[This piece will be appearing as a newspaper op/ed this week in the very red congressional district (VA-06) in which I was the Democratic nominee for Congress in 2012.]
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A Disgraceful Attack on the Rule of Law
It should be obvious to every American who gives the evidence the least bit of thought that the response of many Republican leaders to Trump’s conviction was an outright attack on the Rule of Law.
“Sham”? “Witch hunt”? “Weaponization” of our legal system?
All the evidence points the other way!
I’d be less disturbed if they’d come out and honestly declare they support the criminal against the proper workings of the American system of justice. But no one should believe their lies, so obviously contrary to the facts.
Even aside from the scrupulously conducted trial where a jury of average Americans listened to weeks of testimony and concluded unanimously that Trump was guilty as charged, this is but the latest piece in a growing pattern of properly arrived at legal findings of Trump’s wrong-doing.
• A court in Colorado looked deeply into Trump’s role in the Insurrection, and determined that he was indeed an insurrectionist; • A grand jury in Georgia found that Trump and others were guilty of conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia; • A jury of average Americans in New York found that Trump was guilty of sexually assaulting and then defaming a woman (E. Jean Carroll) and penalized Trump for it in a civil case; • A legal proceeding found that Trump’s organization had been guilty of widespread financial fraud; • A judge in California said that it was more probable than not that Trump was guilty of crimes related to the attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
Add to all that how Trump’s attempts to delay all his trials past the election amount to a virtual confession. If he were innocent, would he not be eager to show his innocence to voters before the election.
Add also how the “talking indictments” in those other (delayed) present such powerful evidence of Trump’s guilt. (Especially the case in Florida on the charges regarding Trump’s endangering national security with his theft and mishandling of classified documents—and widely considered a “slam dunk” for conviction.)
There’s absolutely no reason to think juries in the other cases would be less likely to convict than the jury that just found Trump “Guilty” on all counts.
Against all those reasons for trusting that those “Guilty” verdicts were the workings of Justice, there’s not a bit of evidence to support the Republican leaders’ scandalous pretense that some injustice has been done to Trump by that trial.
But there’s really no honest way to fail to see that those Republican leaders’ declarations represent allying with the criminal in waging war against the Rule of Law.
What should an American think of a Party – from its chosen Speaker of the House on down -- that rallies to support the man with such a trail of criminality by attacking the American system of justice that has functioned exactly as it is supposed to?
(And there’s no basis whatever for believing that Trump has been the victim of an American legal system “weaponized” against Biden’s political opponent. The history of the past several years shows just the opposite: that Biden’s Department of Justice bent over backwards to avoid a confrontation with the former President. )
The “Nixon has suffered enough” fallacy
On July 11, Trump will be sentenced. What kind of sentence would be appropriate?
That question reminds me of how wrong-headed I thought President Ford was when he declared, while pardoning his predecessor, Richard Nixon: “Nixon had suffered enough.”
The idea was that the humiliation and loss Nixon had experienced by being exposed as a criminal and driven from office was sufficient, and he should be spared any further ordeal.
That idea offended me.
I don’t know how much “suffering” society should inflict on criminals in general as punishment for their crimes. I’d advocate whatever system of punishments would help most to get the kind of society we’d like to have. But whatever the level or kinds of suffering appropriate for punishing crimes, the idea that a President that commits crimes should be spared punishments that would be inflicted on other Americans has it backwards.
What sense does it make to punish more harshly those criminals born into disadvantageous circumstances (like some guy who holds up a 7-Eleven) than someone who has enjoyed the greatest privileges the nation can bestow? Why should those whose lives were more afflicted with suffering all along have to suffer prison time while a President who commits crimes is judged to have “suffered enough” simply by having his special status revoked?
And there’s another thing: while society has a real interest in discouraging crimes like armed robbery, hugely greater is the national interest in deterring Presidents from using their enormous powers in criminal ways. (No comparison on the magnitude of the damage the different criminals do to the society.)
I don’t know what sentence Trump should be given. But, as I see it, his place in America – like Nixon’s, a half century ago -- is a reason to be tougher on him, not more lenient, than if he were just some random citizen.
And as for the idea that his supporters would be angered, I say that the defenders of the Rule of Law are engaged in an inescapable battle. The question is on what terrain the battle is to be waged. And I think as good a battlefield as any is the ground of Trump’s criminality, and of the Republicans’ disgraceful choice to side with him against the Rule of Law.