The Ultimate "Get Out of Jail Free" Card

Donald Trump has spent his whole life evading accountability for his actions. Most rich people do. Fight rich people in court and they can delay and delay, racking up the legal fees until you're exhausted and broke. Rich and powerful people flout the law with impunity, knowing that while they aren't necessarily untouchable, it takes a lot more effort and resources to hold them accountable.   

Until recently, Trump's legal problems were civil suits, not criminal charges. In the aftermath of his electoral defeat in 2020 he faced criminal charges for the first time. Several indictments were related to his attempts to overturn the results of the election, including inciting the violent attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He was also indicted for retaining government records and refusing to return them when requested to do so. He was adjudicated a rapist (technically sexual abuse, a distinction without a difference) and lost a defamation suit by the woman he raped. He was convicted of falsifying business records in a scheme to hide payoffs to a woman he had an extramarital affair with. (He was convicted on 34 counts, which were basically the result of there being 11 checks written, 12 ledger entries and 11 invoices for legal services, all for the same underlying crime). But all of that is going to go away. The federal charges will be withdrawn when the new attorney general is appointed in January, or Special Counsel Smith may withdraw the charges in anticipation. The Justice Department has no jurisdiction over any state charges, but even if convicted, any sentence will be effectively moot - are we going to jail the serving president of the United States? Even before his re-election myriad legal maneuvers delayed accountability. The Supreme Court that he in large part appointed ruled that he had immunity for a large swath of actions taken while in office. A friendly judge dismissed charges, not on the merits, but because she thought the office of Special Counsel was unconstitutional. 

Trump and his supporters have accused the Biden administration and the mostly Democratic prosecutors of "lawfare" unfairly and illegally targeting him. Other than the so-called hush money case in New York we'll never know whether Trump would have been guilty as charged in any of the other cases. To anyone not blinded by worship of Trump, his actions clearly warranted some kind of legal action. He was indicted in all of these cases. Indictments are handed down, not by the prosecutor, but by a jury of 16, who in each case concluded that there was reasonable cause to hold a trial. The fact that someone aspires to political office shouldn't be sufficient to ignore potentially criminal actions. A majority of Americans apparently believe that it is. Many are even claiming that he's not really a convicted felon for reasons that don't make sense. And now, in typical Trumpublican doublespeak, they're cheering for using the Justice Department to go after Trump's 'enemies", not for any legally supportable reasons, but to enact retribution. There's talk of investigating Special Counsel Jack Smith apparently for doing his job. 

A majority of voters decided that the rule of law doesn't apply to Donald Trump.