Today’s political news - Part 7

Why would any decent person do this?  This should be reason enough to vote him out of office.

No kidding!

Paul Waldman


“Opinion Why not prosecuting Trump would be the most dangerous thing of all”


By Paul Waldman
Columnist
September 12, 2022 at 3:52 p.m. EDT

“There has been a good deal of discussion about what would happen if Donald Trump were indicted for absconding from the White House with government documents. What precedent would it set? Would his supporters explode in violence that would threaten the stability of the nation? If he were to become president again, how terrible would his vengeance be?

But no one seems to be asking about the practical consequences of not indicting Trump, if the investigation produces sufficient evidence to charge him with a crime.

Rather than venturing into that territory, those arguing in favor of such an indictment have made a simple case: Laws are laws, and anyone who breaks them should be held accountable. There’s no passage in the Constitution saying former presidents get to commit crimes. As Hillary Clinton put it over the weekend, “If the evidence proves or seems to show that there are charges that should be leveled, then I think the rule of law should apply to anyone.”

On the other side, Trump’s defenders have made two sets of claims. The first, offered by only the most enthusiastic cultists — the ones who also believe Trump is an ethical businessman who pays his taxes, deeply respects women and would never tell a lie — is that he is completely innocent.

The second claim — the one more sane Republicans have gravitated toward — is that even if Trump broke the law, we should cut him a little slack. We wouldn’t want to turn into one of those countries where new presidents prosecute their predecessors, and it already looks bad for the Justice Department to be investigating a former commander in chief.

And Republican politicians obviously hope that fear is more persuasive than legal reasoning. As Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said, if Trump is indicted “there will be riots in the street.”

Many Trump critics, for their part, acknowledge the difficulty of the Justice Department’s position. As Clinton said, “it’s a really hard call,” not because of the legal questions so much as the political consequences.

The implicit argument is that at the end of their investigation, even if Trump has run out of friendly judges to intercede on his behalf and there is ample evidence to support an indictment, the department may still want to say, “He broke the law, but it would be too disruptive to indict him, so we’re going to stand down.”

But let’s not overlook the harm that decision would cause. It would be an official validation of Trump’s approach to the presidency, and indeed his entire life, which operated on the presumption that the law doesn’t apply to those with money and power. The system can be bullied or bought; consequences are for little people and the likes of Donald Trump can do whatever they please.

The almost inevitable consequence would be greater corruption and lawbreaking among future presidents (and ex-presidents). The essence of the rule of law is that we don’t rely on the good will of neither citizens nor leaders; they obey the law because they have to, and there are consequences if they don’t. Allowing Trump to pocket sensitive public documents (assuming that’s what he did, which seems more than clear) would send a message to every future president: If you want to break the law, go right ahead, because it’ll probably be too much of a hassle to prosecute you for it.

Avoiding an indictment would also make it more likely, not less, that Trump or another president would turn the Justice Department into nothing more than a political tool. For a hint of what that might look like, see this new book by former U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman, who describes how he was pressured by then-President Trump’s top political appointees in the department to investigate and indict people Trump saw as enemies.

No sane person could believe that having escaped prosecution and been elected again, Trump would say, “Boy, that was close — I’d better leave the Justice Department alone so it can enforce the law in a fair and nonpartisan manner!” Quite the contrary. Having shown the world that politics outweighs the law and victory goes to the most shameless, he’d make his former behavior look like a model of probity and restraint.

And at a moment when the legitimacy of so many institutions is in question, it would effectively mean hoisting a white flag of surrender atop the Justice Department. It’s already hard enough to convince Americans that the law will be applied equally; if the government loses its nerve when faced with Trump and his hooligan supporters, who will believe in its integrity?

Keep in mind, all this is predicated on the assumption that, at the end of the investigation, the evidence will be compelling enough to convince a jury there was criminal behavior. What matters is whether the facts show that Trump broke the law, and that the Justice Department believes it can secure a conviction.

If so, Trump should be prosecuted, even if the result is a negotiated plea. To do otherwise would be the most dangerous thing of all.”

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