Sharif's and Trump's Strikingly Similar Narratives

President of the United States Donald John Trump and Pakistan's former prime minister Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif are both under investigation by law enforcement agencies in their respective countries. Both men allege that they are victims of conspiracies against them by the "Criminal Deep State", better known as "the establishment" in Pakistan. The two men have accused the investigators, prosecutors and the judges of being biased against them. Their narratives are strikingly similar. Sharif and Trump have polarized and divided their nations by asking the voters to stand by them and to reject what they describe as a political "witch hunt". Both have succeeded in maintaining the support of the vast majority of their party legislators so far.

Donald Trump and Nawaz Sharif
Attacking Investigators:

Donald Trump has denounced the FBI teams working for Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Russia Collusion as "partisan Democrats". He has demanded that the FBI be investigated for "spying" on his 2016 presidential campaign. He has called the entire investigation a "witch hunt" by "criminal deep state" actors in the law enforcement and intelligence communities. He has described the FBI raid of his lawyer Michael Cohen's office as a "break-in".

Trump's Republican supporters in the House of Representatives of US Congress have made an unprecedented demand to see documents related to the FBI investigation of the President.

Like Trump, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif too has attacked the JIT (Joint Investigative Team) set up the Pakistan Supreme Court as being biased against him. Like Trump, Sharif has denounced the entire process of money laundering investigation against him as a "conspiracy" by the "establishment" (Deep State).

Nawaz Sharif's PMLN supporters have so far stood with their leader.

Distrust in Judiciary:

President Trump has repeatedly and viciously attacked judges who have issued orders unfavorable to him. Even before he was elected, candidate Trump accused a US-born judge with a Mexican last name of being biased him because  "he is Mexican and I'm building a wall".

Like Trump, Nawaz Sharif has accused his country's Supreme Court judges of acting against him on behalf of the "establishment" (the Deep State).

Politicizing Legal Processes: 

Both Trump and Sharif have used the legal accountability they face to rally political support for themselves. By arguing that they both face political witch hunt for their policies and not their alleged conduct, they have fired up their supporters and polarized their nations.  Both have delegitimized the institutions of law and justice in their attempts to beat the law enforcement agencies and the justice system in their respective countries.

Attempts by Trump's and Sharif to politicize legal proceedings against them are causing deep divisions in both the United States and Pakistan. These divisions don't augur well for the countries and the future of their institutions. They pose a threat to law and order and national security.

Lying to Law Enforcement:

While the right to remain silent is guaranteed under the 5th amendment of the US constitution, lying to law enforcement officials is a felony that triggers charges of obstruction of justice. These charges can potentially result in serious jail time. While state laws may vary across jurisdictions, obstructing a federal investigation is a felony with a potential five year prison sentence. Some of Trump's aides, including his former national security advisor General Michael Flynn, have already pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and obstruction of justice charges.  Trump's  team is trying to avoid the obstruction of justice charges against the President.

Similarly, there are Articles 62 and 63 of the Pakistan constitution that require that the public office holders be honest. While one may question the specific meanings of the words "sadiq" and "ameen" written in the constitution,  it is ridiculous to argue that deliberate lying by the highest officials of the country go unpunished.  In answers to questions by law enforcement regarding the sources of funds for buying London properties owned by the Sharif family, Mr. Sharif's multiple different conflicting explanations to the parliament, law enforcement and the people constitute a  big white lie.

Foreign Residency (Iqama):

Mr. Nawaz Sharif says he has been disqualified by the Supreme Court for Iqama (foreign residency), not Panama (money laundering). What he doesn't acknowledge is that Iqma facilitates Panama. Nor does he fully explain the source of funds used by his children to buy properties in London at the time they were too young to have their own legitimate incomes to afford to buy the properties.

Assets held by people in offshore tax havens are tracked by their country of residence, not by their citizenship, under OECD sponsored Agreement On Exchange of Information on Tax Matters. Pakistan is a signatory of this international agreement.  When Pakistan seeks information from another country under this agreement,  the nation's FBR gets only the information on asset holders who have declared Pakistan as their country of residence. Information on those Pakistanis who claim residency (iqama) in another country is not shared with Pakistani government. This loophole allows many Pakistani asset holders with iqamas in other countries to hide their assets. Many of Pakistan's top politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen hold residency visas in the Middle East, Europe and North America.

Money Laundering:

Money laundering is a very serious problem resulting in the illicit outflow of trillions of dollars from the poor to the rich countries, according to data compiled by Washington-based Global Financial Integrity.   Bloomberg has reported that Pakistanis alone own as much as $150 billion worth of undeclared assets offshore.

There's a direct relationship between investment and GDP. Flight of capital reduces domestic investment and depresses economic growth in poor countries. Lower tax revenues also impact spending on education, health care and infrastructure, resulting in poor socioeconomic indicators.

A recent report by the British National Crime Agency (NCA) has identified Pakistan as one of the top three source countries for money laundering to the United Kingdom where Nawaz Sharif's family owns expensive real estate. Both the UK NCA report and Panama papers show that the politicians and their family members are the biggest culprits in money laundering.

President vs Prime Minister:

Presidents as heads of state in most countries avoid prosecution while in office. Prime Ministers as heads of government do not enjoy the same immunity.

The US president is both the head of state and the head of government. There is no precedent of any US president being indicted while in office. The closest that a prosecutor ever came to indicting a president was in 1974 when President Richard Nixon was named an "un-indicted co-conspirator" in Watergate.  President Nixon resigned when he saw that the US Congress was ready to impeach him. Later, President Gerald Ford pardoned President Nixon, sparing him the humiliation of indictment and-or conviction.

In Pakistan, the President does enjoy immunity from prosecution while in office. The Prime Minister does not.

Summary:

Faced with serious charges against them, US President Donald Trump and Pakistan's ex premier Nawaz Sharif are attacking investigators, prosectors and judges in their respective countries. Both are politicizing the legal processes and delegitimizing institutions of democracy in the United States and Pakistan. Their narratives are strikingly similar. They are  polarizing their people and dividing their societies.  These divisions don't augur well for the countries and their institutions.

Here's a discussion on the subject:

https://youtu.be/5qfDYZgEX8U




Related Links:

Haq's Musings

South Asia Investor Review

UK Names Pakistan Among Top Sources of Money Laundering

Did Musharraf Steal Pakistani People's Money?

Pakistan Economy Hobbled By Underinvestment

Raymond Baker on Corruption in Pakistan

Nawaz Sharif Disqualified

Culture of Corruption in Pakistan

US Investigating Microsoft Bribery in Pakistan

Zardari's Corruption Probe in Switzerland

Politics of Patronage in Pakistan

Comments

Riaz Haq said…
Election Act 2017 has removed all electoral nomination form entries requiring disclosure of assets by candidates and their family members as well as other questions related to unpaid bank loans, loan defaults, income tax payments, educational qualifications and criminal records.

It’s intended to avoid public scrutiny and possible challenges under article 62 and 63.

The law was passed after Nawaz Sharif’s and Jahangir Tareen’s disqualification
Riaz Haq said…
Jason Chaffetz: The Deep State is real – I've seen it up close and it's far worse than you can imagine

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/09/18/jason-chaffetz-deep-state-is-real-ive-seen-it-up-close-and-its-far-worse-than-can-imagine.html

With each successive batch of text messages released between then-FBI agent Peter Strzok and then-FBI lawyer Lisa Page, the evidence supporting a politically motivated Deep State within the federal government spills out into the open.

Based on my own experience, this particular set of text messages is the tip of the iceberg. While serving on the House Oversight Committee, I saw firsthand how those in control of our bureaucracy brazenly abuse their power – spying, manipulating and misleading – in an effort to perpetuate their stranglehold on the government.

--------------------

My first run-in with the Deep State happened weeks after the Benghazi terrorist attacks of September 11, 2012. In an encounter highlighted in my book, I went face-to-face with a lawyer sent to Libya by Hillary Clinton’s State Department to act as a spy and ensure I did not ever get to the truth of what happened on that tragic night.

When I refused to allow this State Department lawyer to participate in a briefing for which his security clearance was insufficient, he immediately called Clinton Chief of Staff and fixer Cheryl Mills to demand entrance to the meeting. His real purpose was to intimidate witnesses from being candid with a congressman.

I won that battle and got the information I sought. But the effort to speak to witnesses, review documents, and debunk the ridiculous and false narratives told by political appointees and perpetuated by their Deep State allies was an uphill battle.

Even with a select congressional committee empaneled to investigate, Congress was never able to pry from the Deep State many of the documents that would have confirmed or refuted the damning testimony of Benghazi’s heroes.

Spying is just one trick up the sleeves of politicized bureaucrats. Powerful senior staffers with authority to classify, resist disclosure, and subvert oversight have perfected other strategies to avoid transparency and accountability.

The Deep State manipulates congressional investigations by pretending to cooperate with document subpoenas. Those who are part of the Deep State bury congressional committees in piles of paper ostensibly responsive to the investigation, and then brag to the media about the number of pages they have turned over.

In reality, many of those pages will either be fully redacted, duplicates of other pages, or irrelevant to the investigation.

The media then dutifully report that the agency has turned over thousands of pages – yet the public gets no answers. Meanwhile, the documents that would actually tell the American people the truth never see the light of day.

Misleading the public about the nature of documents sought either by Congress or through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests is another art the Deep State has perfected. Agencies employ lawyers specifically to find reasons to withhold documents.

In one May 2014 hearing, a TSA sensitive security information director testified that upon being hired, attorneys and FOIA processors trained him to hide information.

The director testified that he was told: “If you come across embarrassing information or whatever, (the chief counsel) will just hide it and come up with an exemption; because if you cover it with a FOIA exemption it’s so hard for the other person to challenge it, and it will be costly and difficult for them to challenge it, and they’re probably never going to see it anyway, so you just get away with it. That’s the way it’s done.”

There are solutions, which I outline in my book. But before we can address solutions, we have to acknowledge the problem.

The Deep State is not just a conspiracy theory. No less than our very system of separation of powers and checks and balances is at stake.
Riaz Haq said…
#Trump calls for scrapping of the #US #Constitution as a means to reinstall himself into the presidency. Trump also called for a do-over of the #presidential race that he lost in a landslide to President Joe #Biden. #Democracy #America https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-calls-for-the-termination-of-the-united-states-constitution-over-2020-loss/ar-AA14Rskv?li=BBnbfcL

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday morning raged on his anti-Twitter app Truth Social about non-existent "fraud and deception" in the November 8th midterm elections – and he proposed scrapping the United States Constitution as a means to reinstall himself into the presidency. Trump also called for a do-over of the race that he lost in a landslide to President Joe Biden.


"So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution," Trump "truthed."

There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in either the 2020 or 2022 elections, let alone that which was pervasive enough to affect the results.

"Our great 'Founders' did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!" Trump added. The authors of the Constitution – many of whom were traffickers of enslaved human beings – only wanted white male landowners to vote.

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