- This isn't just about Donald Trump. This is about the next president. And the one after that, and the one after that.
- Trump was caught red-handed, on tape, attempting to strong-arm
Georgia 's Republican secretary of state,Brad Raffensperger , into inventing thousands of votes to tip the election in Trump's favor. - We cannot be so numbed by Trump's corruption and abuse of power to let this pass without consequence.
- The alternative is to accept as fact Richard Nixon's infamous quip: "When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal."
- This is an
opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.
He's always been able to skate by despite criminal behavior, never facing the consequences for a long history of corruption and a term in the White House awash in abuses of presidential power.
But this isn't just about Trump. This is about the next president. And the one after that, and the one after that.
If a president can brazenly threaten a state election official unless he invents votes to tip an election - an election that has already been recounted twice, and to which every legal challenge has been found to be without merit - the president can do anything.
If Trump is not impeached, censured, or held criminally liable by a state or federal jurisdiction for his actions in Saturday's phone meeting with Georgia election officials, we might as well just do away with the generally held principle that the president is not above the law.
'Rule of law' was ostensibly why Clinton was impeached
Rule of law was the ostensible reason for making the country endure nearly two years of drama leading up to Bill Clinton's impeachment over allegations of perjury and obstruction of justice related to his affair with the White House intern Monica Lewinsky. (Lewinsky, with her talent for incisive self-deprecation, tweeted about the leaked audio recording of Trump's call: "i'm generally opposed to someone being surreptitiously taped on a phone call...but not this one, folks!")
Any number of reasonable ethical critiques can be made of the independent counsel Ken Starr's investigation, including his aggressive exploration into tangential matters like Clinton's affair. But ensuring an adherence to the law - that not even the president could dodge - was the primary argument being made to remove Clinton from office.
Clinton was accused of lying under oath and using the power of the presidency to make an inconvenient witness shut up. I personally think he was guilty, based on the evidence. But the "high crimes" he was accused of were lying in court about sexual encounters and then having one of his friends try to get Lewinsky a job in the private sector to keep her quiet. Unseemly, illegal stuff, but not a threat to our very democracy.
What Trump did - as documented in a 60-minute recording - is so much worse than anything of which Bill Clinton was accused, and with so much more clear-cut evidence, that it's mind-throttling to think he will face no discernible consequences for it.
We can't be so numbed by Trump's criminality that he gets away with this
Some legal experts have already argued that while what Trump did was objectively despicable, it might not be a prosecutable federal crime because he didn't explicitly threaten Georgia's Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger.
In other words, Trump could skate, again, because his semi-coherent rambling and his long record of believing the most outlandish internet fever swamp conspiracy theories would make it difficult to prove he was knowingly committing a crime.
"It is more illegal for you than it is for them," Trump told Raffensperger, referring to Georgia election officials, "because, you know what they did and you're not reporting it."
He continued: "That's a criminal, that's a criminal offense. And you can't let that happen. That's a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer."
No reasonable person could listen to that and say it wasn't a blatant attempt at using the presidency to strong-arm an elected official into committing a crime. It was a barely veiled threat levied by an unconfident gangster.
Worse, Trump was attempting
It shouldn't come as a terrible shock that with barely more than two weeks left in his presidency, Trump found a new bottom.
His insistence on perpetuating election-fraud
But we cannot be numb to the fact that he was caught abusing his power and attempting to commit election fraud.
If Trump is not held accountable in some way, by some authority, for this particular crime, we ought to just adopt the notion infamously coined by Richard Nixon: "When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal."