Prosecuting Trump?

We have no choice but to prosecute Trump once he’s out of office.  If we don’t, we’ll be issuing an open invitation for the next would-be dictator, and the next one couldn’t possibly be this incompetent. We really don’t have a choice here.

I’m sure some people will counter that Obama didn’t prosecute Bush 43 for war crimes (waging an aggressive war), on the basis of “national unity,” but how solid is that analogy?

Here we have blatant criminality on a dozen different fronts: a solid and steady string of shameless, brazen, in-your-face felonies. Whether or not some of them are eventually linked to Russia (making all this treason) is all but immaterial.

And how is unity generated by letting all this slide?  One would think that if Trump goes down on some array of charges that include: fraud, tax evasion, witness intimidation, violations of campaign finance laws and the emoluments clause, obstruction, and money laundering, many of his supporters will simply realize they were duped.  That will provide at least some level of reunification.

The only way this gets put totally to bed is that the country arrives at the consensus that Trump was a mistake.  Look back to Nixon.  All he went down for (or would have gone down for) was obstruction.  He is uniformly regarded as a bad person; the country is uniformly glad that he was exposed as a criminal and removed from office.  That’s what I call “unification.”

Moreover, if you think we’re a disgrace on the world stage now, just imagine what we’ll look like if we announce to everyone on Earth: The United States rejects the concepts of accountability and justice.  Our criminal statutes simply do not apply to the rich and powerful.  America is no better a country than North Korea.

Our reputation as a corrupt and pitiable nation is horrible indeed, but it actually can get worse.  We owe it to ourselves and our children not to let that happen.