We have only one bulwark against this menace. It is called the rule of law.
ROBERT REICH
in robertreich.substack.com
To
set the record straight. Trump is no longer president of the United States.
He’s a normal citizen. He may believe he’s still president because he never
conceded the 2020 election, but he lost that election. As a result, he is
subject to the same search-and-seizure provisions, under court supervision, as
is anyone else.
Trump
may be correct that no former president has ever before been subject to an FBI
search, but, then again, nothing like Trump has ever before happened to the
United States. No former president has ever attempted a coup to remain in
office.
Trump
claims that the search of Mar-a-Lago was intended to stop him from running for
president in 2024.
There
is no way the search could stop him from running, unless, perhaps, the search
turns up even more evidence that he participated in an “insurrection or
rebellion” against the United States—in which case, pursuant to Section 3 of
the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress might move to disqualify him from running.
But it’s far from clear that even such a congressional resolution would trigger
Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.
On
the other hand, if a grand jury determines that Trump broke the law and decides
to indict him, the Justice Department could take him to court, where a jury
could decide he is guilty. The court conceivably could send him to prison. This
would make it difficult, although not impossible, for him to run for or be
re-elected president.
We
don’t know yet what the FBI agents who searched Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago were
looking for, but in January, the National Archives and Records Administration
retrieved 15 boxes of documents from Mar-a-Lago that National Archives
officials said should have been turned over when Trump left the White House.
Evidently, more boxes were missing.
We
also know that a federal grand jury in Washington has been gathering
information about efforts by Trump, along with his lawyers and enablers, to try
to use fake electors to block Joe Biden from formally becoming president after
the 2020 election. As part of that investigation, authorities have begun
examining Trump’s actions, seeking to discover what instructions he
gave to subordinates, according to people familiar with the investigation.
In Monday night’s statement, Trump claimed that “such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries.” If he was referring to the assault he instigated on January 6, 2021, against the United States Capitol, he is partly correct. Had that assault been successful, the United States could indeed have become a broken, Third-World country.
The
search of his home, however, was done with a warrant and approved by a court.
It occurred under the law.
But
America might still become a broken, Third-World country, due to Trump’s and
other Republicans’ continuing efforts to sow doubt on the outcome of the 2020
election. During a speech on Saturday at the Conservative Political Action
Conference in Dallas, Trump reiterated his claim that the 2020 election “was
rigged and stolen and now our country is being systematically destroyed,”
despite the fact that sixty federal judges, some appointed by Trump, concluded
that the election was not rigged and stolen and that Trump’s own Department of
Justice came to the same conclusion. Trump, however, has systematically tried
to destroy our country.
Hungarian
Prime Minister Viktor Orban spoke at that same conference last Saturday. Orban
has turned Hungary into a Third-World autocracy. This is what Trump wants for
the United States. He and his Republican enablers are still at it.
We
have only one bulwark against this menace. It is called the rule of law.
Finally, it seems, on the basis of the search of Mar-a-Lago, that bulwark is
being utilized.
©
2021 robertreich.substack.com
Robert Reich,
is the Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California,
Berkeley, and a senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He
served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time
magazine named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the
twentieth century. His book include: "Aftershock"
(2011), "The Work of Nations" (1992), "Beyond
Outrage" (2012) and, "Saving
Capitalism" (2016). He is also a founding editor of The
American Prospect magazine, former chairman of Common Cause, a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning
documentary, "Inequality For All." Reich's newest book is "The Common Good"
(2019). He's co-creator of the Netflix original documentary "Saving
Capitalism," which is streaming now.