The Reckoning — Don Trump
by John P. Flannery
Donald J. Trump has played out his hand, lost the presidential election, proven himself a bad loser, and will soon confront all those offenses he committed in his 2016 election campaign and since.
Is it necessary — to investigate and perhaps prosecute Trump?
It is if the rule of law matters.
Madison wrote — “If Men were angels, no government would be necessary.
Trump’s gross misconduct may not be allowed to serve as a precedent for other public officials, now serving or who may serve.
In this presidential election, the voters gave a crushing victory to former VP Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris.
Still, Trump lies that he won the election.
He authorized 50 court cases and recounts in the battleground states he lost. He won not one of those cases.
Trump figured he had an ace in the hole — the right to pardon himself and others.
A pardon is void when it’s an abuse of power, when it benefits the person conferring the pardon to an associate in crime or to himself.
The person who accepts the pardon necessarily acknowledges the commission of a crime or crimes.
The next Attorney General must enforce the laws that have been violated, pardon or not, finish what has been investigated, investigate what else should be prosecuted, and prosecute without fear or favor those offenses uncovered.
If the accused interposes Trump’s pardon as a bar to any prosecution, we should litigate insisting the pardon was void and without effect.
We know much of Trump’s misconduct because of the Mueller investigation and his Impeachment.
As for the first, when the question arose whether the Russians interfered in the 2016 election, Trump responded he had nothing to do with any Russians. This lie was punctured upon the disclosure of an exclusive meeting with Russians in the Trump Tower on June 9, 2016. Donald Trump Jr. misled the public about what transpired at that meeting. First he said it was to discuss adoptions of Russian children by Americans, then he admitted it was to obtain damaging information about Hillary Clinton. Lastly, we found out that Donald Trump, the President, drafted Trump Jr.’s initial misleading public statement that it was only about “adoptions.”
Trump became President in large part because Russia interfered in the 2016 election.
Trump sought again in this election in 2020 to deprive the people of the United States of their right to a free and fair election.
Special Counsel Bob Mueller conducted an investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
In the second volume of the Mueller Report at p. 76, Mueller wrote — “[T]he evidence does indicate that a thorough FBI investigation would uncover facts about the campaign and the President personally that the President could have understood to be crimes or that would give rise to personal and political concerns.”
The investigation did, however, produce 37 indictments; seven guilty pleas or convictions; and compelling evidence that the president obstructed justice on multiple occasions.
A statement signed by over 1,000 former federal prosecutors including yours truly concluded that if any other American engaged in the same efforts to impede federal proceedings the way Trump did, they would likely be indicted for multiple charges of obstruction of justice.
Trump’s obstructive conduct stood out as being particularly serious:
- In June 2017 President Trump directed White House Counsel Don McGahn to order the firing of the Special Counsel after press reports that Mueller was investigating the President for obstruction of justice.
- After National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was fired in February 2017 for lying to FBI investigators about his contacts with Russian Ambassador Kislyak, Trump cleared his office for a one-on-one meeting with then-FBI Director James Comey and asked Comey to “let [Flynn] go.”
- Trump fired Comey to stop the investigation.
- In July 2017, the President directed former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to instruct the Attorney General to limit Mueller’s investigation.
- In 2017 and 2018, the President asked the Attorney General to “un-recuse” himself from the Mueller inquiry, actions from which a “reasonable inference” could be made that “the President believed that an unrecused Attorney General would play a protective role and could shield the President from the ongoing Russia Investigation.”
Trump interfered in the 2020 election, by coercing Ukraine to provide scandalous material against Joe Biden’s son in exchange for the US military equipment Ukraine needed to defend Ukraine against the Russians and Putin.
There were five crimes worthy of prosecution — bribery, soliciting foreign campaign contributions, coercion of political activity, misappropriation of federal funds, and obstruction of Congress.
As I’m writing this, 121 members of the Republican Caucus in Congress had demanded that the Supreme Court ignore the facts and the law, set aside the election of Biden, and make Trump President — in defiance of the will of the voters.
In response, the US Supreme Court said “not so fast,” given that Texas was challenging elections in other states, and Texas “has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections.”
We have to let these members of Congress and anyone else who defies our law and constitution know not just what the Supreme Court ruled, but that there comes a time of reckoning for those who disregard our law and the constitution.
JPF
