When will Trump be indicted?

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First published in The Trenchant Observer on May 2, 2021, Republished as “REPRISE” on June 20, 2021.  Reprinted with permission.

When will Trump be indicted?

We have a serial felon on the loose, hanging out at or near Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.

He is the unnamed “Individual One” in the indictment of Michael Cohen, who is currently serving out a sentence after pleading guilty, on August 21, 2018, to campaign finance violations, tax fraud, and bank fraud. Numerous reports from reliable sources point to Trump as “Individual One”, who the Cohen indictment said had ordered Cohen to commit the crimes.

It should have been a simple matter to unseal the identity of “Individual One” in the Cohen indictment, and to simply fill in Donald Trump’s name and indict him. Why hasn’t that happened?

Robert Mueller in his report on his exhaustive two-year investigation into Trump lists at least 10 cases where Trump appears to have committed obstruction of justice. The evidence Mueller cites sounds convincing, Why have indictments not been issued in these 10 cases?

Donald Trump was impeached in 2019 for obstruction of justice in the Ukraine affaire, which included a number of crimes. During and after the House impeachment investigation, Trump appears to have committed a number of crimes involving obstruction of justice, including witness tampering and retaliation against witnesses for truthfully testifying in response to the questions of House investigators. Why has Trump not been indicted for these crimes?

In December 2020, Trump was impeached a second time for his actions related to inciting an insurrection that included, but was not limited to, the invasion of the Capitol by a mob which resulted in the deaths of at least five people. Why has Trump not been indicted for the crimes that lay at the heart of his impeachment for the Capitol insurrection?

The political decision by Republican Senators not to remove him from office constituted a violation by them of their oaths of office and their oaths to render “impartial justice” as jurors in the impeachment trial. But their decisions, which were politically motivated, in no way absolved Trump of criminal responsibility for the crimes he appears to have committed.

From the summer of 2020 until November 3, 2020, Trump engaged in a number of actions that would appear to have been serious crimes

From the date of the election, on November 3, 2020, Donald Trump appears to have engaged in multiple crimes, ranging from the intimidation of election officials, attempts to corrupt election officials responsible for counting and tallying the votes, to attempts to persuade legislators and governors to violate election laws and constitutional provisions for the election of the president. These actions culminated in the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, and the president’s own incitement to insurrection on that day. His failure to send National Guard troops to protect the lives of Vice-President Michael Pence, House Leader Nancy Pelosi, and other legislators and their staffs, withholding such assistance for some three hours, evidenced not only his callous indifference but probably also his intent to promote the insurrection.

Putting all of these actions together, it appears that Donald Trump led a vast conspiracy, in which he enlisted the support and cooperation of Republican federal, state, and local legislators and officials, to overthrow the results of the November 3 presidential election and, consequently, the Constitution of the United States.

Why have we heard virtually nothing about federal or state grand juries investigating these alleged crimes?

There have been only a few exceptions, such as the grand jury in Atlanta where a courageous prosecutor is investigating a blatant case of apparent election interference for which there is recorded and public evidence.

Why indeed has former President Donald Trump not yet been indicted for the many crimes he has apparently committed?

When will he be indicted?

Moreover, when will his many Republican co-conspirators and accomplices in these apparent crimes be investigated and themselves indicted?

What is going on?

We are all tired of thinking about Trump and his crimes. However, democracy is a very fragile flower, and we have just seen how close we can come to losing it. If America’s first fascist president, and the many members of the Republican Party who engaged in a vast conspiracy to overthrow the Constitution, are not held accountable before the courts for the very numerous crimes which they appear to have have committed, the lesson of political impunity will not be lost on others.

Americans who are too cowardly to defend American democracy by prosecuting, and insisting on the prosecution of, those who have committed criminal acts in furtherance of the Republican conspiracy to overthrow the Constitution, will have only themselves and their own passivity to blame if our democracy is lost.

The Trenchant Observer