Well, it's official! Today, for the first time ever, criminal indictment charges were made against Donald Trump, making him the first ex president to ever be indicted in American history. And the amazing thing is that there are probably more on the way.
There's a certain inevitably to this: anyone who has read honest media reports about Trump for the past decade knows that he is a man who has always lived on the edge of legality, who acts (and talks!) more like a mob boss than a businessman or politician. And like a mob boss who avoids prison while his underlings take the fall for him, Trump is surrounded by criminals who often have been caught committing crimes on his behalf. From Trump's former lawyer and convicted criminal Micheal Cohen, who's hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election started this whole mess for Trump, to former campaign advisor George Papadopoulos who was convicted of lying to the FBI, to Trump's long time accountant Allen Weisselberg who was recently convicted of tax fraud, some of the closest people to Trump have broken the law. It's hard to believe that he himself would never face some kind of charges.
The interesting thing about this indictment is that it may be the weakest of the 4 potential criminal charges that may be brought against him. To get a felony conviction here, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will have to prove to a jury that Trump both falsified business records while violating campaign finance laws. While this may be difficult, clearly Bragg thinks that he has enough evidence to make a case. We'll see.
The second possible criminal charge against Trump, (and the one that seems to be the strongest), is the one coming from the state of Georgia. As we all now know from a recorded conversation, after losing the election, Trump called former Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and asked him to "find" him votes. He even implied that Raffensperger himself might face some kind of charge if he didn't find those votes. The fact that this call came after the state had already recounted the votes twice without changing the outcome meant nothing to Trump, and his behavior certainly seems criminal here, even if was still the president when he made that call.
Then there's a Justice Department investigation over whether Trump's stirring up of the mob on January 6th counts as a criminal incite to riot. This is a bit tricky, since freedom of speech is important and Trump did use the word "peacefully" while addressing the crowd. On the other hand, he had the power to stop the riot while it was going on and he delayed doing that for hours. He even sent out a tweet condemning Mike Pence as the riot was taking place, further inflaming the crowd. Plus there was testimony during the House of Representatives's January 6th investigation that said that he wanted metal detectors removed from the rally because the protestors were "not there to hurt me.”
Finally, there's the stolen document scandal, in which Trump's refusal to turn over classified documents after leaving the White House prompted an FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago that resulted in over a hundred secret documents being found. The crazy thing about this possible crime is that it reveals just how immature and downright stupid Trump is: he was told that he needed to turn over all the secret documents he had taken with him after leaving the White House, and he only returned some of them, leaving the rest in a closet in his resort/home. All he had to do was hand them over, but, like a small child crying finders keepers, he refused, seeming to believe that any document he got as president was his forever. If this is the crime that finally nails Trump, he'll be guilty of criminal stupidity.
Inevitably, there's some worry in the media that this unprecedented step will galvanize Trump's supporters into some kind of violence, and while that fear is understandable, there is no doubt that it right thing to do. Every American who commits a crime should face charges for it, no matter who they are.
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