Every week, opinions appear on these pages with which I disagree. No surprise there. Mostly I just dismiss them. But occasionally a column, written by someone who should know better, so affronts reality that it cries out for a response. Such was the case with Rep. Mike Simpson’s piece from last week, “The Lawfare Campaign against President Trump Continues to Fall Apart.” Reading it, I felt I was enmeshed in the propagandistic world described by George Orwell in his novel 1984, a world in which there is an inverse relationship between what words mean and the political realities they are used to describe.

Orwell would say, “If a demagogue and his minions say ‘black is white’ often enough, if they continue over and over to turn the facts upside down, more than a few unthinking people will eventually come to believe their indefensible assertions" (that’s been the Trump playbook from the beginning).

Simpson was doing just that here. If he actually believes what he wrote, he’s apparently been in the MAGA echo chamber too long. The facts belie him.

Providing no evidence at all, he says, “It is crystal clear the Left has weaponized our judicial system against the former President. But what Americans see unfold in real-time is an unhinged lawfare campaign falling apart while the rule of law prevails.”

No. More accurately what I and many other Americans have seen unfolding recently are outrageous judicial rulings from the Supreme Court and from Federal Judge Aileen Cannon, the effect of which seems a clear intent to disrupt the legitimate workings of the rule of law.

Simpson continued: “Following just weeks after the Supreme Court acted as a balancing force against the Left’s weaponization of the judicial system in Trump v. the United States, Judge Cannon—the [Trump appointed] federal judge overseeing the case alleging President Trump mishandled classified documents—has moved to dismiss the case.”

It takes some hutzpah, Rep. Simpson, to make these statements with a straight face. I don’t know where to begin. You’re saying that black is white. In view of the facts, what can you possibly mean by saying “the rule of law prevails?"

“Unhinged campaign?” There is no campaign, and the legal proceedings against Trump have been thorough and disciplined, conducted by the book. “Alleging” the mishandling of confidential Federal documents, as if some doubt about it remained? We’ve all seen the pictures of FBI agents lawfully retrieving boxes and boxes of those documents, stashed away carelessly at Trump’s Mara Lago resort in clear violation of the law.

And Cannon’s dismissal of the case, following a wink and a nod from Justice Clarence Thomas? Her flimsy justification (with Rep. Simpson’s apparent approval) was that Special Counsel Jack Smith was not legally appointed by the Justice Department. (She is wrong, as three earlier legal precedents in similar special counsel cases have firmly established. Her ruling is being appealed to the 11th Circuit Court and almost certainly will be overturned.)

Let’s look at Simpson’s loaded misapplication of “lawfare” and “weaponization” to describe motives of the political Left (he’s appropriated recent Republican playbook language. Lawfare derives by analogy from “warfare”; together with weaponization, they suggest the use of malicious force to replace legitimate due process. It’s an accusation based on no evidence, a total misrepresentation. Sadly, however, they do describe the legal stratagems of those attempting to derail the justified processes investigating Trump’s actions.

Yes, lawsuits are coming at Trump one after another—but keep cause and effect straight. It’s not because devious Democrats are plotting to get him—no, it’s because for years he’s believed laws didn’t apply to him, and it’s caught up with him. Now grand juries and trial juries composed of ordinary American citizens are being shown thoroughly marshaled evidence of his criminal wrongdoing. When the justice system is actually allowed to work, it’s Trump’s own words and actions, not his political opponents, that convict him. Isn’t that exactly the way our federal and state justice systems are supposed to work?

When the systems are allowed to work—aye, there’s the rub. Trump and his expensive lawyers, knowing he’s guilty, have employed every delaying tactic in their playbook to keep the remaining (and most serious) trials from occurring before the November election. And they’ve been abetted not only by Judge Cannon’s repeated indefensible delays but most especially by the Supreme Court—which took four months—until the very last day of their term— to rule on the dubious claim that a President is immune from prosecution for unlawful acts. That decision should have been expedited in several weeks. It’s critically important for voters to have settled knowledge of whether one of the presidential candidates is guilty of felonies that compromise our national security and indeed our very democracy.

Clearly, the long delay was calculated. This high Court knew exactly what it was doing. The stench arising from this is absolutely nauseating.

Even more outrageous was how they ruled: namely that a President cannot be held criminally accountable under the law for whatever he might do under the umbrella of his “official responsibilities.”

Are you kidding me? A President, with all that power, less accountable under the law than ordinary citizens?

Mike Simpson would have it that the Supreme Court’s ruling acted as “a balancing force against the Left’s weaponization of the judicial system.” He got the metaphor totally backward. More accurately, the Supreme Court has put a heavy hand on one side of the scales of justice and leaned down hard on it.

According to Simpson, these obstructions are “a major victory for the rule of law, equal justice, and our constitution.” Oh, my! Black is white and up is down.

Victory for the rule of law? In Martin Luther King’s memorable words, “Justice delayed is justice denied.” It’s been nearly four years; who knows if Trump will ever be tried for his most damaging crimes against our country, particularly if he wins in November. And is an ideologically tainted Supreme Court really a victory for the rule of law?

Victory for equal justice? We know that ordinary citizens charged with what Trump has done would have been tried long since and be languishing now in prisons. Equal justice, when the Supreme Court (with Trump in mind) has just ruled that a President is above the law?

We have aspired in this nation to have an independent judiciary, assuring equal justice for all. We have aspired to have non-political law enforcement agencies. Now we have a past and potentially future president who has yet to fully answer to the law. He has actually said that if elected he will use the Department of Justice, including the FBI, to go after his perceived enemies, all those he thinks have wronged him. He has shown that if elected he will push the Federal Judiciary even harder in the direction of the present Supreme Court.

I wonder if Mike Simpson is at all alarmed by that. We all should be.