“Do we operate under a system of equal justice under law? Or is there one system for the average citizen and another for the high and mighty?” — Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy (1973)

What do Ted Kennedy and Martha Stewart have in Common? They’re both from Massachusetts. Martha Stewart didn’t kill anyone… Ted Kennedy did. Martha Stewart went to jail… Democrat Ted Kennedy became the “Lion of the Senate.”

Then there’s the investigation of Pres. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. If there ever was a double standard of what constitutes justice, this is it. We are seeing the injustice unfold right before our eyes.

You shall do no wrong in judgment, in measurement of weight, or capacity. You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin; I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt (Lev. 19:35-36).

You shall not have in your bag differing weights, a large and a small. You shall not have in your house differing measures, a large and a small. You shall have a full and just weight; you shall have a full and just measure, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you. For everyone who does these things, everyone who acts unjustly is an abomination to the Lord your God (Deut. 25:13-16).

A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is His delight (Prov. 11:1).

Differing weights and differing measures, both of them are abominable to the Lord (Prov. 20:10).

Differing weights are an abomination to the Lord, and a false scale is not good (Prov. 20:23).

Here’s the big one.

On the evening of July 18, 1969, the married Ted Kennedy and a young campaign worker named Mary Jo Kopechne were returning from a party on Chappaquiddick Island. A short time later, with Kennedy at the wheel, in an instant of miscalculation, the car careened off the narrow Dike Bridge and plunged into the pond. Kennedy swam ashore leaving Mary Jo to drown. Instead of immediately reporting the accident to authorities, he waited until the next morning later claiming he had been dazed by the impact of the crash.

He left the scene of the accident, passed homes with their lights on as he made his way back to his hotel, did not immediately report the accident, and two fishermen reported the submerged car at 8:20 the next morning. A diver was brought in, and Kopechne’s body was discovered around 8:45 AM.

The diver, John Farrar, later testified at the inquest that Kopechne’s body was pressed up in the car in the spot where an air bubble would have formed. He interpreted this to mean that Kopechne had survived for a time after the initial accident in the air bubble, and concluded:

Had I received a call within five to ten minutes of the accident occurring, and was able, as I was the following morning, to be at the victim’s side within twenty-five minutes of receiving the call, in such event there is a strong possibility that she would have been alive on removal from the submerged car.

Farrar believed that Kopechne “lived for at least two hours down there.”

If Ted Kennedy had been a Republican, his obituary would have read something like this:

Former disgraced Senator Edward Kennedy died this week. He is most noted for leaving the scene of an accident where he left a woman to drown as he waited until the next morning to report what he said was an accident. This gave him an opportunity to work on his story for the press in hopes of staying in office. It didn’t work. Conservatives hold their leaders to a higher standard.

While not proven, many have speculated that Kennedy had been driving drunk, panicked after the accident, and spent the evening and early morning conferring with family members and confidants on how he could minimize the damage to his political career. He pled guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and had his driver’s license revoked for a year.

On August 16, 2003, William Janklow ran a stop sign and plowed into a young man riding a motorcycle, killing the rider, Randy Scott. Janklow did not leave the scene of the accident. Janklow was convicted of second-degree manslaughter and sentenced to 100 days in jail, followed by three years of probation, during which time he was not permitted to drive. The victim’s family has also filed suit for unspecified damages, something the Kopechne family did not do. Were they paid off? We’ll probably never know.

Janklow served as governor of South Dakota and, at the time of the accident, was a United States Congressman. He resigned from his congressional seat two days before his sentencing. The motorcycle rights organization A.B.A.T.E. felt that the sentence should have included more jail time. I agree. The court, however, did not show preferential treatment to the congressman in sentencing. The sentencing guidelines were followed to the letter. Unlike Ted Kennedy, William Janklow did the honorable thing and resigned his congressional seat.

The Democrats have always worked under the cover of two standards of justice – one for them and another for everyone else.