A bad day for Trump and the rule of law
Washington Examiner
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The indictment of former President Donald Trump is a moment — there have been many — at which to pause and state explicitly that Republicans should turn decisively away from him and not renominate him to be president of the United States.
This is not because the indictment secured by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, an irresponsible and odiously partisan Democrat, stands even cursory scrutiny. It does not. One might even regard it as comically weak if the stakes were not so high for the 2024 election and the rule of law — and the bad joke were not made at our country’s expense.
DONALD TRUMP INDICTED: FORMER PRESIDENT CHARGED IN MANHATTAN HUSH MONEY CASE
Bragg has charged Trump with a New York misdemeanor related to the bookkeeping of the former president’s hush money payment to a porn star who alleges he had sex with her. Trump denies it, but no one disputes that he paid Stormy Daniels $130,000 in exchange for her signature on a nondisclosure agreement. Bragg says Trump recorded this as “legal expenses” when it was a campaign expense. It is wafer-thin stuff with which to elevate a misdemeanor into a felony by alleging that Trump falsified records to break federal campaign finance laws.
Shameful as Bragg’s prosecutorial overreach is, however, it is largely beside the point in assessing whether Trump should be considered for the presidency. It is relevant only because it points again to the former president’s sleazy character, which has already besmirched the top office in the nation and should be allowed to do so no more. It reflects poorly on our culture that it is necessary to debate this — to haggle over whether such a vulgarian, who has been caught repeatedly (at least figuratively) with his pants down, should be the nation’s chief executive and first defender.
We had four years of Trumpian chaos and degradation between 2017 and 2020. These were accompanied by several good policies, but it is possible to get the latter without being obliged to accept any more of the former. Whatever made it necessary for Trump to pay Daniels $130,000 for her silence, he has clearly not learned any restraint from the consequences of his error. From his unhinged assertions that he won more votes than President Joe Biden did in 2020 to the foul implications of sexual predation he has hurled at his main Republican rival, Trump has proven himself unfit to be considered.
The renewed prominence of Daniels and Trump’s payment to her is also a good moment for his supporters who swooned for him over the past seven years to rethink their allegiance and turn away to a more suitable political leader. It is not that all leaders should be saints but that voters supposedly guided by such a moral compass should steer away from a man who flouts their principles when other more upstanding candidates are likely to be just as effective. Sticking with Trump would buttress critics of the GOP who say its followers are in danger of creating a cult where once there was a respectable and principled political party.