'Maddening': How Teflon Don avoided accountability — again

20 January

Despite having faced four criminal indictments — two federal, one in New York State, and one in Georgia — Donald Trump will begin his second term as president of the United States on Monday, January 20.

Justice Juan Merchan followed through with the sentencing on 34 felony counts in Manhattan District attorney Alvin Bragg Jr.'s hush money/falsified business records case, but Trump dodged jail, probation and even a fine. Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis' election interference/RICO case is "effectively dead," according to legal experts. And both of former special counsel Jack Smith's federal cases for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) were dismissed.

In an article published on January 19, The Atlantic's David A. Graham lays out some reasons why he finds the demise of Smith's classified documents case especially frustrating.

"Looking back on the four-year Donald Trump interregnum," Graham argues, "the failure of the case against Trump for hoarding classified documents is not the most serious or influential — that would be the utter lack of accountability for Trump's attempted overthrow of the government, including instigating the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol — but it might be the most maddening. On his way out of office, the president removed documents that he had no right to keep, which included some of the nation's most sensitive secrets, according to the Justice Department's indictment."

Graham continues, "When the government asked nicely for them, he refused to give them back. When the government demanded them by force of law, he ignored it. When officials came to collect them, he allegedly sought to hide them."

The Atlantic staff writer describes the "process by which Trump got off" in the classified documents case as frustrating but "instructive."

Graham laments, "Step 1: Defy the rules without hesitation, and dare the system to stop you…. Step 2: When the system does try to stop you, brush it off…. Step 3: Fight the battle in public…. Step 4: Rely on a justice system stocked with judges you appointed…. Step 5: Let other people take the fall."

Trump, Graham adds, "got very lucky when" Judge Aileen Cannon, who he appointed, was assigned to the case.

"First, she issued rulings restricting DOJ access to evidence; the rulings raised eyebrows and were eventually overturned by a higher court," Graham explains. "Once charges were filed, she ran the case at molasses speed, drawing out every step; quarreled with prosecutors; and ultimately threw out the charges after ruling that special counsel Jack Smith's appointment was unconstitutional, though other courts had repeatedly rejected similar ideas. Trump might have gotten a less friendly judge, as he did in the federal case over the 2020 election subversion, but he can still always appeal to the Trump-stocked Supreme Court."

David A. Graham's full article for The Atlantic is available at this link (subscription required).

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