Prosecution!

1945 asked me write about whether the former President should be prosecuted, and my unsurprising answer was… yes, the former President should be prosecuted, assuming that prosecutors can actually make any charges stick:

Should DoJ allow threats of violence to dissuade it from indicting Trump?  To do so would invite the destruction of democracy by violent, extra-legal mobs and militias. Should DoJ observe the shadowy precedent that no President has ever been indicted after leaving office?  To do so would simply ensure that Trump and his supporters will continue to violate the law. When democracies do not move aggressively to counter violent extremism, they risk normalizing it.

This last point sounds like a caveat, but I take it seriously. No favors have been done the Republic if Trump walks away with an acquittal on charges that DoJ couldn’t quite make stick. My attitude about the first impeachment was essentially the same; there was no point in doing it if there was no chance of conviction.