The other day, I was where I am now, postured in front of my computer screen in the ManCave wrapping up another day in the salt mine when the news broke that the Trump jury in New York had reached a verdict. To say I was shocked is an understatement, as I would have bet large sums that at least ONE New Yorker would have laid on down on the tracks for the Prince of the Outer Boroughs and hung the jury. That the jury was coming back so quickly indicated to me that they’d found him guilty, and the news soon confirmed this suspicion.
I was then and remain now (two days later) very much torn by this verdict. If you’d like to read a treatment of the matter that gets at how I think about it far better than I will accomplish here, read Jonah Goldberg’s “Crocodile Tears for the Convict” at The Dispatch. I will invariably have commenters pipe up with their balanced and civil views of Mr. Goldberg (that was sarcasm), a man whose reputation on the “new” right has suffered because of his aversion to the former president FAR more than my own has, but needless to say, we’ve fallen off a lot of Christmas card lists.
As frequent (and attentive!) readers know, I take a backseat to no one in my anti-Trumping. I considered him morally and temperamentally unfit for the Presidency in 2016, and he has spent every day since then buttressing my case, even as he destroyed a party I once respected, and besmirched an honorable ideology (conservatism) with his authoritarian populism. In January 2021, he summoned, instructed, and inspired a crowd gathered to overthrow the Constitution, an act that (as if more evidence were needed) renders him unfit for further service. He made off with numerous highly classified documents upon leaving the White House and then conspired to hide them from proper authority seeking to recover them.
These are the two situations for which he is facing federal felony charges, neither if which are going to see the inside of courtroom before the upcoming election is settled. He faces felony charges in Georgia stemming from election misdeeds, and I am not sure when they will be adjudicated, as his adversary in the courtroom has beclowned herself with personal problems that feed right into the Trumpian narrative.
So of the four felony proceedings, one has occurred, and he was found guilty by 12 New York citizens of…I’m not quite sure what. This is where the mixed feelings come in. Donald Trump is a truly bad man who has committed crimes for which he hasn’t been punished. And he has conducted himself in office in a manner that brought dishonor upon it. Read that Jonah Goldberg piece above. Or if not, read this long quote:
Donald Trump had sex with an adult film actress while his third wife was nursing their newborn child. He had an affair with a former Playboy model. He denies this, but as far as I can tell no one else does. Even Trump’s staunchest defenders don’t try—at least not very hard—to do so. He falsely recorded his effort to pay off to Stormy Daniels as legal expenses. He spent his entire professional life abusing the legal system, stiffing contractors out of their fees by threatening to bankrupt them in frivolous legal actions. As a landlord, he violated fair housing laws. As a presidential candidate, he promised to put his business interests in a blind trust, but once elected he didn’t and monetized the presidency for his own benefit. Also as a presidential candidate, he led chants of “Lock her up!” about his political opponent. He invited Russia to release information about her. He was impeached (the first time) for abusing his power in an attempt to intimidate a foreign leader to investigate Joe Biden for corruption. When he tried to steal the 2020 election, he pressured his own Justice Department to allege crimes to buttress his false claims that the election was illegitimate. This was also around the time he encouraged a mob that visited riotous violence upon the Capitol in an effort to intimidate Congress out of fulfilling its constitutional duties. He’s promised to pardon people who beat up cops on his behalf. He calls them “hostages” and plays their warbling rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before his rallies, like some weak-tea Americanized version of the “Horst-Wessel-Lied.” He defended the mob that chanted “Hang Mike Pence.” He’s argued—through lawyers in court—and in his own words that he should be immune to any criminal charges that stem from actions he took as president, and to a certain extent, as ex-president. He’s vowed that when he’s president again he reserves the right to do what he’s outraged is being done to him. I could go on, but you get the picture.
But even after all that—every WORD of which I agree with, he writes
But as I said, we can hold two ideas simultaneously. I think this case against Donald Trump should never have been brought. As a matter of law—not karma—Alvin Bragg is in the wrong. I don’t necessarily believe that he thinks he’s breaking the rules, but there’s a lot of that sort of motivated reasoning going on with rule-breakers these days. This case would not have been brought against anyone but Trump, as Elie Honig and others have argued. I am unconvinced by the argument he committed a felony. I don’t blame the jurors for reaching that conclusion. I might have reached the same given the instructions of the judge, the evidence presented by the prosecution, and the abysmal defense mounted by the Trump team. But I still think the verdict is wrong.
And that’s where I land on this.
In a conversation the other day in which I raised some of these issues, I actually gave Trump the benefit of the doubt, saying that I didn’t understand how the jury was going to differentiate between the act paying a prostitute (sorry, that’s what Stormy Daniels was in this transaction, the terms of payment having only been somewhat outside industry norms) and then trying to cover it up from his wife and son, and paying a prostitute and covering it up to hide it from the voting public. Mind you, I utterly believe that he DID the latter. But could I imagine him doing the exact same thing if he WEREN’T running for President? You betchya. This was the whole reason behind my sense that the jury would hang. But then I learned more about the trial—I learned that the defense did not MAKE this argument. Instead, the defense claimed that prosecution witnesses were liars (true) and prostitutes (true). At no point did they ever mount a defense that suggested that he was a man trying to save himself from domestic embarrassment. Instead, they denied that the sexual act for which the hush money was paid—never happened. And they expected the jurors to buy this lie.
The jurors did their job. They listened and weighed the evidence, and followed the instructions provided by the judge.
But the case should not have been brought, and if Harvey Weinstein can get a New York rape felony charge overturned, I have a sneaking suspicion that Donald Trump can get this one set aside also. The prosecutor RAN FOR OFFICE on the platform that he would go after Trump. Expert testimony pertaining to the mysterious “underlying crime” upon which this whole case hangs was not admitted.
So, what’s to be done now? If one believes in our justice system (as I do), a jury has found him guilty and a judge will now sentence him. Trump’s lawyers have already stated they would appeal. Trump could go to jail, and there is a good case for why he should. He was publicly contemptuous of every aspect of this trial. He has shown no remorse.
But he is also 78 years old and a first time offender (well, first time CONVICTED offender). He also just happens to be the current favorite to be our next President, and if this judge sends him to jail (sentencing is 11 July), he will be interfering in the conduct of the federal election. I do not think our country should want that. We have thus far been exposed to a minimal level of political violence, but I do not think it has to remain that way. And I do not think it will.
So here’s an idea. I am no New York legal expert, but what if the judge sentenced Trump to sixty days in state prison, to begin a week after the election. He’d be out of the pokey about a week before his term would begin (if he wins), and his ability to continue to run for President would not be (or should not be) impeded.
There a little bit in this for everyone. Those of us who’d like to see him perp-walked into prison (and more to the point, out of prison without the tanning bed, the makeup, and the hair product) would get their satisfaction, and those who wish for him to be President again will not be impeded in this desire. The only reason I’m happy to offer the second part of this deal is how troubled I am by the selective nature of the charges and the conduct of the judge in the trial. I have REAL problems with those things. Not as real as my problems with an authoritarian, insurrectionist, rapist in the White House (yes, rapist) are, but I have them nevertheless.
I'm a long-time fan of Jonah Goldberg's writing. But I think that he's wrong here. It is simply not the case that New York has never prosecuted anyone for such actions as Trump committed in hiding campaign expenditures. Just like the feds getting Al Capone on income tax evasion rather than for murder, Alvin Bragg got Donald Trump on campaign-finance violations rather than on fomenting a coup and misusing Top Secret (SCI) documents. It leaves us not feeling satisfied. But Donald Trump got his day in court. He had his opportunity to make his case to the jury, not just to his armed and angry mob. He didn't make a case to the jury except to have his lawyers claim that the prosecution was nothing but lies. As far as Alvin Bragg having it out for Trump, well, I imagine that the prosecutor of Al Capone had it out for Mr. Scarface. And good for him.
I don't think the judge would be interfering in an election. Is he supposed to consider such things as the election and whether sentencing day falls on the four-leaf-clover holiday? If the overall judicial system actually worked, Trump would have been convicted on a few other charges many months ago. Actually, judging from several biographies of Trump, he should have been convicted on other charges such as laundering Russian mafia money through his condos decades ago. The dysfunction in the court system may be as bad as that in Congress.