Opinion: The prosecution of Donald Trump is much bigger than Trump himself

While I believe Donald Trump is morally corrupt and a threat to democracy, I refuse to root for the prosecution against him.

Protecting our justice system is even more important than getting rid of Trump, because without respect for the rule of law, there can be no democracy. Without it, all we have is chaos or tyranny.

We are at a dangerous point as Trump’s Republican supporters denounce the courts and law enforcement. For Trump’s opponents, rooting for prosecutors as if they were at a football game is a copy of Trump’s worldview and a disparagement of our democratic institutions.

Senator Dan Sullivan recently said on social media that Trump’s New York hush money trial resembles the 1930s Communist show trials of Joseph Stalin. In Stalin’s trials, everyone in the courtroom knew they would be killed if they did not comply with Stalin’s demands. Defendants had the choice to either falsely confess to fictitious crimes or have their families killed. If they confessed, only the defendant would be killed.

I don’t believe that Mr. Sullivan believes his hyperbolic statements. He knows that New York criminal courts are not Stalinist show courts. But that doesn’t make his words any less harmful. Discrediting the courts is a dangerous thing to do. Without public confidence in our judicial system, our political system cannot function.

Contrast this with the attitude of Senator Ted Stevens. In my last column, I presented evidence that Senator Stevens was falsely accused and that the prosecution rigged its way to obtain a conviction. After an extraordinary 40-year senator career, Senator Stevens was alienated by his colleagues and rejected by his constituents. But he never turned his back on the court or called the trial a sham. Even in his final speech on the Senate floor, he insisted that the system would ultimately acquit him. And it did.

Stevens was a true patriot. He knew full well that courts are imperfect and make mistakes. But he understood more deeply that our democracy has survived and thrived for three centuries because our people voluntarily accept the authority of the courts and the finality of elections, even when the other side wins. Without that, our democracy would disintegrate into political violence.

Trump has called every investigation into him a witch hunt, every report he doesn’t like fake, every legal proceeding against him unfair, and every election he didn’t win was stolen. He’s been saying since before the voting even began that if he loses it will be stolen. Supposedly, all 60 courts that have certified his defeat in the 2020 election were fraudulent.

The violence part also applies. In 2020, Trump called for police and the military to shoot and kill social justice protesters, but on January 6, 2021, when his supporters stormed the police and the U.S. Capitol to overturn the election results, he called them patriots and hostages. I don’t think anyone should attack the police, and political violence in a democracy is always wrong.

There are liberals, moderates and traditional conservatives who want to get rid of Trump by any means necessary. But the means are important. If journalists and prosecutors abandon their integrity in the name of getting rid of Trump, he will undermine both sides, and we will be one step closer to losing our democratic institutions.

So, aside from wanting to get rid of Trump, how do I feel about these prosecutions?

In the Stormy Daniels hush-money case, the facts are certain, but the legal implications are uncertain: Prosecutors have built an unusual case based on a complex and untested legal theory, which itself suggests political motivation.

Trump clearly falsified business records to hide his hush money payments to Daniels. But it would only be a felony if Trump was covering up a crime, and that would depend on an interpretation of election law and proof that breaking that law was Trump’s goal, not simply to avoid embarrassment or damage to his marriage. I trust the courts to figure that out, but I’m not rooting for the prosecutors. Felony charges should not be based on one-off theories concocted for special occasions.

In Georgia, Trump clearly tried to overturn the election results and steal the voters’ right to choose. We have his audio tapes. The system held up and he failed. I don’t know enough about the law or facts to judge the validity of criminal charges against him, but District Attorney Fani Willis has disgraced herself and refused to let someone else take over. I’m not rooting for her. Her poor judgment and loss of dignity have destroyed the credibility of the prosecution.

Special Federal Counsel Jack Smith acted appropriately and brought two cases without apparent political bias.

The felony charges against Mr. Trump for mishandling classified documents are compelling, well-supported and clear. Anyone guilty of the egregious conduct alleged against Mr. Trump should be prosecuted and, if convicted, go to prison. Careless handling of our nation’s most closely guarded secrets puts our national security at risk.

The charges that Smith has brought against Trump for trying to overturn the election are also unique and untested, because no one has ever attempted to overturn a US presidential election through illegal means before. While new applications of the law are unpredictable, these charges need to be sorted out in order to clarify the rules of presidential elections.

But if Trump is elected, Smith’s efforts will be moot because Trump can pardon himself for federal crimes, which he certainly will, and anyone else who breaks the law to stay in power. He sent that message when he pardoned Roger Stone, who was convicted of perjury to protect Trump.

The Founding Fathers likely did not foresee someone like Trump when they wrote the Constitution, nor did they assume that honorable people would become senators, unlike those who voted against impeaching Trump for the January 6, 2021 coup attempt.

The Constitution protects democracy through an ingenious system of checks and balances, distributing power among many roles and allowing us to check for misconduct or extreme behavior by individual officials. But it also assumes that elected officials and the public will swear allegiance to upholding the system it created.

We are in danger because Trump and many of his supporters have abandoned their loyalties. We must not do the same. These institutions cannot be saved by ignoring them.

Consider what Ted Stevens would do.

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