Gordon L. Weil
You can’t gloat or groan about the Trump guilty verdict.
It was a bad day for America.
His critics seem to glory in highlighting his felony conviction
as the first for a U.S. president. His
allies strive to dismiss the entire trial as being nothing more than pure politics. The pundits run wild with speculation about
the election effect of the Trump conviction.
The pundits ought to take a deep breath and a step back. They focus too much on speculating about immediate
effects and provide little perspective.
Both sides may be right about Trump and the pundits may
provide some wisdom, but what of the effect of the trial on the country and how
it will affect our sense of American exceptionalism or the world’s sense of us?
Maine’s congressional delegation shows the split between
partisanship and patriotism.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins doesn’t like Trump but remains
a partisan politician. She loyally reverted
to GOP form to condemn the politics leading to the trial. Maybe she was announcing her next re-election
bid and wanted to discourage a future primary challenge from a hard-right opponent.
Middle-of-the-road Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, who served
in the military, focuses on praising the functioning of the American judicial
process. That’s safe ground and ought to
be the bipartisan truth. Also, it’s patriotic.
The problem is not the substance of the case. Trump was guilty. How do I know? Because the jury, 12 randomly selected citizens,
said he is. We have never devised a
better way of determining the facts in a criminal case. Given all the evidence and a reasonable
judgment of it, he is guilty.
Of course, you can disagree.
That’s a right everyone has. In
the end, it’s likely that anyone who either gloats or groans is influenced by
their own political views. It is
difficult to say that a partisan conclusion is better than the work of a jury, whatever
their personal prejudices, trying patriotically to follow the careful and
complete instructions given them by the judge.
The problem is that the case was even brought. While the guilty verdict may seem to justify
the decision of the Manhattan District Attorney to start the process, it obscures
the question of whether it was in the best interest of the United States to try
a former president for this kind of felony, even given its political overtones.
Trump is correct. Guilty or not, this case was politically
motivated. That’s because everything in public life is politically motivated. For example, Trump brags that he intentionally
appointed justices to the Supreme Court to reverse Roe v. Wade. Those appointments surely were politically
motivated.
The former president claims that President Biden is behind
the cases that have been brought against him. Obviously, Biden does not control
county DAs. To the extent that Trump’s claim is true in the federal cases, it
turns out he has a friend in the White House.
Merrick Garland, Biden’s Attorney General, seems to think he
is still a federal judge. Going slowly to
avoid any impression that his president had primed him to get Trump, he handed Trump,
the candidate, what amounts to a free pass in an election year. It is difficult to believe that Trump would
have done the same if the situation were reversed.
Garland’s delay in starting the federal trials gave Trump a
good chance of avoiding any major negative decision during the campaign. And that break has nothing to do with pardoning
himself. Garland’s hand-picked prosecutor managed to ensure
that he would get Trump’s lackey on the Florida bench in the documents case that
should have been a quick win.
Trump’s “America First” policy launched the U.S. on the path
to international irrelevance. If he’s
elected, leaders in friendly countries might worry the American world role will
further weaken. Then there’s the worldwide
embarrassment of House Speaker Mike Johnson and actor Robert de Niro standing
in the street outside the courthouse, campaigning for or against Trump.
Threats aimed at jurors, requiring their anonymity and
police protection, are worse than embarrassing.
Collins and other Trump cheerleaders undermine respect for
the judicial system when they join his ceaseless complaining. Trump and the GOP say the real decision on
his guilt will be made by his political appeal to voters in November. The problem is that if he loses, he’ll claim
electoral fraud and not admit guilt.
Certainly, voters can decide whether voting for a convicted
felon matters and for many, it won’t. But
votes cannot overturn or affirm a court decision. Meanwhile, stand by for endless appeals, mainly
designed to confuse or delay a final result.
What matters more than the 2024 election is preserving the
American system of government from partisan sabotage. Attacking orderly justice to score short-term
political points doesn’t help.
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