WHAT DO YOU SAY?  What do you say about the indictment of Donald Trump?  We know that no former president has ever been indicted.  We know that the Manhattan district attorney who indicted Trump is a card-carrying woke Democrat partially financed by George Soros.  We know that George Soros is a billionaire leftist who has spent a fortune putting "progressive" district attorneys in office, the kind who seem to care more about the criminals than the victims.

We know that millions of Americans love Donald Trump, and that millions hate him. 

The great founders of this country provided a mechanism to remove a president from office.  It is a difficult road, impeachment in the House, trial in the Senate.  No president has ever been removed, although several have been impeached.  The process was made difficult to protect a president from the endless harassment of small timers trying to destroy the highest figure in the land.

There is no process in the Constitution covering protections for a former president.  But, over time, an informal understanding has developed.  Former presidents are left alone, with the unstated proviso that they could be pursued legally if they'd committed a major crime or betrayal of the country.  By major I mean treason or selling secrets to a foreign enemy.  Truly major.

We've had presidents and former presidents who were the subjects of dark curiosity.  Franklin Delano Roosevelt's money came from the Delanos, who trafficked in opium.  Roosevelt also had a mistress, Lucy Mercer, during his entire time in the White House.  Lyndon Johnson wound up as a multi-millionaire, on a senator's salary.  So did Joe Biden.  Jack Kennedy, of the infamous Kennedys, was intimate with a mobster's girlfriend, and there have been charges, outside the legal system, that his father paid the Chicago mob for presidential votes in 1960.  And Bill Clinton...well, you know the story. 

And yet, no president who survived his term has been actively pursued by prosecutors after leaving office, although some have been the subject of probing books.  No major crime could be proved.

There is wisdom in that approach.  We want capable, creative people to enter politics, and especially to run for president.  But talented people may well have things in their background they'd rather not talk about.  The operative saying is, "Great men have great flaws."  If you want the good, and the great, you sometimes have to take the flaws as well.  But you don't want a situation where someone is afraid to run because he fears he'll be hounded and torn apart after leaving office.

Where does the Donald Trump indictment stand in all this?  Trump is presumably charged with paying a woman, possibly two, to remain silent about some brief affairs.  The indictment has not been made public, but the source of the hush money may be a factor.

That is a farce.  It does not begin to come close to the traditional, if informal, standard involving legal pursuit of a former president.   Many lawyers are arguing that it isn't even a crime, but a personal matter.  The nation was not hurt, nor any major law broken.  This is the kind of petty harassment the presidential system has always rejected.

It is political.  It is embarrassing to the legal system.  Judge Donald Trump any way you wish, but do it in the voting booth, not the courtroom. 

March 31, 2023