The latest indictments – for trying to overturn the 2020 election – mean a reckoning for the man who led chants of ‘lock her up’
Amid the Hollywood writers’ strike, Jack Smith, the special counsel, delivered a jolt of real-life drama. Late Tuesday afternoon, he dropped a four-count, 45-page conspiracy indictment on Donald Trump for his efforts to subvert the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Six other unnamed conspirators also appear in the text. The charges go to the heart of our constitutional system.
“Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power,” the indictment charges. “So for more than two months following election day … the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election that he had actually won. These claims were false, and Defendant knew that they were false.”
If convicted, the 77-year-old former president could face years in jail and possibly die in prison. But let us not get ahead of ourselves.
In the interim, he towers over the Republican field with the support of a majority of the party’s voters. College grad or blue-collar, it makes little difference. The Republican party belongs to him. He did not fade after two earlier indictments. Rather, his grip on the Republican party tightens. He has pledged to run even if convicted and from behind bars.
Cloaked in the aura of seeming inevitability, Trump holds a 37-point lead over Ron DeSantis, his closest rival. With a half-year to go before the first nominating contest, Florida’s thuggish and humorless governor has burned through millions of dollars. His campaign reset resembles a cry for help. He is down to 17 points in the polls and falling.
When you’re a presidential candidate who is forced to fire people for posting Nazi-symbols, it doesn’t inspire confidence. Likewise, if you’re busy looking for slavery’s upside or dangling the possibility of appointing RFK Jr as head of the FDA or CDC, national politics is not where you belong.
