Pence is right: The indictment confirms Trump should never be president again
Jack Elbaum
Video Embed
Former Vice President Mike Pence wrote yesterday that the new indictment against former President Donald Trump “serves as an important reminder: anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States.”
He couldn’t be more right.
BIDENOMICS: WHY BIDEN GETS POOR RATINGS ON THE ECONOMY DESPITE IMPROVING NUMBERS
I have neither the expertise nor experience to properly assess the legal merits of special prosecutor Jack Smith’s case against Trump. But both the public and private conduct of the former president outlined in the indictment is more than sufficient reason to consider him wholly unfit for both elected office and public life.
While on a call to “berate” Pence, Trump told him, “You’re too honest,” after Pence repeatedly stated he did not believe he had the power, as vice president, to “reject or return votes to the states.” When the attorney who devised that plan to send the electors back to the states conceded that it was not legally defensible, Trump responded “That’s OK, I prefer the other suggestion,” referring to Pence unilaterally rejecting the electors and trying to overturn the election.
Trump pressured Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” more than 11,000 votes. He urged officials in states such as Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to not certify the election in the way the voters had actually decided it. Trump did so based on facially absurd allegations of voter fraud widespread enough to win “every state by 100,000s of votes.” He also made repeated public statements making the same claim, misleading his loyal supporters.
This all happened prior to the riot at the Capitol on January 6. But as the Washington Examiner’s Quin Hillyer pointed out, “Perhaps the most appalling revelation from the newest indictment of former President Donald Trump is that he and his henchman continued pressuring senators to wrongfully overturn Joe Biden’s election even after the horror of the U.S. Capitol riot.” He and his lawyers were calling Senators for hours after it, trying to get them to delay proceeding with the certification of the election, and they emailed Pence at 11:44 p.m. asking him to “adjourn for 10 days.”
The idea that a sitting president would try and overturn the results of a legitimate election is unconscionable. That he continues to campaign on why it was unfair he wasn’t able to succeed in doing so while also trying to become president again may be even worse.
Free societies are predicated on the idea that the highest good is not power, as it was in ancient times, but rather what is moral and just. In short: Right, not might. But Trump tried to turn that idea on its head, leveraging his raw power in an attempt to defy the collective terms around which we base our society. In doing so, he violates the covenant underlying our politics and threatens to permanently damage it, too.
Our Constitution is often referred to as the greatest, most liberty-ensuring document ever devised. The reason is simple: It puts hard limits on the amount of power one person is able to accumulate. It institutes checks and balances that are designed to ensure one corrupt actor is not able to disrupt the entire system. It is a work of genius, and most Americans recognize that, which is why Trump’s disregard for his responsibilities under it is so disgraceful. When sworn into office, he pledged to “protect and defend” the Constitution. But trying to so blatantly overturn an election and subvert the processes that have allowed our country to endure is unforgivable.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
National Review points out that “Public office is a privilege, not a right.” And so while it may be unclear whether or not this indictment successfully proves Trump committed a crime, the indictment makes it abundantly clear that, at the very least, he ought to lose the privilege of holding elected office. In electing an individual, the American people vest a special trust in him — not only to guide our nation in a proper direction but also to respect the institutions built up over the course of many generations. Trump has violated that trust time and time again.
To reelect Trump, a man who has utterly betrayed his responsibilities to protect and defend our Constitution, would be to betray our own responsibilities, too.
Jack Elbaum is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.