Accused felon at large
Justinian in Donald Trump, Indictment, Roger Fitch Esq, US Presidential election, US politics
The Washington and Atlanta indictments of Donald Trump ... A large number of lawyers as indicted gangsters ... History of unpunished Republican crimes ... First attempt to hold lawless politicians and operatives to account ... Quandaries and implications ... Possible defences ... Roger Fitch files from Washington
This column occasionally reports on a colourful American politician facing criminal charges in two four US jurisdictions. Some joke that every fresh indictment increases his popularity among his lemming-like followers. The general electorate could be another matter.
In July, a superseding indictment was returned in the Florida federal court where this Donald John Trump stands charged with unlawfully retaining and concealing classified documents. New counts were added for evidence-tampering.
In August, Mr Trump was indicted twice more. That's encouraging: Americans are usually very slow to investigate and prosecute politicians' crimes, especially those committed by Republicans.
There's a long history of unpunished Republican Party operations: Nixon's treacherous sabotage of LBJ's 1968 Vietnam peace talks in Paris, leading to seven more years of war; interference in Carter's 1979 negotiations with Iran for the release of American hostages; and the outright theft of the 2000 presidential election.
Although much has been made of Richard Nixon's come-uppance in the 1970s, he was pardoned and never held to account.
The 80s under Ronald Reagan and Bush the Elder witnessed a crime wave, but with the help of judicially-sanctioned meddling in the Independent Counsel's work, only a few of those indicted in the Iran-Contra scandal (e.g, Defence Secretary Caspar Weinberger) were convicted. Most were pardoned by Bush as he left office.
Beginning in 2001, shocking and uncountable crimes were committed under the lawless G.W. Bush, e.g, round-ups of innocent Muslims, CIA torture, and unlawful military detention and trials.
All these went unpunished under Bush and his successor Obama, who continued the previous administration's shameful and dishonest practice of asserting the shaky state secrets defence in civilian lawsuits by victims, even against complicit third parties.
The charges against Bush Junior's torture lawyers also went unpunished, after a timid DOJ internal inquiry, and the habitual DOJ fixer John Durham gave the CIA a clean bill of health for actual murders in custody.
Given that background, the indictments during August 2023 were big news: this century's first attempt to hold lawless US government officials and their political accomplices to criminal account.
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