August 2, 2023
A Gazette Editorial
By now everyone’s heard the news: former President Trump has been indicted for his unsuccessful attempt to remain in office after losing re-election. For those who followed the January 6th Hearings in Congress last year this was not a huge surprise. Witness after witness raised their right hand and publicly testified about Trump, the election, J6, and the plot to subvert Democracy. Most of them were former Trump Administration characters or supporters, not members of the nominal opposition party with political axes to grind. The picture they painted was one of shocking extremes: bogus slates of Electors, threats by Trump himself against State-level officials, and crazy plans to subvert the Will of the People by any means necessary.
This was Senate Leader McConnell just a few weeks after the Capitol was attacked on January 6, 2021:
“President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office, as an ordinary citizen, unless the statute of limitations has run, still liable for everything he did while in office, didn’t get away with anything yet – yet.
“We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one.”
It wasn’t a controversial observation. The fact that he wrapped his cowardly vote to acquit within it didn’t hide his desire to have it both ways: to state that Trump was responsible for the insurrection while passing the buck to somebody else to hold him accountable. Two years later, that ‘somebody’ else turned out to be Special Counsel Jack Smith.
Here’s McConnell again:
“American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of democratic business they did not like.
“Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the Senate floor. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chanted about murdering the vice president.
“They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth – because he was angry he’d lost an election.”
Trump, entrusted with the highest responsibility of any American to protect and defend the Constitution, claimed his right to remain President was paramount, regardless of how the People voted:
“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,”
Really?
And here’s Former VP Mike Pence:
“I really do believe that anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be President of the United States. And anyone who asks someone else to put themselves over the Constitution should never be President of the United States again.”
Again, not a really controversial opinion to hold. Unless “anyone” happens to be Trump. Then all bets are off. Our judicial system, where the prosecution has to convince a unanimous jury beyond a reasonable doubt that a presumed innocent defendant is guilty, is suddenly not good enough for Trump. No, his partisans shriek, we’re a Banana Republic if we try to apply the Law to a former President. It’s weaponization, they cry. It’s election interference. Here’s what one Bananas Republican proposed after Trump lost by 7 Million votes:
“He could immediately on his order seize every single one of these machines around the country on his order. He could also order, within the swing states, if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities and he could place them in those states and basically rerun an election in each of those states. It’s not unprecedented”
But that wasn’t election interference, according to Trumpist reasoning. Neither was this crack from Trump, just a couple weeks before Biden went on to beat him in a landslide.
“These people should be indicted. This was the greatest political crime in the history of our country. And that includes Obama, it includes Biden.“
So let’s recap: Trump could shoot somebody on 5th and not lose any support, ergo, his partisans would never charge him. When he was President a DoJ memo protected him from being criminally charged for any reason. Now, they inform us, that as a former President and/or a candidate, he also can’t be charged because that’s weaponization and interference. Furthermore, anyone who dares to indict or sue him (by definition not a supporter bc he could shoot someone for all they care), is a partisan hack in full witch hunt mode. It boils down to this: Trumpists argue that he could only be legitimately indicted by a supporter that would never do such a thing bc 5th Ave, etc, etc. Bottom line: Trump claims he’s above the Law and his supporters agree.
We disagree. While being a former, current or potential future office holder shouldn’t make anyone more liable to criminal charges, it shouldn’t make them any less liable either. If Biden did a crime, he should go through the system and if Trump did, so should he. Where’s the controversy in that? Juries have been acquitting people since forever in our country. Anyone who’s served on a jury can tell you that citizens take their responsibility to be fair very seriously. It’s one of the greatest things we’ve got. That, and the orderly, peaceful transition of power.
From the indictment:
On January 1, the Defendant called the Vice President and berated him
because he had learned that the Vice President had opposed a lawsuit
seeking a judicial decision that, at the certification, the Vice President had
the authority to reject or return votes to the states under the Constitution.
The Vice President responded that he thought there was no constitutional
basis for such authority and that it was improper. In response, the Defendant
told the Vice President, “You’re too honest.”
