The only question that matters for the Trump trial jury: Justice for all, or only a few?

Now that the jury has begun its deliberations in the hush money trial of Donald Trump, America has no choice but to wait.

For most of us, the wait will center on the guilt or innocence of a former president who has been accused of falsifying business documents in furtherance of a crime. And while the story includes allegations of an extramarital affair and an adult-film star, and includes a purported hush money payment facilitated by a Trump acolyte turned foe, the case is ultimately about paperwork.

Will the documents convince the jury that Trump committed a crime, or will the jurors view the evidence through the lens of reasonable doubt? That is the question most Americans are asking, and whatever our political bent, we are eagerly awaiting an answer.

For me, however, the wait is about something else entirely. I’m waiting to see if our Pledge of Allegiance is true. Does America truly provide liberty and justice for all, or only for a select few? Is American jurisprudence grounded in the rule of law, or is it built on a foundation of lies? Will the special treatment Trump received during the trial extend to the verdict, or will the evidence of allegedly falsified documents ultimately result in his conviction?

I must admit that even as I wait, I have my doubts because while the pledge tells me we are one nation, we appear to be living in a place that’s been divided in two — and that’s been the case for a long time.

Those who doubt need look no further than the words of the Kerner Commission — the body convened by President Lyndon B. Johnson to examine the root causes of the racial justice uprisings that took place across the country in 1967.

“Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal,” the commission wrote in its report.

That prediction appears to have come true with the rise of Trump’s political movement — a movement that I believe leans strongly on white grievance, racial division, and the ever-looming threat of political violence. We saw that threat realized with the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. It was a day of violence that took place after Trump lost the 2020 election and told a crowd of thousands to descend on Capitol Hill.

Trump has since been accused in a federal indictment of conspiring to defraud the United States while trying to overturn the results of the election. Judge Tanya Chutkan, the federal judge assigned to that case, employed the same strategy other judges have used to rein in Trump’s verbal and social media attacks on witnesses, prosecutors, and judges: She put a gag order in place, warning that Trump couldn’t engage in a “smear campaign” against prosecutors and court employees.

“No other criminal defendant would be allowed to do so, and I’m not going to allow it in this case,” Chutkan said, according to the Hill.

No other criminal defendant would be allowed to push the boundaries as Trump did.

That is the point. No other criminal defendant would be allowed to push the boundaries as Trump did during the hush money trial — the only criminal trial he couldn’t successfully delay.

We watched Trump violate Judge Juan M. Merchan’s gag order 10 times and avoid jail time. We saw Trump engage Republican politicians to make the statements that the gag order precluded Trump from uttering himself. In both civil and criminal cases in New York, we saw Trump engage in the same kinds of smear campaigns Judge Chutkan said would not otherwise be allowed.

It’s as if there is one criminal justice system for Donald Trump and another for the rest of us. Perhaps that’s why I doubt the Pledge of Allegiance is correct.

Our nation professes that there is liberty and justice for all. Yet, as I’ve watched Trump defy the very criminal justice system he once swore to uphold as president, the only reasonable conclusion one could possibly reach is that there is, in fact, only liberty and justice for some.