I let out a big sigh when I read that Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel to investigate whether Donald Trump should be indicted with respect to the events of January 6 and with respect to confidential documents he took to Mar-a-Lago. I sighed because, at least to me, the appointment means former President Trump will likely be indicted, and I can’t see that as a good thing.
I don’t know whether former President Trump broke any laws with respect to January 6 or the Mar-a-Lago documents. I don’t know all the facts, and I don’t know the specifics of the laws. But, ultimately, I don’t think former President Trump should be indicted because I don’t think it will help the country. I want former President Trump gone. And I think the best way to get him gone is to just ignore him. Don’t talk about him. Stop giving him the respect of attention.
That will be even more true with respect to former President Trump. We know what he did. We know it was wrong. And history will not forget it, not because of some indictment (or even conviction) but because of what he actually did.
My concern is that indicting, and trying, former President Trump will keep him at the center of our national attention and make even make look like a martyr to some of his supporters, at a time when, as a country, we have more important things to do and think about. I understand that we cannot let former President Trump “get away” with what he did. But the best way to make sure that he doesn’t “get away” with it is to ignore him and move forward without him.
It’s the same with people in the future, too. The way to make sure they understand they can’t “get away” with it, is not to indict or convict former President Trump. It’s to ignore him on his way to the dustbin of history.
This is what I thought in January of 2021, but the House of Representatives decided then-President Trump needed to be impeached a second time. He wasn‘t convicted, but he was never going to be convicted. The Democrats in the House of Representatives knew that, but they decided to impeach him anyway. And the result was that the impeachment seemed to help him with many of his supporters.1 Would an indictment and a trial do the same today?
Ultimately, the question of whether to indict former President Trump is not a legal question; it is a question of history and political judgment. Special counsels can only answer legal questions. My concern is that, by appointing a special counsel, Attorney General Garland has made the question of indicting former President Trump into a legal question when it is really a question of what is the best way for the United States to move forward from era of Donald Trump. That is not a question a special counsel can, or should, be answering.
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1 As the Republicans found in 1998.
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