There’s a new argument making the rounds among former President Donald Trump’s defenders, and it doubles as a threat of political retribution. The upshot of this argument is that, if he’s not immunized from criminal prosecution in Washington (for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection) and Georgia (for his attempt to interfere in the state’s election results), then sham prosecutions await every president. And if courts allow Colorado to disqualify Trump from the presidential ballot, then disqualification will become the norm even for candidates whose behavior comes nowhere close to having participated in an insurrection or a rebellion covered by the 14th Amendment’s text. “If it can happen to Trump,” the argument goes, “it can happen to anyone.”
Even before Trump’s immunity claim was rejected by the D.C. circuit court on Tuesday, Republicans were already activating the cycle of political payback.
Even before Trump’s immunity claim was rejected by the Washington, D.C., circuit court on Tuesday, Republicans were already activating the cycle of political payback. Trump himself has threatened, if elected, to order that President Joe Biden be indicted. There is chatter about charging Barack Obama with murder because of a wartime military operation in Yemen. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has made not totally credible noises about removing Biden from Florida ballots. The race to the bottom is already underway — and, per the story coming from Trump’s defenders, courts that rule against him will only accelerate it.
We find these cycle-of-retribution arguments lacking, for reasons we explain in more detail below. But we were comforted to see that courts don’t seem to be buying them, either. For example, In Tuesday’s blockbuster opinion denying Trump’s presidential immunity claim, the D.C. Circuit said: “The risk that former presidents will be unduly harassed by meritless federal prosecutions appears slight,” and the specter of “a torrent of…
Read the full article here
