“There is hardly a political issue in the United States that does not sooner or later become a legal one,” wrote Alexis de Tocqueville, the brilliant observer of American life.
I’m pretty sure De Tocqueville didn’t have any scenarios in mind like Donald Trump using a (now disgraced and disowned) mobster attorney Michael Cohen to gag a porn star and then get $130,000 back in ‘legal fees’ to promote. .”
But here we are. According to multiple reports — including panic screams in ALL CAPITALS from Trump himself — Manhattan Dist. attentive Alvin Bragg prepares to impeach Trump for that.
Another context is appropriate. As shocking as it sounds, Trump hasn’t always felt particularly constrained by the sacred bonds of marriage. He famously cheated on his first wife, Ivana Trump, with the woman who would become his second, Marla Maples. The sordid spectacle was featured in the New York media — sometimes believing Trump was insistent. In 1998, a year before his divorce from Maples was finalized, he met Melania Knauss, a Slovenian model. After dating for several years, they got engaged in 2004, married in 2005, and gave birth to their son Barron in 2006.
While at home with his month-old baby, Trump, then 60, allegedly had a sexual relationship with 27-year-old Stormy Daniels, star of The Witches of Breastwick and Porking with Pride 2. Around the same time, Trump reportedly had an affair with Karen McDougal, a former Playboy playmate.
The then-editor of the National Enquirer told federal prosecutors that the tabloid “in connivance” with the Trump campaign bought the rights to McDougal’s story for $150,000 with no intention of publishing it “to prevent her from exerting influence.” .
Trump chose to cut out the publishing business with Daniels and paid Daniels silence directly through Cohen. Unlike the National Enquirer’s catch-and-kill payment, there was nothing illegal about it.
Reports suggest that to make his case, Bragg must prove Trump committed a crime by misrepresenting the payment as attorney fees — typically a New York felony — because it furthered another crime, the disguised illegal campaign donation.
What upsets me now – aside from Trump’s personal conduct – is that this is being discussed as legal history. On some level, I get it. But I don’t think Bragg’s case is politically advisable, or even legally sound.
By preparing the first indictment against a former president that is unlikely to be used against anyone else, Bragg is helping Trump portray himself as a victim of a justice system bent on getting him. It would make other more serious and dignified possible prosecutions — such as pressuring Georgian officials to “find” votes and inciting the January 6 uprising — seem equally politically motivated.
But as bad as it is, that’s not what offends me.
De Tocqueville’s concern was that delegating political issues to the courts would result in legality prevailing over other considerations. The “spirit” of legalism “infiltrates all society” until “all men” adopt “the ways and tastes of the magistrate.”
Presidential impeachments fuel this trend the most. In any of the modern impeachment trials (Bill Clinton in 1998 and Trump in 2019 and 2021), the political debate has ultimately been monopolized by lawyers and technical issues of criminal culpability, even though impeachment trials are explicitly not criminal trials. For example, on January 6, Trump must not have violated the legal standard for criminal incitement to violence. But does the president come within millimeters of breaking that standard?
The conclusion of this chapter was that a president deserves to remain in office as long as there is no proven violation of the law. Legal rationalizations become an excuse not to make moral or political judgments.
Trump denies these cases (not to mention the numerous credible sexual assault allegations against him). But surprisingly, few of his lawyers seem to care if the allegations are true or what it would say about his character if they were.
Instead, for many Republican politicians and voters who still abstractly claim to give “traditional values,” the legal debate serves as a squid to hide in. All that matters is that Trump is a victim, not of his own cheesy excesses, but of the excesses that provoke the behavior of his enemies.
Source: LA Times
Roger Stone is an author and opinion journalist who writes for 24 News Globe. He is known for his controversial and thought-provoking views on a variety of topics, and has a talent for engaging readers with his writing.
