If indictments were tennis, former President Donald J. Trump would be Rod Laver.
Rod “the Rocket” was the last man to win all four Slams — the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open — in a calendar year. He did it twice — in 1962 and 1969.
Trump, however, won’t be lifting and kissing any trophies. Instead of appearing on the court, he’ll be in the courts of four different venues — New York City, Miami, Washington, D.C. and Atlanta, where he’s been charged with everything from paying hush money to a porn star to obstruction, violation of voting rights and racketeering.
There are those supporters — or Republicans, at least — who say this is all a Democratic vendetta against a political rival. Perhaps and who cares? It’s possible to hold two seemingly contradictory thoughts — that the Dems are out to get Trump, and Trump deserved to be indicted. Indeed, let me connect the dots for you: The Dems, the never Trumpers and others are out to get Trump, precisely because they believe he deserved to be indicted. It matters not how much they relish it.
There are those Republicans like The Washington Post columnist Gary Abernathy who can’t stop whining about how much they’re hated by the anti-Trumpers. But these people never acknowledge that meanness is a two-way street. The Trump?MAGA persecution of poll workers and state officials who refused to certify the 2020 presidential election for Trump; the harassment of judges and grand juries in the Trump indictments; the denigration of minorities, librarians and educators; even the toxicity that has spread like a cancer through Trump’s own circle (witness Rudolph Giuliani): These are all examples of a joyless, loveless leader and his base.
No matter. My lawyer always reminds me not to make an emotional decision regarding an intellectual problem. And the law is an intellectual issue. Motivation will only take you so far in a court case. At it’s heart a criminal case is about one thing only: Did the accused commit the crime or not?”
For some, Trump’s alleged criminal activity is not a question for consideration. They say he only draws support and revenue from the indictments. Let him be tried at the ballot box, said South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham, whose internet persona conjures Southern belles, pearls-clutching, fainting couches and smelling salts.
It would be easy to sweep Trump’s conduct under the rug. He and his base feed on grievance and chaos. Why give them meat? Why not put every bit of energy into defeating them in the general election?
That we must, but at the same time we can’t ignore wrongdoing. That’s what tripped up the Germans up in the 1930s, and we know how that ended.
Recently, a group of Republicans endorsed a January date for Trump’s election interference trial in Washington, D.C. Among the endorsees was former appellate judge J. Michael Luttig, a leading conservative, who told Judy Woodruff on the “PBS NewsHour”:
“The former president sought to overturn an American election which he had lost fair and square.
“For four years, these claims by the former president and his Republican allies have corroded and corrupted American democracy and American elections.
“Vast, vast numbers of Americans, into the millions, today no longer believe in the elections in the United States of America.
“They no longer believe in the institutions of law and democracy in America, the very pillars of our foundation.
“And many of those people have begun even to question the Constitution of the United States.”
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”: It’s a quote falsely attributed to the 18th-century Irish statesman Edmund Burke and is more in keeping with the 19th-century British philosopher John Stuart Mill.
Whoever said it was right. Now is not the time to be lazy or cowardly. The only way to solve a problem is not around it but through it.
We’re just going to have to play out these matches.