The legal dominoes finally start to fall against Trump [View all]

[marmar]

The legal dominoes finally start to fall against Trump
Trump has lost the shield of the presidency that kept him safe for four years and the rule of law is coming for him

By HEATHER DIGBY PARTON
Columnist
PUBLISHED JUNE 9, 2023 8:53AM (EDT)


(Salon) Another day, another Donald Trump indictment.

In April, the former president and current candidate for president was indicted by the Manhattan District Attorney on 34 counts of falsifying business records. Last month, he was found guilty in a civil court of sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll. And last night, as expected, he was indicted on federal charges pertaining to the collection of classified documents he refused to give back to the government after departing the White House.

And that's just for starters.

Trump is still facing a huge civil case in New York over his shady business dealings and he's under criminal investigations in both state and federal jurisdictions regarding his attempted coup in 2020.

One by one the legal dominoes are finally starting to fall.

....(snip)....

Trump has acted in inexplicably suspicious and self-defeating ways since he first ran for president in 2016. From calling on Russia to hack his rival's emails to his strange affinity for the worst dictators on the planet to his pathological lying about everything, Donald Trump has acted in ways that only cult members could excuse as normal.

This Mar-a-Lago case is especially vexing. When he decided to tell the government to go pound sand, he was not some naif who hadn't been in government before and didn't know the rules. He'd been president for four years by that time and knew very well that he was not supposed to keep classified documents at his beach club. And if they had been taken by accident in his chaotic move from the White House, he also knew very well that he should just give them back. But he refused, once again raising suspicions that he must be doing something nefarious with them. His behavior ever since then has done nothing to allay those concerns. Again, nobody normal would behave this way.

But now he's lost the shield of the presidency that kept him safe for four years and the rule of law is coming for him. If the case is strong (and we don't know that it is) he could face jail time. The only thing we do know about the indictment at this writing on Thursday night is that there are seven crimes charged. (We don't know how many counts there might be.) Trump's lawyer James Trusty appeared on television Thursday and said he had only seen a summary but the language indicates that one of the crimes falls under the Espionage Act and others refer to conspiracy, false statements and obstruction of justice. We'll have to wait to see exactly what they are charging but these are very serious crimes. ..............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2023/06/09/the-legal-dominoes-finally-start-to-fall-against/