Trump Indictment, a First for a U.S. President, Tests Democracy

For the first time in American history, a former President of the United States has been criminally charged. It’s worth repeating that: for the first time in history a US president has been indicted for a crime.

In 2016 Donald J. So many unimaginable firsts have happened since Trump was elected to the White House, so many insurmountable lines have been crossed, so many unimaginable events have shocked the world that it’s easy to lose sight of how surprising this particular moment really is. is in

For all the attention paid to the raw details of the case or its novel legal theory or its political ramifications, the big story is one of a land that has never traveled before, one fraught with dire consequences for the health of the world. Oldest democracy. For more than two centuries, presidents have been held in office, even those embroiled in scandal, declared immune from prosecution while in office and effectively after Too.

not anymore. That taboo has been broken. A new example has been set. Will it tear the country apart, as some feared after Watergate, to prosecute a former president? Will many at home and abroad see this as victorious justice, similar to developing countries where former leaders have been imprisoned by their successors? Or will this become a moment of reckoning, a sign that even he who was once the most powerful man on the planet is not above the law?

“Whether an indictment is warranted or not, it crosses a huge line in American politics and American legal history,” said Jack L. Goldsmith, a Harvard law professor and former top Justice Department official under President George W. Bush.

If that wasn’t enough to shake the woods of the Republic, the first may not be the last. Mr Trump could face a second indictment in Georgia and a third from federal prosecutors and potentially a fourth.

There is concern that the barrier-shattering indictment will involve something as inappropriate as quietly paying money to hide a sexual favor. Given that the defendant has been involved in far more earth-shattering events such as attempting to subvert the election and prompting an attack on the Capitol to prevent the transfer of power, the charges brought by Manhattan prosecutors seem out of step.

But if the issue is one of accountability, the case could redraw the lines and make it less difficult for prosecutors in Georgia and Washington to pursue charges of more serious crimes when there is evidence, not to bear the burden of justifying them. Will have to take action like never before. Leave it to the only president ever impeached twice by Congress to face so many trials that lawyers need a scorecard just to keep track.

While Mr. Trump’s impeachment takes the country into uncharted waters, it is hardly surprising to the authors of the Constitution that it took so long. Justice Department policy says that current presidents cannot be impeached, but the producers apparently considered the possibility of them being impeached after leaving office.

A President impeached by the House and convicted and removed from office by the Senate “shall nevertheless be liable and shall be subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment according to law,” Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution announces.

“Generally, we take that language to suggest that whatever may happen with respect to impeachment while in office of the President, he shall be held civil or civil even after he has left office for his misconduct.” can be held criminally liable,” Michael J. Gerhardt is Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of North Carolina.

In other words, no former president was exempt from criminal liability. “The framers must have been horrified at the prospect of the president being above the law anytime he or she left office,” Mr. Gerhardt said.

In fact, voting to acquit Mr Trump in his second impeachment trial – which accused him of inciting the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 – Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of Kentucky, said he did so because Did it because Mr. Trump was no longer in office, but said he was still subject to criminal prosecution.

“My view is that so long as the case brought is for an offense which is not unusual to charge, and the evidence is as strong as it usually is – that is, a ward against the problem of selective prosecution — so it is imperative that we hold politicians accountable, regardless of the position or position they hold,” said Andrew Weissman, a deputy special counsel to Robert S. Mueller III, who led the Trump campaign’s investigation into Russia. examined relationships.

Meena Bose, who is Hofstra University’s Peter S. Kalikov, who is the acting dean of the School of Government and runs a Presidential History Project, said a country plagued by polarization and democracy concerns would be strengthened by holding its leaders accountable. “Addressing those challenges requires an active and sustained commitment by all public officials to ensure upholding of the rule of law,” she said.

But others worry about the long-term consequences for the president, not least because the indictment is being brought by a local prosecutor rather than the Justice Department, opening the door for prosecutors across the country to take on the president himself. for going.

In 2008, voters in two small towns in Liberal Vermont Approved resolutions impeaching Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney “crimes against the constitution” and instructing the lawyers of his city to draft the indictment. Nothing came of it, but it’s not hard to imagine a conservative local prosecutor trying to accuse President Biden of failing to adequately protect the border.

“This presents an opportunity for potentially thousands of state and local prosecutors to investigate and charge a president without the constraint imposed by the DOJ’s policy against impeaching a president,” Stanley M. Brand said a former House counsel whose firm represents a couple of Trump aides. In the investigation of falsification of confidential documents. “It theoretically subjugated the presidency in a way I don’t believe was ever considered constitutionally.”

Mr Goldsmith said that anyone can tear apart the fabric of the prosecution system. “Especially if this indictment is followed by a proper prosecution by the special counsel, we will see discrimination and retaliation in the medium term, which is detrimental to our political national health,” he said.

Mr Trump’s allies branded the Manhattan case political even before any indictments could be filed without waiting to review the actual evidence. District Attorney Alvin L. That Bragg appeared was unimportant—to defend his party’s most recent president, and potential next nominee, he had already declared the prosecution illegitimate because it had been brought by a Democrat.

Representative Mark E. Green, Republican of Tennessee and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, compared any prosecution of Mr. Trump to political cases in less developed countries. “Daniel Ortega Got His Protest Arrested in Nicaragua and We Call It a Terrible Thing,” he said last week, “Mr. Biden, Mr. President, think about it.

Locking up former leaders on false, politically motivated charges may be common in the world’s autocracies, but some of the most advanced democracies have not shied away from putting their leaders on trial for crimes. In Israel, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert spent more than a year in prison for bribery, fraud and other charges, while the current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is on trial on similar charges.

In Italy, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has just regained some power as part of the governing coalition, has faced 35 criminal court cases During his long career, however, he was definitely convicted only once for tax fraud and sentenced to one year of community service. just last month, he was acquitted of the charge of bribing witnesses In a previous underage prostitution trial.

Other leaders of democratic nations convicted in recent years include former Presidents Jacques Chirac (embezzlement) and Nicolas Sarkozy (influence peddling) in France, former President Park Geun-hye (corruption) in South Korea, and former President Chen Shui in South Korea. -Bayan (bribery) are involved. Taiwan.

In the United States, Teapot Dome, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and Whitewater have never put a president in the dock. The only current president to be seen inside a police station as a defendant is Ulysses S. Grant, who was Stopped for speeding on the streets of Washington in his horse-drawn carriage. He paid the $20 and went on his way.

While no president had ever been indicted before, an early vice president, Aaron Burr, was tried for treason after leaving office for conspiring to carve up the western territories into a new country, though he was acquitted. was done. Nearly two centuries later, another vice president, Spiro T. Agnew, resigned amid a plea deal in a corruption case.

Mr. Trump will not be barred from running for his old office by an indictment or even a conviction. In 1920, Eugene V. Debs, a socialist leader, made his fifth bid for the White House from prison, where he was serving time for his opposition to World War I. He received 919,799 votes, or 3.4 percent of those votes. Of course, unlike Mr. Trump, he was not the nominee of a major party and had no chance of winning.

At least a few other presidents were concerned about being impeached after office. Richard M. Nixon was succeeded by Gerald R. Nixon. Ford was pardoned a month after resigning, which spared him any prosecution in the Watergate scandal. Bill Clinton struck a deal with Whitewater prosecutors on his last full day in office, in which he charged Monica S. He pleaded guilty to perjury under oath about his relationship with Lewinsky, forfeited his law license for five years, and paid a $25,000 fine in lieu. Facing charges as a private citizen.

By pardoning Mr. Nixon, Mr. Ford was not trying to set a precedent by barring future impeachments of the president, said historian Richard Norton Smith, whose biography of Mr. Ford, “An Ordinary Man,” will be published next month. Instead, he was trying to lead the country beyond Watergate as it tackled challenges such as inflation, the last scars of the Vietnam War, and deep public cynicism.

“He wasn’t forgiving Nixon so much as he was trying to forget him,” Mr. Smith said. “It is to counter the popular, political and media obsession which, quite understandably, was formed around the previously unthinkable concept of a US president facing prison time. And whose existence prevented him from doing his job.” Or prevent the American people from facing all the problems Nixon left behind.

He said the decision should not mean Mr Ford has given Trump a get-out-of-jail-free card. “To make him a scapegoat for the wrongdoings of subsequent presidents seems a little too unfair,” Mr. Smith said. “As he himself warned in 1980, if voters ever elected an arrogant president ‘and I mean in a vicious way – God help the country. ‘”