Larry Wilson: Prosecuting Trump for his death-to-democracy lies is much deserved
Donald Trump tries to pretend, and has, crazily, convinced all of his base, that he stands between us, the people, and some renegade Deep State in the federal government.
But as his third criminal indictment in just four months shows, it’s Donald Trump who sought to deprive the American people of our right to a free and fair election by concocting an entirely fabricated story that a second term in the White House was stolen from him, and that his followers ought to head to the Capitol, where they would riot and kill and get killed, in order to do him a solid.
He knew it was a lie. He knew he had lost.
But isn’t that his free-speech right, to invent and disseminate a lie?
Sure — if it were you or me who was doing the fibbing.
But when you are the president of the United States, as he sadly was at the time, it rises to the yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater exception to First Amendment rights. You don’t get to do that, as your speech kills other people.
“This is a very sad day for America,” Trump whined as he spoke to the press after appearing in a Washington, D.C. courtroom Thursday where prosecutors once again read him the Riot Act.
No, it isn’t. It’s a sad day for Donald Trump. The sad day for America was Jan. 6, 2001, and the days just before and after that, when an outgoing president in a scheme unprecedented in 247 years of our national history tried every scam he could think of to remain in office after he had lost an election.
Prosecutors — after a grand jury investigation — charge Trump with three conspiracies: to defraud the United States; to obstruct an official government proceeding, the certification of the Electoral College vote; to deprive people of a civil right, the right to have their votes counted. There’s a fourth count of obstructing or attempting to obstruct an official proceeding.
“You’re too honest,” Trump berated his vice president, Mike Pence, when he declined to go along with the plot to steal the White House.
It’s not as if a strict adherence to the truth were ever a hallmark of Donald Trump. He’s clearly been a serial liar all his life, especially if there were a buck in it. Everyone remembers the pre-presidential time when he insisted, with no evidence, that Honolulu-born Barack Obama was not born in the United States. And others have reminded recently of the time when he used to say that he is of Swedish, not German, descent when trying to rent to Jewish families in New York City. Those swindling lies probably are protected under the First Amendment.
But the new indictment shows that Trump after losing the election tried “to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election,”
He’s still peddling the Big Lie about the election, but as far as his defense on his most recent indictment goes, seems to be about attacking the messenger. When that bindle of cocaine was found in a part of the White House frequented by tourists, Trump raved on social media: “Has Deranged Jack Smith, the crazy, Trump hating Special Prosecutor, been seen in the area of the COCAINE? He looks like a crackhead to me!”
Because, other than speech, which is irrelevant here, Trump has no real defense for the charges.
He devised a fraudulent slate of electors, many of whom were tricked into joining the cabal, in seven states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
He knew he was lying, and still he persisted, with everyone in his administration but the fellow whack jobs within his inner circle — Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman — telling him so, along with courts all over the nation, every time he filed legal action to overturn the election.
He’s right there on tape with Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s top elections official, telling him to recalculate the vote count so Trump could take the state’s 16 electoral votes: “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,”
And then, to spark the Jan. 6 riot, Trump told the rally at the Ellipse to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell” to overturn democracy. Oh, and that he’d be right there with them. Any minute now.
Of course the saddest thing for America isn’t that Donald Trump will have to take the odd day off the campaign trail to appear in court to face the legal music on one or another of his criminal indictments in this, his third bid for the White House.
The saddest thing is how many Americans will follow him over the rhetorical cliff on this, decline to listen to reason, believe or pretend to believe in the lying liar, as they have all along. It’s not just that it defies logic. It’s what it portends for the republic and our former place in the world. I don’t give a damn whether Donald Trump spends a day behind bars for all his crimes. He’s too thick to understand the harms his lies have caused — he’s been living a lie for seven decades. I do live in hope that he never sees real power again, and yet know the sad fact is this fraudster will campaign on his lies, on being prosecuted for them. He will raise money off the lies, and has not only cowed a large portion of the American people — he has successfully beat his primary opponents into submission because of the power of repeating his falsehoods. So he’ll be the GOP nominee. And if he wins, against a weak opponent, the truth is you can kiss the rule of law in your country goodbye.
Larry Wilson is on the Southern California News Group editorial board. lwilson@scng.