Donald J. Trump, the 45th president of the United States, was charged this week by federal prosecutors with conspiring to defraud the United States, obstructing official proceedings and undermining his country’s democracy.
While this is neither the first, nor likely the last of Trump’s legal problems — he already faces four other cases in state and federal courts and at least one more indictment is expected — this is the most serious and important of those proceedings.
The case against Trump is a test for the rule of law in the U.S. It will show whether all are equal in the eyes of the American justice system and whether it can hold accountable an individual who has no regard for the norms that have governed political life in the country and society itself. Its implications extend far beyond the future of Trump. It is a test of U.S. democracy.
The gravamen of the indictment against Trump is simple. As explained in the charging documents, “despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power.” For more than two months after election day, he “spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false.” Nevertheless, Trump “repeated and widely disseminated them anyway — to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.”
This culminated in the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, “an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy,” said Special Counsel Jack Smith in a statement about the indictment. Even after that horrific violence, Trump did not abandon hope of a reversal, nor slow his efforts to procure one. He spent that evening working the phones, trying to win support for further delay from the same people whose lives had been threatened by violence earlier in the day.
The rest of the 45-page indictment provides details — all graphic, many of them jaw-dropping — that substantiate the case. While it is important to remember that all defendants are innocent until proven guilty, there is little in the document that is surprising. The outlines, and many of the particulars, were provided by the Congressional Jan. 6 committee, which investigated that day and the actions that produced it, as well as media coverage and even memoirs from key participants.
Indeed, one of the most extraordinary elements of the Trump story — a tale that begins before the announcement of his candidacy in 2015 and continues to this day — is how much of it unfolded in public view. He has long and loudly insisted that celebrity and power exempt their holders from being held to conventional standards of decency or accountability. Trump never deviated from his belief that he could not be defeated, but that he could only be cheated. During the 2016 campaign, he refused to say he would support the Republican Party nominee if it wasn’t him, nor did he ever commit to a peaceful transition in the 2020 election if he lost.
According to last week’s indictment, he not only refused to facilitate that transfer of power, unlike every one of his predecessors, but he actively worked to undermine and prevent it, by the promotion of violence if necessary. This is detailed in the charging document when his advisers and co-conspirators said that there “have been points in the nation’s history where violence was necessary to protect the republic.” Except it wasn’t the republic Trump and his co-conspirators sought to protect — it was the Trump presidency.
Trump’s legal defense is likely to rely on two arguments. The first is that he is being punished for statements that the election was stolen or that fraud was committed. The indictment is clear, however, that those comments are not criminal. He is not being prosecuted for telling lies; his free speech rights are not being infringed. Instead, his alleged criminality reflects the use of those false statements as a foundation for actions that undermine the institutions of U.S. democracy.
The second argument is that Trump relied on legal counsel that insisted that he had reason to challenge the results. He not only believed that the election was stolen but that there were legitimate legal grounds he could use to secure his victory. In other words, Trump did not have the requisite intent to commit fraud or break the law.
The indictment anticipates that argument by citing multiple instances when the president was informed by his own advisers that the claims were false or fanciful and there are times when Trump seems to accept that he lost the election, as, for example, when he tells officials that certain problems are for the next administration. The indictment counters claims that the president thought he had a right to act as he did with comments from the president’s advisers — and sometimes the very advocate of action himself — that they were far-fetched or on shaky legal ground.
Trump’s real strategy is to delay and hope that the 2024 election will resolve his cases. He is banking on a win, which will give him the power to then halt the proceedings or, in another questionable maneuver, pardon himself. As front-runner in the race to become the Republican nominee, that is a real possibility. His legal difficulties are consolidating support among the party faithful for his candidacy and Republican voters look set to nominate him for president in the midst of this trials.
Yet even if he doesn’t claim the nomination, that base has pushed other GOP candidates to back Trump and dismiss the charges as politicization of the justice system. That unquestioning support for the former president is, apart from the alleged misdeeds, the most alarming element of this situation.
Unflinching support for the former president and indifference to the charges against him are yet more proof of the bitter and seemingly intractable partisanship that colors politics in Washington. Not only is there reflexive opposition to any initiative by the other party but Republicans now aim to exact revenge on President Joe Biden to change the perception of Trump’s misdeeds. Since Trump was twice impeached, Biden must be impeached as well, even though the grounds for such action are not apparent or may not exist. What matters is discrediting the process of accountability.
That means the world must expect more partisanship, more bitter divisions and even less action by the U.S. government. This will not only lead to paralysis, but will undermine U.S. credibility and standing in the world. It is not a coincidence that this week Fitch, the credit ratings agency, downgraded U.S. debt from AAA to AA+, blaming mounting debt along with an “erosion of governance” over the past two decades “that has manifested in repeated debt limit stand-offs and last-minute resolutions.” A preference for partisan fights over policy-making at a time of genuine crises will ensure that the U.S. is sidelined when it matters most.
That however is nothing compared to the damage that is being done to the image of the United States as a bastion of democracy. At its heart, the case against Trump stems from his readiness to use violence to overturn the will of the people.
No doubt some are rejoicing this week’s indictment. The ability of the U.S. justice system to treat equally and hold accountable all who come before it is to be celebrated. But there is no mistaking the tragedy of this moment.
Source: The Japan Times
