The criminal charges against former President Trump are unprecedented, but only as far as American history goes.

a

Across the world, scores of former government leaders have gone to trial and often behind bars, in democracies of all ages.

On January 1 of this year,

Luiz Incio Lula da Silva was inaugurated as Brazil’s president on January 1, about three years after he left

expenditure

20 months imprisonment. He was convicted of money laundering and other corrupt practices during his previous term as president.

by

2003

Unpleasant

2010

Not only was a former president prosecuted and sent to prison, but his ex-con did not stop him from being elected again. (His conviction was eventually overturned by Brazil’s Supreme Court.)

Around the world, presidents and prime ministers are often removed from office by criminal investigations, or continue to be haunted by alleged crimes after they leave office. It’s so common that it rarely raises too many eyebrows.

In South Korea, three former presidents have been convicted of corruption

one during his term, who was impeached, and two after he left office

and sentenced to long prison terms. All were eventually reduced or pardoned.

in Israel,

Benjamin Netanyahu ran for election late last year, even though he was on trial for corruption. His party and its coalition partners won and he is prime minister again

after two previous terms from 1996 to 1999 and 2009 to 2021

. They are using their power to try to change the Israeli judiciary to minimize future accountability, a move that has led to massive demonstrations across the country by angry Israelis.

Saying

they defend democracy.

Does the relative ease with which former CEOs are prosecuted suggest that the wheels of justice and accountability are stronger in other countries? Not necessary.

Often it is the very weakness of the system and the lack of guardrails that make it easy to prosecute and remove leaders.

Peru, with

are

shaky political system, could hold the world record

on this front

. Nearly every Peruvian president in the past 38 years has been convicted of crimes while in office, facing prosecution or fighting extradition from another country to avoid facing trial.

And yet one of the world’s oldest and most stable democracies, France, has also cracked down on alleged misconduct at the highest levels of government.

Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France since 2007

to 20

12, was repeatedly investigated for corruption charges after he left office. He was eventually convicted in 2021 of tampering with a lawsuit in his favor and sentenced to three years in prison. Hey denied guilt. Another case against the politically conservative but stylistically flamboyant former president in 2013 accused him of taking millions of dollars from Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi to illegally fund his 2007 campaign. Sarkozy also denied those allegations.

It seems that the United States is almost unique among democracies in the way it treats its former presidents with ki

i.e

gloves. Other democracies don’t allow their leaders the same level of near-im

community

so does the American tradition. Experts say this is partly due to the US’s need to invest stability in the viability of its leaders.

However, Trump has never had a CEO before

routinely

flooded standards.

Trump supporters

to have

emphatically

ed disbelief

the Manhattan Grand Jury’s decision to indict the former president, who has already endured two unprecedented impeachments while in office.

The former president’s allies have maintained that

suing him is un-American. And in some ways

up to now

It

has been

.