How Do You Even Engage?

 Fundamental to politics is the idea that there should be a free and vigorous debate between opposing parties. When it comes to Donald Trump, however, it is largely impossible to have that debate because the other side is simply spouting gibberish. This is become true again with the GOP response to Trump's (latest) indictment. 

The basic talking point from the GOP is that this is a political prosecution and therefore we have abandoned the "rule of law." Mike Pence tried and failed to make this case, although he's pretty dumb so maybe others will make it better. However, the basic premise to this criticism is that ANY prosecution of Trump is based on politics rather than on his manifest lawbreaking. 

The facts are pretty clear and pretty damning. Trump had classified documents, which does apparently happen. He then lied, obstructed and refused to hand them back to the proper authorities. Trump is not President of the United States. He has zero right to have those documents, yet he repeatedly refused to turn them over. These are simply facts and are at the heart of the indictment.

Of course, with the Right "every accusation is a confession." We have already seen Ron DeSantis and Trump try and leverage the state to punish political enemies. That the Justice Department for a Democratic administration has indicted Trump is exactly something they would do without merit to laws being broken. This is why they can't admit that Trump is different.

However, Trump's B-side campaign slogan was "Lock her up." How many investigations into Benghazi or Hunter Biden's laptop have we had without indictments?  As Trump crack(ed up) legal team discovered in 2020, you actually have to have receipts in federal court. All the spurious accusations about Hillary Clinton or Hunter Biden's criminality have not warranted an indictment, which is issued by Grand Juries, not the whim of the prosecutor. It is true that prosecutors have some discretion about whom to bring charges against and they don't present exculpatory evidence, but that's what the trial is for. Clinton and Biden haven't even cleared the minimal bar for indictment.

Trump has been on a decades long crime spree that wealth and fancy lawyers have managed to cover up. Now, he's paying the price. 

The - definitionally - is the rule of law.