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Should Donald Trump’s alleged illegal activities be investigated? And should the former president be prosecuted? President-elect Joe Biden refuses, but leaves a back door open.
“Acquitted”: Donald Trump is holding a “USA Today” issue after the US Senate acquitted him in an impeachment proceeding on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congressional investigation. (February 6, 2020)
Photo: Evan Vucci (AP / Keystone)
Washington in the fall of 2020 commemorates Manila in the winter of 1986, when Filipino autocrat Ferndinand Marcos tried to secure another term with the help of election fraud. Now Donald Trump wants to do the same as Marcos, but keep American institutions.
You triumphs greatly bizarre effortsTurning a defeat in the presidential election into a victory with the help of Republican accomplices in several state parliaments will not succeed. But they demonstrate his willingness to pursue a scorched earth policy and bring Trump closer to autocratic rulers like Marcos or the various caudillos of the Central American banana republics.
Furthermore, the president’s behavior raises the question of whether he should be prosecuted after leaving office in January 2021. It could be investigated, for example, due to the separation of migrant children from their parents. Or due to violations of campaign financing laws, due to potential tax offenses and possible conflicts of interest, including in-office enrichment. Trump’s refusal to acknowledge the presidential election result could also trigger an investigation.
When asked at the fifth Democratic presidential candidate debate in Atlanta in 2019, candidate Joe Biden shunned – he would leave that decision to his attorney general, he said. He will not be instructed to prosecute Trump, but “if it turns out that Trump violated the laws and is therefore accused, then so be it,” Biden said in Atlanta.
The persecution could hardly trigger a predictable response
Now TV station NBC News, citing several sources from the president-elect’s background, has reported that a legal review of the Trump presidency has not actually been requested. This is the only way to prevent an even deeper division between state and society and heal the wounds of the past four years. A targeted criminal case against Trump would trigger an almost unpredictable reaction from his supporters and shift Biden’s goal of unifying the nation into the distant future.
August 9, 1974: To avoid impeachment over the “Watergate” affair, Republican Richard Nixon became the first US president to step down from office.
Photo: Keystone
But the left wing of the Democratic Party in particular doesn’t want to let Trump get away with it. Progressive Democrats argue, among other things, that Richard Nixon’s pardon by his successor Gerald Ford in 1975 made it much more difficult to come to terms with Nixon’s offenses. A political fable had arisen on the American right that Nixon was “criminalized” by his enemies because of political differences.
A case for an independent commission
One way out of the Democrats’ dilemma would be to establish an independent commission of historians and congressmen from both sides to review certain areas of the Trump presidency. The model for this could be the 9/11 Commission to Illuminate the Context or, even better, the Senate Special Committee named after Senator Frank Church, which investigated the CIA and FBI clandestine crimes in 1975, including involvement of the Nixon administration.
This commission could also develop recommendations for reform of the American presidency and the electoral law. The ongoing investigations by the state and city of New York against Donald Trump would not be affected.
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