Potential Trump Prosecution Is Bad for Trump. It's Also Good for Trump
In a sane world, criminal prosecution would be a career ender for a politician. This is not a sane world.
Depending on who you listen to, an indictment of ex-President Donald Trump is imminent. Or it’s not.
Depending on who you listen to, the public arrest of Donald Trump is imminent. Or it’s not.
Depending on who you listen to, the arrest and indictment of Donald Trump will cause political violence across the country. Or it won’t.
In a sane world, criminal prosecution would be a career ender for a politician. But this is not a sane world and Donald Trump’s political career has been anything but normal.
To figure out what to make of all of this, you have to break it down its component parts.
Should Trump Be Prosecuted? Yes, IF the Evidence Says So
Politico laid out exactly what it is we’re talking about here:
On the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021, as pro-Trump rioters were ransacking the Capitol in Washington, prosecutors in Manhattan gathered on Zoom to discuss Trump’s bookkeeping practices.
More than two years later, while state and federal criminal investigations into Trump’s culpability for the events of Jan. 6 continue, it is the Manhattan probe that is set to produce the first Trump indictment, as soon as this week. The grand jury hearing the case meets again tomorrow.
While we don’t know for sure what crime — or crimes — that Manhattan DA ALVIN BRAGG will allege, the weight of available evidence suggests Trump will be charged with violating a New York state law against falsifying business records.
Specifically, Bragg is apparently preparing to argue that Trump created fictitious records during the scheme to pay off STORMY DANIELS in October 2016 after she threatened to expose their alleged affair.
Is it a sexy, huge political crime if this is what he is charged with? No. is falsifying records a crime? Yes. Would you or I be charged with falsifying records in a similar situation? Absolutely. Is it political persecution as some knuckleheads on the internet say? No.
Guess Ms. Harrington missed the part where Donald Trump lost the 2020 Election.
Look, nobody has seen the evidence that Bragg presented or will present. But should Trump be indicted and face trial if the evidence suggests he should? Yes.
There are people who seem to believe a former President should not face criminal charges if prosecutors suspect a crime has been committed. Yes, the same people who say “don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time” seem to think that the rules are above Trump. But they also forget that the only reason Richard Nixon was not prosecuted for his crimes was that his successor Gerald Ford pardoned him one month into Ford’s term.
Then there is Aaron Burr.
In 1806, less than a year after his tenure as Vice-President ended, Burr was arrested and put on trial for seditious conspiracy against the United States for allegedly planning to establish an independent empire in parts of the Western United States and Mexico.
So while there may be no precedent for prosecuting a former President, there is certainly a precedent for prosecuting a number 2.
Will Prosecution Help Trump Politically? Yes
In a sane world, Trump would be dead politically if he is tried and certainly if he is convicted. But look what we are already seeing before the arrest:
Today, Republicans — including his 2024 White House rivals — are rallying to the defense of former president Donald Trump as he faces a possible indictment in a hush-money case involving adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. On Sunday night, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called the investigation political but distanced himself from Trump’s call for protests if he is arrested, as Trump predicted would happen Tuesday in a social media post over the weekend.
So far, active or potential candidates Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, and Vivek Ramaswamy have already suggested that the potential prosecution of Trump for actual crimes is political. This just goes to show how much Trump has corrupted the Republican electorate and separated Republican voters from common sense, moral clarity, and whatever religious values the claim to have.
Like this.
I would like to believe that there is a silent majority of Republicans out there who find Trump’s behavior and potential indictment reprehensible. But I’ve been disappointed every time that I make such an assumption.
There is, however, a school of thought that Trump’s most hardcore supporters won’t stand for him this time.
So far, at least, Trump’s demands for his supporters to rally around him again have produced anemic results, suggesting his power is waning. When senior reporter for HuffPost Christopher Mathias reported from outside the Manhattan DA’s office, he found that the media there far outnumbered the protesters. “So many reporters here I just saw a reporter start interviewing someone but they turned out to be a reporter too,” he tweeted.
As a number of people have pointed out, Trump rallied his supporters in late 2020 around the idea that a key election had been stolen. His supporters are likely to find the idea that he must be protected over financial crimes committed in New York, possibly related to a sexual encounter with an adult film actress, less compelling.
And then there is the issue that those who turned out to support him in January 2021 found themselves on the hook for crimes, all on their own, without his help. Just today, a jury found four more people affiliated with the Oath Keepers guilty of conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, conspiracy to prevent an official from doing their duty, destruction of government property, and civil disorder. The jury found two others guilty of entering and remaining on restricted grounds. Meanwhile, Trump spent the day “truthing” on social media.
A lack of visible presence from Trump supporters at his arrest/arraignment/whatever may seek to limit whatever political help a Trump indictment would give him in his comeback attempt.
What’s Next.
We wait. Until the District Attorney’s office actually indicts Trump, this is all just speculative talk.
Should the DA’s office not prosecute Trump because he is a former President of the United States? No, because no matter what Trump worshippers would like to believe, not even an ex-President is immune from prosecution.
But what I do know is this: things aren’t yet as stupid as they are going to get.