Most Americans have an unhealthy and unjustified reverence for the federal government. The presidency is the apex of this misplaced devotion, such that any diminishment in its hallowed trappings is an existential crisis. Thus, when the supposed “dignity of the Office of the President” is compromised, one can always count on sanctimonious calls for its restoration, both sincere and insincere, in language one would normally expect to be used while deploying holy water and incense.
The Trump show trial is no exception. His supporters correctly object to its purely political motivation for charges no one cares about related to alleged crimes with no discernible victim(s). In that sense, this is just a replay of the 1990s Clinton impeachment, also over a sex scandal, and also about a crime with no victims other than the sanctimony of the oath taken in a Congressional hearing.
Clinton lied under oath to a room full of liars. No one but the most fervent partisan supported his impeachment. It ended up boosting his approval ratings.
Trump’s case sets the new precedent of bringing criminal charges against a former president. Even those who support the prosecution see it as some unimaginable journey beyond the pale from which only a president who satisfies the divine requirements of the holy office can restore “our democracy.”
This thinking is completely upside down. If anything, Americans should be ashamed it’s taken this long to indict a president given the crimes virtually all of them commit. Prosecuting former presidents is something the framers clearly anticipated when expressly providing for it in the Constitution. They knew executive power was dangerous and fully expected to make use of the criminal justice system for any presidents that got out of line.
The problem today is almost everyone in imperial DC and far too large a portion of the American public approve of, or at least do not strongly object to, most of the crimes U.S. presidents commit. And so, we are left with politically motivated impeachments and prosecutions over trivialities like the Trump trial and Clinton impeachment.
Obviously, these powers to check the executive were created for far more important matters. Abusing war powers would be an obvious example. Presidents Biden, Trump, and Obama have all violated the War Powers Act of 1973 and that certainly is not an exhaustive list. This isn’t a theory. Here is the relevant language from the statute:
(c) Presidential executive power as Commander-in-Chief; limitation
The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.
Every president named above has bombed Syria under circumstances when none of the three required circumstances applied. They broke a law that actually matters, risking war with Russia and inviting further terrorist attacks against the United States. They also killed innocent civilians in a country that had never attacked the United States; just in case anyone cares about the moral question anymore.
Not only were these presidents not prosecuted; they were applauded by the media and most of DC. For Trump, it was one of the few times he was complimented by the establishment, with even Bill Kristol tweeting out his unbridled joy that the president was being “presidential” for a change.
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Tom Mullen is the author of It’s the Fed, Stupid and Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?
