Third indictment and no longer Triple A

Red Meat For Mushy Moderates

A crude, crowd-erected gallows hangs near the United States Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the United States Capitol. -Wikipedia

We knew this was going to happen. For the last several days, it had become clear that the 45th president of the United States would again be indicted by the Justice Department for multiple felonies, this time related to his efforts to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election. What we did not know was how sweeping yesterday’s round of criminal charges would be.

Whether you think he’s guilty of trying to overturn the 2020 election or not, unfairly targeted or not, the four charges against Donald Trump involving conspiracy and obstruction of justice around Jan. 6 and the election are devastating, laid out as they are in such stark detail. There are also four unindicted, unnamed co-conspirators, including, most likely, Rudy Giuliani. See actual text of the indictment here.

As others have pointed out, there are a number of things that make this indictment different from — and potentially more perilous for the former president than — the first two. For one, this is not the first federal indictment Trump has faced, so the novelty is starting to wear off. It also looks like the charges listed in this recent indictment could be even morse serious than those contained in the earlier classified documents case.

But the most recent allegations against the former president are also more easily understood by the public. We all saw the insurrection at the Capitol, along with Trump’s speech beforehand that inspired it, and digested accounts of his other attempts to change the results of the election. Furthermore, most of us know the essential facts surround the case and were expecting him to be charged at some point.

At this writing, Trump was scheduled to be arraigned today at 4 p.m. in a D.C. federal courthouse, where cameras are not allowed. In many state courts, still cameras and audio/video equipment are permitted. But not in federal courts.

“Concerns about confidentiality of jurors, judicial decorum and media distraction have, for years, overridden the fundamental First Amendment principle of the media’s right to report and the public’s right to know what their government is up to,” writes Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin (free link).

There have been calls for the federal courts to suspend that prohibition for this case on the grounds that public interest is so high and the need for transparency so compelling, that the ban should be lifted.

Now here’s the interesting part. Guess who makes that call — John Roberts, chief justice of the United States. As presiding officer of the Judicial Conference of the United States, the policy-setting and lobbying panel of the federal judiciary, Roberts can make this decision — as if Roberts didn’t have enough authority already, right?

I would agree with legal scholars such as Neil Katyal that transparency is called for here. Even before this latest indictment, one of Trump’s own lawyers said that “we [should] take the curtain away and all Americans can see what’s happening.”

I’d like to see an across-the-board change in federal court policies that allow for the lifting of the cameras prohibition if both parties consent to it.

Here’s something else to consider: Lost in the news about the indictment is the fact that yesterday, Fitch Ratings downgraded the credit rating of the United States from Triple A to AA+. Of the situation in the U.S., the ratings agency cited “a steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years, including on fiscal and debt matters.”

In other words, aside from from the growing budget deficit, Fitch did not cite anything terrible specific about out financial situation. Instead, the downgrade sounds more like a statement of concern about our political environment and its never-ending drama over matters such as the debt ceiling. Many titans of industry such as Warren Buffet (nothing to “worry about”) and Jamie Dimon (“ridiculous”) dismissed the downgrade as much ado about very little.

But you’d have to think that the dysfunctional nature of our politics is driving much of the pessimism that led to this downgrade. Our decline has been in the works for some time, but it worsened after the election of Trump and the constant drama he inflicted on the world. It worsened still, with a divided Congress that engages in brinkmanship every time the debt ceiling needs to be extended. Now House Republicans, backed by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, are threatening to commence an impeachment inquiry against President Biden, mostly for offenses they think he might have done when he wasn’t even president.

Rounding out this retrograde and cartoonish scene, we have the spectacle of a twice-impeached thrice-indicted ex-president seeking to regain his office, parading around the country and likely forced to wear an ankle bracelet on the campaign trail.

As I’m fond of saying, “Only in America.”