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Donald Trump is going to get away with a coup attempt, and Democrats can only blame themselves.
Special counsel Jack Smith on Monday effectively brought to a close two different federal investigations into Trump, clearing the former president of charges related to his refusal to return classified documents he improperly took from the White House and charges related to his fake electors scheme that sought to illegally undermine and effectively steal a U.S. presidential election.
These are two cases in which Trump was clearly and without question guilty of every single charge brought against him. Two cases that even Republicans – the same people who have attempted to rebrand Jan. 6 as a “normal tourist visit – struggled to explain away.
America’s first and only president to not leave peacefully is going to get away with it. Not because he didn’t do it, but because he managed to get elected again.
And a big reason why he got elected is because Democrats blew his prosecution.
Before we dig into this, let’s get a few things clear: I loathe Donald Trump and everything he stands for – the greed, the callousness, the selfish behavior, the racism, the belittling of the weak and vulnerable, the disregard for women, the unabashed self-enrichment, the disregard for American laws and standards, the lack of simple decency. I hate it all.
But this isn’t about all of that.
I don’t think Donald Trump should be prosecuted and imprisoned because I don’t like him or disagree with him over policy or ideals. He should be prosecuted and imprisoned because he broke the law, repeatedly, and attempted to undermine the very foundations of American democracy – brazenly and without the slightest bit of hesitation.
There is no question about this. There has never been a question about this. Trump did absolutely everything that he was accused of doing.
We watched it unfold before our eyes. Most of the people involved in the coup attempt – and that’s what it was – openly admitted to participating in it and readily admitted their illegal acts. Many of those people are currently serving criminal sentences for their acts.
And no, I’m not talking about the dopes storming the Capitol. While ugly and disgusting and a blight on the country, those goobers weren’t the true threat to America. Trump, his cronies in Congress and his administration and the fake electors were the real threat.
They planned methodically how to literally overturn a free and fair election and ignore the will of the people. They put it in a PowerPoint presentation and emailed it around. They had fake electors lined up and willing to cast bogus electoral college votes for Trump. They were a Mike Pence within pulling it off.
There is no question that this happened. We know it happened. The people involved have admitted it publicly.
And somehow, the Biden DOJ couldn’t manage to get this slam-dunk case prosecuted in four damn years.
It took three years to just get an indictment.
It took two full years to get Smith appointed special counsel.
And all along, career prosecutors with years of experience and fantastic resumes were sounding alarms, asking what in the world was taking so long, questioning the exorbitant amount of time it was all taking. And all along, the Biden administration failed to act with anywhere near the appropriate sense of urgency.
Oh, yes, there were certainly circumstances that were out of the DOJ’s control – like a Trump-appointed federal judge stalling the process for months and the Trump-appointed Supreme Court running just the right amount of interference – and it’s certainly true that prosecuting a former president should be handled with care, but those things do not bear the brunt of the blame.
What takes the blame is the absurd decision to slow walk an investigation into a coup attempt; to undergo a “bottom up” probe, as Garland’s supporters deemed his creeping work on Trump’s actions to overturn the election. It was utterly absurd from start to finish.
The country needed someone who was up to the job, who was as proud to prosecute the anti-American criminals as the criminals were of their actions in this case.
Instead, the country got in Garland the sort of AG that perfectly encapsulates the problems of the Democratic Party as a whole: weak, timid, ineffective and utterly terrified of bold action.
Four years ago, for the first time in American history, the peaceful transfer of power was seriously threatened, and a sitting, lame duck president concocted a scheme to retain power against the wishes of American voters.
And instead of sitting in a jail cell, where he belongs, that guy is heading back to the White House because our justice department – headed by Democrats – failed the American people.
