Grand Theft Presidency
Being powerful and influential should not render Trump immune from minor prosecution. On the contrary, it should make minor crimes more important.
Among the most infuriating critiques of Donald Trump’s indictment by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is that the crime is “too minor” to merit the prosecution of someone as important as a former President.
I’ve heard variations on this argument from more sources than I can count. In his most recent podcast episode analyzing the indictment, former federal prosecutor Preet Bharara said that he put the proposal to his law school class at NYU: “If you had the same 34 misdemeanor counts against a former US President, would you prosecute,” and that the class unanimously said they would not. Bharara agreed.
Let’s start by condemning the unjust premise that powerful and prominent individuals should live by a different set of laws than the rest of us. I’m a regular listener to Bharara’s podcast, and earlier this year listened in horror as he and fellow former SDNY prosecutor Elie Honig flippantly agreed that wealthy and powerful people simply shouldn’t be prosecuted unless their crimes are severe.
Essentially, the laws on the books might be the same, but the practice of prosecutorial discretion has led to a culture where the law as written does not apply.
