Trump’s 'treasonous, criminal and malevolent character' could 'get him re-elected in 2024': law professor

When former President Donald Trump received a target letter from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in July, he realized that a third criminal indictment was likely. And on Tuesday, August 1, 2023, special counsel Jack Smith announced that Trump had been indicted on four charges in connection with his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

In the new indictment, Trump is charged with: (1) conspiracy to obstruct an official United States government proceeding, (2) conspiracy to defraud the U.S., (3) conspiracy against Americans' constitutional rights, and (4) obstructing and trying to obstruct an official U.S. government proceeding.

In the indictment, Smith alleges that Trump — despite losing the 2020 election to now-President Joe Biden — violated federal laws in his efforts to stay in power. Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election results are also the focus of a criminal investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis for the State of Georgia, and if he is indicted in that case, Trump will be up against four criminal prosecutions.

Regardless of his legal peril, Trump remains the clear frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary. Polls released in late July found Trump leading the second-place candidate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, by 43 percent (Morning Consult) or 37 percent (New York Times/Siena College) among primary voters.

In an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on August 2, University of Baltimore law professor and former federal prosecutor Kimberly Wehle has a grim warning — arguing that although Trump's third criminal indictment is a "step toward justice," the "treasonous" actions that Smith alleges could be the very thing that puts him back in the White House in January 2025.

"The indictment also lists a slew of people who told Trump that the suggestion that he won the election was false, including (former Vice President Mike) Pence, senior DOJ officials, the director of national intelligence, cybersecurity experts at the Department of Homeland Security, senior White House counsel, senior campaign staffers, state legislators and officials, and numerous judges who ruled against Trump and his unethical legal team that peddled countless falsehoods in courts of law across the country," Wehle explains. "Many of them can be expected to testify at trial. The fact that so many people were nonetheless complicit in this scheme remains, some two and a half years later, a stunning and appalling fact."

The law professor continues, "This indictment is a step toward justice. And it is a document of historic importance. But it is also — for the Republican Party and for America as a whole — a reckoning. Because Trump's treasonous, criminal, and malevolent character, as described in this indictment, is exactly what could get him reelected in 2024."

Wehle argues that "the possibility of" Trump "going to trial" and being "convicted and sentenced to prison" is "increasingly real." But she also warns that "if Trump were to be returned to the White House in January 2025, his Justice Department would undoubtedly drop all charges against him."

Mother Jones' David Corn has similar warnings in an article published on August 1. Trump's third indictment, Corn stresses, will only encourage him to ramp up his assault on U.S. democracy.

"Of all the Trump indictments — which also cover his payment of hush money to a porn star to cover up an alleged extramarital affair and his alleged theft of classified documents — this new set of charges addresses the most fundamental threat he has posed on American democracy," Corn explains. "He falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen from him. He schemed to overturn legitimate vote counts. And he riled up his followers to such an extent that thousands stormed the Capitol and violently tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power — a bedrock principle of American society."

Corn adds, "But this alleged crime was not Trump's doing alone. He had millions of accomplices: all those Americans who bought his bogus claims about the election…. Trump will turn this indictment, as he has done so with his previous indictments, into yet more proof that he is the target of a corrupt and nefarious cabal aiming to destroy the country…. The Trump crusade is chugging ahead, as this narcissistic, grievance-stirring wannabe-autocrat strives to return to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and implement his out-in-the-open plan to transform the federal government into an authoritarian regime."