Former President Donald Trump recognizes the perilous route set by the overtly political prosecution spearheaded by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. “What happened to me has never happened in this country before,” Trump accurately told Fox News’s Sean Hannity last week, “It’s a very terrible thing. It’s a terrible precedent for our country.”
The previous night on Newsmax, Trump employed more provocative language to emphasize where Bragg’s precedent for political prosecutions could take the United States. “Wouldn’t it be terrible to throw the president’s wife and the former secretary of state into jail?” Trump said, in allusion to Hillary Clinton’s improper handling of classified information. “Wouldn’t that be a terrible thing? It’s a terrible, terrible path that they’re leading us to. And it’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them.”
Hannity mentioned that Democrats are utilizing Trump’s comments to argue he would use the Department of Justice for a political vendetta against Democrats. Trump refuted this notion. “No. 1, they’re wrong,” Trump told Hannity. “It has to stop, because otherwise, we’re not going to have a country.”
Yet, with his typical ambiguous teasing, Trump added, “Look, when this election is over, based on what they’ve done, I would have every right to go after them.”
Hannity then questioned Trump, “Will you pledge to restore equal justice, equal application of our laws, end this practice of weaponization? Is that a promise you’re going to make?”
Trump was noncommittal. “Look, I know you want me to say something so nice. … But I don’t want to look naive,” Trump responded. “What they’re doing to me, if it’s going to continue, we’re really not going to have much of a country left.”
Typically, Trump’s analysis hits the mark, but his response can be less than reassuring. What Democrats are doing to him and other Republicans is outrageous and perilous, and it needs to cease. However, Trump, always mindful of tactics, wants Democrats to understand that if they persist with their provocations, they face the risk of severe retaliation.
This short-term political strategy is comprehensible but comes at the significant cost of implying revenge prosecutions and a descent into politically tainted justice.
What is required, and what Trump should focus on as a campaign promise, is comprehensive reforms of the criminal justice system to prevent political prosecutions from occurring again. A properly constrained prosecutor would not have brought Trump to trial, let alone secured a conviction in a fair trial.
Candidates from both political parties should have the right to transfer a state criminal prosecution on state charges from state court to federal court when it can be demonstrated that the potential jury pool is overwhelmingly composed of members of the opposing party.
Our country has grown too partisan to trust the criminal justice system when defendants are political figures. No red jury and red judge should decide the fate of a blue defendant, and vice versa. We have jurisdictions where the jury pool is diverse. Trials of political figures should be conducted in such environments.
