Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to federal charges on Tuesday, with the typical array of supporters and opponents. It’s depressing to think this could continue for another two years as the indictment and trial dominate the 2024 presidential campaign. Republican primary voters may be the last resort to spare the country this fate.
We’re on record as believing that Attorney-General Merrick Garland’s indictment of Mr Trump is a misguided use of prosecutorial power that could have destructive consequences. It intervenes in a presidential election campaign, unleashing political furies that are impossible to predict. It keeps Mr Trump the dominant issue of the presidential campaign, denying the country the larger debate the public deserves.
The shame is that this is exactly what both Mr Trump and the White House want. Mr Trump would rather not be charged, but he is already brandishing the indictments against him as a campaign credential. He’s all but saying Republicans must nominate him as the only defence Americans have against Democrats and the deep state. Democrats want to run against Mr Trump because they think he’d be the easiest Republican to beat, or to ruin in office if he does win again.
GOP primary voters can benefit from reading the latest Trump indictment and asking what it means for a second Trump term. The facts alleged show that Mr Trump has again played into the hands of his enemies. His actions were reckless, arrogant and remarkably self-destructive. This is the same Donald Trump they will get if they nominate him for a third time.
Mr Trump believes he had the right to keep the documents under the Presidential Records Act, and we think he has a stronger case than the press claims. But once he received a subpoena for those documents, Mr Trump should have known he was at legal peril if he concealed them or lied about having them.
Yet if the indictment is correct, that is precisely what he did. He allegedly suggested to a lawyer that he could “pluck” out a page and not turn it over. In the most striking episode, he brandished a classified document related to a war plan in front of his staff and a writer.
Incredibly, the indictment says he did this while he knew he was being tape-recorded: “Mr Trump: Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this. You attack, and — ”
In the same conversation, he allegedly admitted that he hadn’t declassified the document, as he previously told the public he had done with all documents he retained. He thus undercut part of his own potential defence. The narcissism and wretched judgment are familiar, but still hard to believe.
It’s also telling that Mr Trump is now struggling to find lawyers to replace the two who resigned last week. How can a former President not find a lawyer?
All of this fits the pattern that made Mr Trump’s Presidency less productive than it could have been. Yes, he was wronged by the false Russia collusion claims. But too often he helped his opponents.
In 2017 he retained James Comey as FBI director against better advice because he thought he could control him. Four months later Mr Trump undercut his own deputy attorney general’s explanation for firing Mr Comey by saying he fired him because the FBI director wouldn’t publicly exonerate him. This triggered the Mueller special counsel probe.
Mr Trump aided his own first impeachment with a phone call to Volodymyr Zelensky looking for dirt on Joe Biden. He undermined his credibility on Covid because he lacked the self-discipline to avoid brawling with reporters who knew they could always goad him.
His role in the disgrace of January 6, 2021, is well known. But had he accepted the 2020 election results, he might now be coasting to the nomination and have an excellent chance to win.
If Mr Trump is the GOP nominee, he is unlikely to defeat Joe Biden. But if he did win, the document fiasco is what a second term would be like. He wouldn’t be able to deliver the conservative policy victories that Republicans want because he can’t control himself. He’d be preoccupied with grievance and what he calls “retribution”. The best people won’t work for him because they see how he mistreated so many loyalists in the first term.
If Republicans really want to defeat Democrats, the press and a hostile bureaucracy, they’ll nominate a candidate who won’t shrink from a fight but will also be smart enough not to blunder into obvious traps.
If Republicans nominate Mr Trump again, they won’t “own the libs”, as the faddish saying goes. The libs will own them.
The Wall Street Journal
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