent, by Harvey Silvergate, whose calls for reforms addressing the hazards of overcriminalization and selective prosecution have been repeatedly cited by self-professed libertarian Republicans in Congress.
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) pointed to Three Felonies A Day last year when he introduced his Mens Rea Reform Act of 2024 and the End Endless Criminal Statutes Act. He was also the lead Republican on the bipartisan Count the Crimes to Cut Act, which would force an inventory and cleanup of federal criminal offenses. When they were conducting oversight of the FBI during the first Trump administration, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee leaned on the arguments in Three Felonies, as did Sens. Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul, when they pushed a bill to add a criminal intent requirement to statutes that are silent on the issue.
Now, a version of the world that these Republicans once warned of has arrived.
After a seven-month purge—and the installation of pathetic Trump lackeys lusting for revenge, such as Ed Martin and Jeanine Pirro—the Department of Justice under Pam Bondi is a fully politicized tool of the president, who is using its enormous powers to destroy political opponents with allegations of criminal conduct that would previously either go unprosecuted, or, at the very least, would be insulated from the taint of politics by internal safeguards.
John Bolton had his home and office raided by the FBI, allegedly over the handling of classified materials.
Letitia James, Sen. Adam Schiff, and now Lisa Cook are all accused of some kind of mortgage fraud.
Jack Smith, the former special counsel who prosecuted Trump, is under investigation by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel over alleged Hatch Act violations.
A stream of leaks suggests that Obama- and Biden-era national security officials, as well as the two presidents themselves, are the subject of criminal probes. …
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