Indicting The President; What Is Really Going On?

President Donald Trump has made history ever since he came down the escalator at Trump Tower. He garnered more votes than any other Republican candidate (both in 2016 and 2020), he negotiated the landmark Abraham Accords and Truth Social has become one of the fastest growing social media platforms. Then, several months ago, Trump made history yet again. As the first President to ever be indicted. Now the floodgates have been opened. At 11 AM, on August 14, Trump was charged with 41 separate felony counts.

Perhaps some historical perspective would be useful here. This is not the first time that US Presidents have been in political ‘hot water’ so to speak. We could start with Lyndon B. Johnson, who was investigated over the decisions made in the Vietnam War. (Nothing ever came of that by the way) Then there was the infamous Watergate scandal with Richard Nixon. Multiple people went to jail, notably Nixons campaign manager, Hugh Sloan. Yet Nixon himself was never formally charged, he stepped down before any action was taken. Bill Clinton was accused of lying before a federal court, yet was never formally charged. No matter what happened, the US President was never indicted. Ever. Not in office or out of office. The reasons why would take a series of posts in and itself. Ultimately it all came down to no one wanting to destroy the integrity of the Presidency. This has been an unspoken rule ever since George Washington took his oath of office.

All that has changed. President Donald Trump has been charged formally with 91 accumulated felony counts, in four different states respectively. Trump supporters have expressed their outrage over what they feel is a travesty of justice. District attorneys like Alvin Bragg or Fani Willis don’t seem to understand the anger. They have insisted that this is all about ‘holding those in power accountable’. Ordinarily this would be a perfect legitimate defense, only things aren’t as simple as they seem.

Think about things for a moment, during the infamous Watergate scandal, even the supporters of Richard Nixon didn’t balk at the ensuing investigation. No one was insisting that the findings of the Committee were aimed at ‘destroying Nixon’. During the Watergate scandal it was found that the Nixon administration had committed numerous acts of corruption. What did Nixon do? The Nixon administration had attempted to subvert their political opponents by causing riots, falsifying information in smear campaigns, and even resorting to espionage on their opponents. To say nothing of stolen funds and embezzled government money. Quite the list of crimes.

In the case of the indictments of Donald Trump, everything is quit different. Bear in mind that Nixon was never formally indicted, only a few members of his cabinet  were ever indicted, and even then, there was only a small handful of formal indictments. Donald Trump has been charged with 91 separate felony counts. Now, it would seem to a reasonable person, that for this staggering number of indictments, then there must be a truly heinous crime committed. I’m thinking selling state secrets, or maybe masterminding the genocide of millions. Either of those would definitely warrant 91 felony counts.

Not so. To my astonishment that’s not what’s happened at all. There are several charges that have managed to multiply themselves into this never ending string of felonies. Maybe this is string theory gone into effect, quantum physicists claim there’s an infinite amount of energy stored into these tiny ‘strings’. Trump is apparently guilty of, prepare yourself, ‘election denial’. I have no idea what this is supposed to mean, or how this would be considered a crime. Pundits and politicians have come out of the woodwork to condemn Donald Trump for his nefarious ‘election denial’.

Hm. Election denial you say? This is a perplexing charge. Taken at face value I would assume this means that Trump doesn’t accept the results of the previous election. That doesn’t make sense, who ever accepts a defeat? Or maybe it was a failure of Trump to ever deliver a concession speech? I have to tell you, a concession speech is really just a formality, hardly a crime, much less a felony. Or maybe this charge is supposed to mean that Trump is guilty of simply not liking Joe Biden? I have a handful of people I can’t stand being around, but I don’t consider myself a criminal simply because I don’t like that obnoxious, irritating person.

The other thing I don’t understand about this charge is that there have been a variety of instance where politicians have refused to ‘accept the results of an election’, mostly when they didn’t win. Take 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton went on a slew of rants about how she was the rightful winner but it was somehow stolen from her. I’ve never understood her explanations of how this supposedly took place. Or Stacey Abrams, the 2016 & 2020 Democratic gubernatorial candidate. She lost to Brian Kemp back to back, both times refusing to ever deliver a concession speech and repeatedly insisting that the election was likewise stolen from her. Republicans and Democrats both have done this multiple times. Juvenile as it is, I don’t think this would qualify as a crime. I certainly don’t think anyone should be jailed for it. Everyone has a right to express their opinions, even stupid ones.

It doesn’t really matter what I may think, what does the law say? Is there any law in the books that states it is not only a crime, but a felony, to accept the results of any election? There isn’t. Not in all the fifty states. I don’t care if you have the sleaziest of lawyers, you won’t find any such law. Ah, but here is where the plot thickens. District attorneys Alvin Bragg and Fani Willis understood this very well. So how were they able to ‘trump up’ these absurd charges? They applied a totally separate law, that doesn’t have anything to do with ‘election denial’. They applied corruption charges and ‘racketeering laws’ to ‘election denial’. What does corruption and/or racketeering have to do with refusing to accept a political defeat? Absolutely nothing. It would be similar to insisting that red and blue are the same colors. So why even bother bringing up completely unrelated laws? Because corruption and racketeering is most definitely a felony crime, whereas ‘election denial’ doesn’t occur anywhere in any law book.

Things have gotten quite complex haven’t they? Donald Trump has been accused of ‘election denial’ which isn’t a crime, but then charged with corruption and racketeering which is a crime. Somehow both DA’s have managed to fuse them all together. If they ever explain how this was done in plain English, I’d be impressed.