Big Guys Are Always Innocent Poem by michael spangenberg

Bridget Anne Kelly fought back her tears
As long as she could, her lips quivering
Her face growing more and more red
As the jury foreman pronounced a
Guilty verdict on each of nine charges.

The mother of five made it to count three
And then the climate chance flood began.

Verdicts like this, prosecutions like this
Investigations like this send a message
To people that we don't tolerate it
That it's not right, and that if you do it
And we find out about it
We will go after you
As hard as we can.

The system worked
The rule of law been vindicated.
Living unhappily ever after
Kelly now is a felon.

But the big guy got away
Chris Christie, governor in absentia
unlike Jesus Christ, Jewish' plot victim
Deeply involved in covering-up-the-plot
Responsible, but smart enough
To hide his tracks, guided no doubt
By his years as a federal prosecutor

Christie's the firefighter who knows
The clever tricks to get away with arson.

Deleted sensitive text messages
Exchanged with a CEO, top-aide
At a pivotal moment in the conspiracy
Both now say they can't remember
A single word of it. How convenient.

So why's the governor not charged?
Because knowledge of the plot
Is not a crime in itself, And because
Prosecutors had no email trace
To hang him with, as they did with Kelly.

So the governor will limp onward
Damaged but free, forever innocent
Until proven guilty, in court
Never held to account.

That leaves a bad taste. It recalls
the common U.S. soldiers convicted
of torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq
while the general who ran the prison
got off with a reprimand. Who'd say
Justice was done?

Footnote - Poetic variation based on New
York Times: 2 Ex-Christie Allies Convicted
in George Washington Bridge Case,
November 5,2016.