With President Trump facing indictments that could land him in jail for four hundred years, all Trumped up bogus charges, as well as the death penalty, punishment far in excess of the worse mass murderers, all for things such having classified documents that he declassified, and for nothing Biden and Obama did not do, there is some indication that the liberal elite may be worried that if Trump, is destroyed, MAGA types will not be happy.
Professor Jack Goldsmith of Harvard law School, wrote an option piece for The New York Times, behind a paywall of course, saying that there could be terrible consequences. It might mean that conservatives will seek revenge, at last through the political process. Not bad for a liberal. But, the consequences could be much worse than this, and civil wars have been sparked by less. Still, here is an early recognition that things could spiral out of control. Nothing here of course about the injustice of all this.
“Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith, a noted critic of former President Donald Trump, published a “guest essay” in the New York Times on Tuesday warning of “terrible consequences” for the country in the ongoing prosecutions of Trump.
Goldsmith, who served in the George W. Bush administration, warned Times readers that while they might enjoy the idea of Trump being indicted and possibly imprisoned, the other half of the country did not see it that way, and would seek revenge:
This deeply unfortunate timing [of the indictments] looks political and has potent political implications even if it is not driven by partisan motivations. And it is the Biden administration’s responsibility, as its Justice Department reportedly delayed the investigation of Mr. Trump for a year and then rushed to indict him well into G.O.P. primary season. The unseemliness of the prosecution will most likely grow if the Biden campaign or its proxies use it as a weapon against Mr. Trump if he is nominated.
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And then there is the perceived unfairness in the department’s treatment of Mr. Biden’s son Hunter, in which the department has once again violated the cardinal principle of avoiding any appearance of untoward behavior in a politically sensitive investigation. Credible whistle-blowers have alleged wrongdoingand bias in the investigation, though the Trump-appointed prosecutor denies it. And the department’s plea arrangement with Hunter Biden came apart, in ways that fanned suspicions of a sweetheart deal, in response to a few simple questions by a federal judge.
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The prosecution may well have terrible consequences beyond the department for our politics and the rule of law. It will probably inspire ever more aggressive tit-for-tat investigations of presidential actions in office by future Congresses and by administrations of the opposing party, to the detriment of sound government.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/08/opinion/trump-indictment-cost-danger.html