There have been numerous Left of Center commentators who are coalescing around the idea that the charges against Trump are kind of lame. The argument that Jon Chait puts forward is that these charges would not have been brought against anyone other than Trump. The inevitable comparison is to Al Capone going to jail for tax evasion.
Except Capone DID evade his taxes, mainly because of all the underlying criminality. Tax evasion is a crime. Yes, Capone should've seen jail time for the murders and the bootlegging and so on, but he did evade his taxes.
This is hardly the worst thing Trump has done. He, too, has tax evasion that stretches back decades. The Georgia case is the biggest and seemingly most air tight. The DOJ investigations cover a host of crimes. I get that campaign finance stuff and falsifying business documents isn't January 6th, but Nixon and Watergate were fundamentally about covering up another, different crime. The DC axiom "It's not the crime, it's the cover-up" is traced back to Nixon, who - up until Trump - was the pinnacle of lawlessness in the Oval Office.
Finally, what's the point, precisely, of quibbling with the scope of the charges? What journalistic service is being done here? Is it the deep rooted impulse to bothsides every question? The faux objectivity that poisons so much journalism?
If Trump is guilty of the crimes, hopefully the jury will hold him accountable. That's it. That's the story. Piss off about the rest.
UPDATE: As Paul Campos points out, Trump will not go to trial in any of the existing or potential criminal cases before the 2024 election. Even if Georgia indicts tomorrow, there will be pretrial hearings and appeals. New York takes forever to go to trial.
The point, then, is that Trump will be the GOP nominee absent his death or health related incapacity, and he will be running under multiple indictments. Which - one would hope - would make him unelectable.
No comments:
Post a Comment