For months — no, years — there’s been endless handwringing about how unprecedented it would be to indict a former president. As if that alone is reason enough to avoid such a move. What often felt lost was why such discussions were even necessary in the first place. And that’s because Trump’s White House tenure was less a presidency than a criminal enterprise unrivaled in its corruption and duplicity.
A felony indictment from Alvin Bragg, Manhattan’s district attorney, accusing Trump of hiding a $130,000 hush money payoff to Stormy Daniels, an adult film actress, is expected to drop soon. It won’t have the weight of a potential Justice Department case against Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection. It lacks the importance of possible charges Trump could face for his failed attempts to coerce Georgia officials to “find” enough votes to undo the loss that sealed his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.
But it should deflate any lingering notions that a former president and his criminal misdeeds are untouchable.
Throughout his personal and public life, Trump has been a man accustomed to getting his way — and getting away with everything. When the world does not bend to his will, he stokes discord. That’s what he did in the weeks leading to the deadly insurrection in 2021, and he’s at it again. When several media outlets reported that Bragg would probably indict Trump this week, the disgraced former president, without evidence, posted on his Truth Social site that he “WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”
Of course, Trump is using his possible indictment for fundraising. “If you are doing poorly, as so many of you are, do not send anything,” he wrote on his website. “If you are doing well, which was made possible through the great policies of the Trump Administration, send your contribution.”
Meanwhile in New York, police have set up barricades and installed cameras near the Manhattan courthouse where Trump, if indicted, would be fingerprinted and have his mug shot taken. In Washington, D.C., Capitol Police are also beefing up security in case of pro-Trump protests.
From his campaign rallies to the insurrection, Trump’s propensity for inciting violence has fueled concerns well beyond the unique nature of indicting a former president. Last year Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said if Trump was prosecuted for taking boxes of classified documents when he left the White House (yet another ongoing investigation), there would be “riots in the street.” Ever the toady, Graham was trying to ward off future prosecutors.
With white domestic extremism as this nation’s top terrorist threat, there’s an incessant fear that Trump would direct his supporters to reduce this country to rubble and ash rather than see their crooked leader arrested. That’s the narrative underlying so much of the panicky coverage surrounding a possible Trump indictment.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other House Republicans are summoning Bragg to explain his actions at a congressional hearing. It’s nonsensical, but it’s also meant to intimidate other prosecutors investigating Trump.
During a roundtable discussion Monday, CNN host John King asked about a Trump indictment, “So if this happens … what is the burden on the prosecutor knowing you have the details of the case, but you have a rendezvous with history?”
Elliot Williams, a CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, answered, “To quote ‘The Wire,’ the TV show, ‘You come at the king, you’d best not miss.’ You have to, if charging a former president of the United States, know or feel confident that you can proceed with something that’s going to win. This is not just an ordinary case under any circumstance.”
Trump is no king. He’s a miscreant who operates as if beholden to no law. That’s why a month before the 2016 presidential election, his lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen reportedly bought Daniels’ silence about a one-night affair with Trump a decade earlier. As president, he later denied knowing anything about it. Prosecutors claim Trump reimbursed Cohen and faked his business records to cover up a possible election law violation.
Granted‚ this is hardly the worst of Trump’s many sins. But his unprecedented presidency, one that ended with thousands of his followers breaching the US Capitol in a violent attempt to overthrow an election, deserves an unprecedented response. And perhaps this possible first indictment in Manhattan will be the motivation other prosecutors need to make their own cases against Trump’s malfeasance.
To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary who served in the administration of another president who should have been indicted, you go to court with the indictment you have, not the indictment you want. And if Bragg does what is expected, Trump, who sees himself as above the law, will move closer than he ever imagined to being held accountable by it.
Sorry, bitchtits, but your side made those R.O.I. acceptable when you rioted over your druggie felon messiah O.D.ing in police custody. I wish we were as vicious as you think we are. Then I wouldn't have to deal with your bullshit.
