President Donald Trump’s behavior in the runup to, and on, Jan. 6 was outrageous: That much is beyond doubt. Yet Monday’s Supreme Court ruling guarantees that special counsel Jack Smith’s effort to put Trump on trial for that can at best only rattle for years through the courts.
The high court declared (6-3) that presidents enjoy “absolute” immunity from prosecution for “official acts”; it’d take months at least to get final rulings that some of Trump’s actions back then weren’t official acts, and the decision clearly puts the kibosh on some of Smith’s key arguments in his larger case claiming that Trump conspired to overturn the 2020 election.
In short, this is going nowhere before Election Day, and then the voters will have their say — after which the Justice Department will likely have to drop the charges.
Plus, Congress already has had its say, in the 2021 impeachment and Senate trial over Jan. 6 charges.
The best course now would be for Smith to drop the case altogether and for prosecutors, and their Democratic patrons, to swear off the use of further lawfare to take down political foes once and for all.
All that continuing this prosecution does is continue to sow division and weaken the nation’s already shaky political institutions. In the long run, the real victim here is the American public and its trust in the rule of law from a barrage of political salvos badly disguised as prosecutions.
Democrats can and certainly will keep pressing their political case, following up on Nancy Pelosi’s Jan. 6 committee.
We’re not forgiving Trump for refusing to accept the 2020 election’s results despite having exhausted all court challenges, nor for standing silent and essentially encouraging rioters to block Congress’ certification of the electoral votes on Jan 6.
Yet treating any of that as criminal actions has always been fraught, and the Constitution names impeachment as the way to correct presidential misconduct.
And the lawfare approach has failed; continuing it can only score a few pyrrhic partisan points at the expense of national unity.
Doesn’t America have enough real problems — the border, inflation, foreign threats — without having to endure more political division spawned by a judicial system many already distrust?
For the good of the country, the court’s ruling Monday should be an impetus to call an amnesty on any further use of all lawfare as a political weapon.
By the same token, Trump should vow that if he wins in November, he won’t prosecute President Biden in revenge.
It’s time for both sides to quit the games. Far too much is at stake.
Short-sighted escalatory tit-for-tat legal battles risk collapsing the very pillars of America’s political foundation.