Mark Wignall | Lawyers and tainted payments

Were I a lawyer operating in Jamaica, at some stage, I would have to face up to the convenient similarities I could claim to myself and a small but busy wholesale establishment located on the edge of an inner-city pocket.

Like the wholesale establishment, I could tell my bankers that most of my deposits will be in cash because that is the economy I operate in. If, as the operator of the wholesale, I am approached by a well-known thug with links to extortion and trafficking in drugs of all sorts and he offers me 7.5 per cent cash back on adding his deposits to mine, I would have to seriously consider whether I should accept the deal.

Technically, it’s clean because I may have told the bank to expect up to $5 million per day in cash. As the lawyer in that scenario, if I were approached by that same thug after he is investigated, charged, and arrested, would I be too disposed to any probe to determine if his money was clean, especially if my banker expects me to be constantly making huge cash deposits?

Much of the ‘underground’ economy operates on cash. The ‘street tough’ used by minor and major crime bosses to collect extortion ‘taxes’ at transportation hubs is operating in a cash economy. Much of the church bonanza hauled in weekly is cash. Many construction sites dispense cash. Gang leaders expect that the collection stash from business outlets will be in cash.

So why not a lawyer? Should he refuse it and make a strong demand for a manager’s cheque to meet all his payments?

The people feared by the toughest criminals, especially those with a well-organised authority structure, are, first, whichever policeman is the most potent at the moment and is thought to be prone to planning extrajudicial killings in quick time.

The second person feared is the lawyer, who must exist with him in a symbiotic relationship and represents the potential for the system of justice to ‘arrange’ his irrelevance by locking him away for decades. There are some criminal bosses who believe that the political directorate is having an unusual sway on certain matters taking place in the courts. This is driving a new fear in the criminal underworld.

Most Jamaicans prefer to believe that many lawyers are guilty until their innocence is proven. They believe that criminal lawyers are not necessarily in the business of offering their clients the best defence but are twisting the truth to generate a verdict of not guilty.

DO JAMAICANS REALLY WANT CHANGE?

He is a superintendent of police, and he has a law degree. He is convinced that for the Jamaica Constabulary Force to be really effective, more of our citizens must want that to happen.

“The police force must be totally reorganised to fight crime and not enable it and profit from it. Corrupt police, top to bottom, have to go. Lazy ones are also not welcome. Do your job! We know who you are,” he stated.

“The reorganised force has to be smart and intelligence-driven. It must be smarter than the criminals. It must use advanced technology to detect crime, deter crime, and arrest the criminals and put together rock-solid cases against the criminals. With proper supervision and in compliance with the Constitution, the police must use warrants effectively, they must use surveillance deftly.”

“I understand all of this, these ideals, but how do we get it to kick in?” I asked.

“Constant appeals by a united political front – the governing JLP and the opposition PNP. One message, along with a broad, renewed partnership by civil society, the church, and community groups,” was his response.

“Only trusted, honest officers should run these sophisticated, intelligence-driven programmes. Listen to criminals on their cell phones. Hack their computers, disrupt their technology. Use disinformation to confuse the criminals. Spread ‘fake news’ like the Russians. Create havoc among the criminals so the criminals start getting paranoid and attacking fellow criminals and spending time being confused instead of getting fat and thinking of other criminal moves.

“Keep them totally off balance. Politicians need to pass sweeping legislation allowing for the seizure of all assets that criminals have that are obtained as a result of criminal enterprise. Seize the criminals’ cars, trucks, motorcycles, houses, real estate, bank accounts, investments, pensions, businesses (all legally, of course). The key must be to make them poor.”

PRESIDENT TRUMP INCAPABLE OF CHANGE

It took the online publication The Daily Kos to remind us earlier this month:

“ His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough, people will sooner or later believe it.”

The person you are certain is the subject of the assessment above is not Donald Trump, although one could make an easy match with what Trump has displayed to the American people and the world since he rode that horrible down-escalator in 2015.

The entity that wrote that assessment was the Office of Strategic Services in the United States, which operated from 1942 to 1945. It gave way to the CIA, and the subject of the assessment was Adolf Hitler. Yes, that one.

Last week, President Donald Trump arrived at the trajectory that he had been setting for himself since he arrived at the presidency in January 2017. He was impeached in the Democratic controlled House on two articles – abuse of power and obstruction of congress.

The early signals of this showed themselves by the presence of his first campaign manager, Paul Manafort. Here was a man who had made a name for himself by working with and propping up the images of despots and despicable leaders like Ferdinand Marcos, Mobuto, and Jonas Savimbi.

So what was he attempting to do with Trump? Sanctify him?

Leader of the House Nancy Pelosi has held back in officially sending the articles to the Republican-controlled Senate until she is somewhat convinced that a fair trial is likely there. The entire world knows the realities of that in the deeply divided tribal politics of the United States in 2019 and beyond.

Trial in the Senate will be the ‘hoax’ that Trump has long trumpeted when he is caught in his misdeeds and called out. He will be found not guilty and will continue as president.

Worse, because the world community knows him, we can be certain that he will continue on his despotic path because he cannot help himself. He is unloved, lonely, and crying out for help but can only respond by breaking the furniture in the house.

The man in the Kremlin is likely to have a spring and summer of wide grins as 2020 rolls around. His asset in the White House has carried out Moscow’s first objective under Trump – emasculate America on the world stage.

In that process, Trump has carried along the GOP to the edge of American democracy, and at times, the ignorance in favour of Kremlin talking points is presenting us with an America that is scary to democracies in the world.

At this time, however, we may wish to think kind thoughts about Christmas and not let Donald Trump deny us the good cheer we crave. America will survive because many of its people will not be prepared to accept what Trump and his cultists want.

At this time, we want to believe in the resilience of our relatives who live among these cultists. Many of our loved ones can’t wait to vote in the elections next year.

For now, have a very merry Christmas.

- Mark Wignall is a political- and public-affairs analyst. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and mawigsr@gmail.com.