The Importance of Donald Trump’s Political Recurrence During his First Two Years in the White House (and Before) Reionization
Since everything about Trump’s political career has been unprecedented, it’s hardly surprising that his political reemergence is posing new questions with the potential to further challenge and damage the country’s political institutions.
Trump dropped his clearest hint yet Saturday of a new White House run at a moment when he’s on a new collision course with the Biden administration, the courts and facts.
Trump’s current prominence on the political scene was already highly unusual. One-term presidents usually don’t last long in history. But it is a testament to the firm hold he maintains over much of the GOP that he’s still a key player nearly two years after losing reelection. While there is growing talk about whether he could convince some voters of his merits, Trump still seems to have a lot of juice.
While it is true that many of Cheney’s fellow Republicans refused to acknowledge the ex-president’s conduct, it also suggests that her sacrifice in the House GOP may have been wasted. Certainly, there was little sense during the compelling hearings that the public was as transfixed with this act of accountability as it was, for instance, with the Senate Watergate hearings in the 1970s that helped lead to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. The power of conservative media to distort what really happened on January 6 may help explain the dichotomy.
Those controversies also show that given the open legal and political loops involving the ex-President, a potential 2024 presidential campaign rooted in his claims of political persecution could create even more upheaval than his four years in office.
There is a chance the political period leading up to the 2020 election will be more about the past than the future because of the differences between Democrats and Republicans.
The Trump Organization, IRS, and the Censorship of Elections: Why Do Some Pro-Trump Candidates Run Their Campaigns?
The clash of institutions of accountability went to another level on Friday when the House issued a subpoena for documents. Trump has a long history of challenging such requests and of trying to delay or frustrate investigations into his conduct. The possibility that he might choose to testify in order to claim the political spotlight has been raised by the subpoena.
In Arizona, one of the ex-presidents favorite candidates is questioning the election system once more. “I’m afraid that it probably is not going to be completely fair,” Lake told AZTV7 on Sunday.
The presidency will likely become more modest and focused on the lawful needs of our democracy, and less subject to the arbitrariness and self-serving behavior the founders feared. The House January 6 committee’s decision to issue criminal referrals against Trump fits old expectations for our democracy, and an indictment from the DOJ would set a valuable precedent for the nation’s third century.
The Republicans are likely to increase their presence in Washington after the elections. Scores of Trump-endorsed candidates are running on a platform of fraud, raising questions as to whether they will accept the results should they lose their races.
On another politically sensitive front, the Trump Organization’s criminal tax fraud and grandy larceny trial begins in Manhattan on Monday. The trial could affect his business empire, and even cause fresh claims from him that he is being crucified for political reasons, which may inject yet another contentious element into election season. In a separate civil case, New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, has filed a $250 million civil suit against Trump, three of his adult children and the Trump Organization, alleging that they ran tax and insurance fraud schemes to enrich themselves for years.
Democrats have made attempts to get Trump back in the news. President Joe Biden equated MAGA followers with “semi-fascism” and some campaigns have tried to scare critical suburban voters by warning pro-Trump candidates are a danger to democracy.
The Ex-President’s First Debate and the 2016 Presidential Committee on Investigations of Election Fraud: What Is Missing?
With voters about to head to the polls, inflation and gasoline prices are more of a worry, which could cause bad news for the Democrats in Washington.
At a rally in Texas on Saturday, the ex-president told his supporters he would probably have to do it again.
“It may take multiple days, and it will be done with a level of rigor and discipline and seriousness that it deserves,” Cheney told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“This isn’t going to be, you know, his first debate against Joe Biden and the circus and the food fight that that became. This is a far too serious set of issues.”
The committee will issue a subpoena after Trump said he may use an appearance before it to create a political spectacle. He made multiple false and bogus claims about election fraud, and blasted members of the panel for their sole function to destroy the lives of many hard-working American citizens.
Although the committee’s days are numbered, its work may live on. One of Smith’s probes is looking at events surrounding January 6 and prosecutors could potentially use testimony and other evidence from that committee. The panel is going to release the transcripts of more than 1,000 interviews they did after the final report is released.
The prospect of video testimony over an intense period of days or hours is likely to be unappealing to the former President because it would be harder for him to dictate the terms of the exchanges and control how his testimony might be used.
This could all become academic anyway. Given the possibility of a Trump legal challenge to the subpoena, the issue could drag on for months and become moot since a possible new Republican House majority would likely sweep the January 6 committee away as one of its first acts.
If there is evidence a crime was committed, Garland would face a dilemma over whether the national interest lay in implementing the law to its full extent or whether the consequences of prosecuting a former commander in chief in a fractious political atmosphere could tear the country apart.
It would cause a lot of uproar if an ex-president were charged for being a candidate for a second White House term. If he is spared from accountability, it will send a terrible signal to future presidents.
The January 6th move by the committee to ask the Department of Justice to investigate former President Donald Trump’s involvement in the US Capitol insurrection will make history if charges are ever brought.
Yet the fractured state of US politics and Trump’s incessant efforts to distort the truth about 2020, even as he launches a new White House bid, leave the committee clouded by familiar questions over its effectiveness, legitimacy and legacy as it contemplates its fateful final act.
Could the act of sending criminal referrals to the DOJ risk furthering the perception of politicization of separate investigations into the aftermath of January 6?
The Republican House majority is expected to wipe the panel out next month, and many of them voted against certifying the last presidential election and whitewashed the event nearly two years later.
The final report from the panel is expected to be released on Wednesday. There could be another moment of vulnerability and embarrassment on Tuesday for the ex-president when the Democrat-led House Ways and Means Committee meets to discuss what, if anything, to do with his tax returns that it finally received after a years-long court battle.
In its highly produced hearings, the committee – with its seven Democrats and two Republicans who split with their own party to take part – painted scenes of horrific violence and intense efforts by Trump to steal Joe Biden’s presidency.
The officer told how she spilled blood when the ex-president started smashing his way into the Capitol. A mother and daughter who worked as election workers in Georgia described how they faced racist threats after Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, accused them of vote stealing. The speaker of the Arizona state House testified that Trump calls to meddle in the election were foreign to him.
Republicans testified about his assault on the Constitution, including Cassidy Hutchinson, when they were with Trump in the West Wing. The ex-aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows recalled, “It was unpatriotic. It was un-American. We were watching as the Capitol building was defaced.
From the moment that conservative retired federal judge J. Michael Luttig warned in a June committee hearing that Trump and supporters still posed “a clear and present danger to American democracy,” it’s been clear the panel believes that Trump was in the middle of an alleged election-stealing conspiracy. If the 45th president were to be referred to the DOJ for criminal action due to his second impeachment, it would be a huge surprise.
Furthermore, the committee contended in its hearings that Trump also helped to plot a nefarious scheme to use fake electors to subvert the election in Congress. After Trump called a mob to Washington and incited a terrible attack on the Capitol, the committee argued that he was responsible for the failed efforts. His inaction as the violence raged amounted to violating his duty to protect Congress, the Constitution and the rule of law, argued committee members.
“This is someone who in multiple ways tried to pressure state officials to find votes that didn’t exist. The Democrat who leads the House Intelligence Committee said on CNN on Sunday that this person was trying to interfere with a joint session, even inciting a mob to attack the Capitol. “If that’s not criminal, then I don’t know what it is.
Will the 2020 Midterm Election Committee be Hounded by Referrals? A Tale of Two Years After the January 6 Violence Revealed by President Donald Trump
Will an impression be given that Trump is being hounded by any referrals almost two years after leaving office, thus helping his ill-advised 2024 campaign?
And do Americans as a whole, at a time of national strain amid high inflation and the aftermath of a once-in-a-century pandemic, really care about events that rattled US democracy nearly two years ago?
“Every American must consider this,” Cheney said at one of the committee’s public hearings, in July. Can a president who made the choices Donald Trump did during the violence of January 6 be trusted with any position of authority again?
Still, Americans rejected many of Trump’s midterm candidates in swing state races who had amplified his false claims of 2020 election fraud, suggesting some desire to protect American democracy.
The committee’s work affected voters in the November election. Even as the ex-president began a new campaign that was seen by many as a way to cast the probes into his conduct as politically motivated persecution, it kept proof of Trump’s insurrection in the news. This is especially valuable as some pro-Trump Republicans, like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, escalate their attempts to distort what happened in the unprecedented attack on the Capitol.
“This is a massive investigation that the committee has undertook. There was huge amounts of evidence and witnesses being identified, according to a former federal prosecutor.
The report that accompanies referrals will give a road map to the DOJ. DOJ is playing catch-up to this party, which could be helpful to them, but it will cause a lot of pressure on them as well.
If nothing else, future generations will be able to judge the determination of the panel members, especially its two Republicans, and the courage of witnesses who told the truth to try save democracy.
GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who, like Cheney, served on the committee in defiance of his party and will not be returning to Congress, explained his actions in seeking to hold Trump to account in his retirement speech on the House floor last week.
The Illinois Republican said democracy is being challenged by authoritarianism and that a lie is Trump’s truth.
“If we, America’s elected leaders, do not search within ourselves for a way out, I fear that this great experiment will fall into the ash heap of history.”
Editor’s Note: Jeremi Suri holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is a professor in the History Department and the LBJ School. He wrote and edited the most recent book, “Civil War By Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy.” He hosts a show on the “This is Democracy” show. The views expressed here is his own. There is more opinion on CNN.
The First Three Presidents: The Criminal Referenda against Donald Trump and Robertson-Green-Hooke in 1804 and 1807
The founding fathers of the republic would approve. In creating the executive branch of the US government in Article 2 of the Constitution, the founders included a mandatory oath that affirmed the president must be deferential to the law, not vice versa. The highest law of the land is the Constitution of the U.S., and the president must defend it.
What the founders feared most was a president who would wield his power as an unchecked king to serve his personal interests and those of his friends. The power of the purse, the power of Congress and the requirement for the commander in chief to be elected every four years are all related to the founders keeping the office of the executive small. They expected presidents to be humble and limited in their power. Those assumptions were returned to them by the criminal referrals against Trump.
Because of the limits on judicial access to confidential information, it is difficult to try the president for potential legal violations when he is doing his job. Even if the president has to wait until his term ends, the Constitution presumes that he will be held accountable for any crimes. Other forms of legal accountability, such as judicial review, are not excluded from the response to malfeasance in office.
Criminal responsibility is used to deter corrupt and arbitrary behavior. The absence of any discussion of post-presidential legal privileges and immunities in the Constitution is revealing: former presidents are ordinary citizens, subjected to ordinary laws.
In the past two centuries, a number of cases where the president or vice president has been charged with crimes. In 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr was indicted in two states – New York and New Jersey – for murdering Alexander Hamilton in their infamous duel. Burr was indicted again in 1807, after leaving office, for organizing an insurrection against the United States.
Vice President Spiro Agnew pleaded guilty to a felony charge for tax evasion in 1973, after he tried to convince the jury that he and the president were immune from prosecution. Agnew resigned after federal courts denied his immunity.
Nixon, Agnew and Burr largely stayed out of the public eye. Although justified, prosecution of these former executive officials did not seem necessary to prevent them from committing more crimes. The security of American democracy was not at risk because of Nixon’s pardon.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/19/opinions/trump-criminal-referrals-necessary-step-suri/index.html
Is Donald Trump Criminal? The Case for Trump’s 2019 March 6 Decreeing Attempt to Overturn the 2020 U.S. Election
It is not possible to say the same for Trump. The evidence is overwhelming that he used the office of the presidency to try to overturn the 2020 election. He laid the groundwork for the violent January 6, 2021, attack on Congress to prevent the certification of the new president. He was subpoenaed to return the classified documents, but he refused. The allegations have been substantiated by the Department of Justice.
Although some might argue that prosecuting Trump could deepen partisan divisions, the greater risk is that he might escape punishment. Democracy cannot survive with lawlessness from elected leaders.
Since leaving office, Trump has not changed his behavior. He wants the Constitution and election laws to be thrown out so he can return to power. The January 6 rally he attended was preceded by an attack on the Capitol. He asserts that he has the right to take government property and declassify confidential documents, even if he thinks about it. It seems Trump’s penchant for flouting norms, rules and regulations has only grown since he left the White House for Mar-a-Lago.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/19/opinions/trump-criminal-referrals-necessary-step-suri/index.html
Prohibiting The Spread of Corruption: The Rise and Fall of the United States in the Era of Fine-Possibility
Most importantly, prosecuting high-profile crimes prevents them from spreading and undermining democracy. The founders recognized that power could corrupt leaders and that punishment was the essential deterrent to abuse. Throughout its history, the United States has benefited from prevention of the most extreme corruption, allowing American institutions to develop in more law-abiding ways than in many other countries.