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Is it necessary to investigate the alleged illegal activities of Donald Trump? And should the former president be prosecuted? President-elect Joe Biden refuses, but leaves a back door open.
“Acquitted”: Donald Trump has a “USA Today” issue in his hands after the US Senate acquitted him in an impeachment process on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of investigations by Congress. (February 6, 2020)
Photo: Evan Vucci (AP / Keystone)
Washington in fall 2020 commemorates Manila in the winter of 1986, when Filipino autocrat Ferndinand Marcos tried to secure another term with the help of electoral fraud. Now Donald Trump wants to do the same as Marcos, but keep the American institutions.
Remarkably triumphs strange effortsTurning a defeat in the presidential election into a victory with the help of Republican accomplices in various state parliaments will not succeed. But they demonstrate their willingness to pursue a scorched earth policy and bring Trump closer to autocratic rulers like Marcos or the various caudillos of the banana republics of Central America.
Furthermore, the president’s behavior raises the question of whether he should be prosecuted after leaving office in January 2021. He could be investigated, for example, for the separation of migrant children from their parents. Or for violations of campaign finance laws, for possible tax crimes and possible conflicts of interest, including enrichment in office. Trump’s refusal to acknowledge the outcome of the presidential election could also prompt an investigation.
When asked about this in the fifth debate of the Democratic presidential candidates in Atlanta in 2019, candidate Joe Biden avoided: He would leave that decision to his attorney general, he said. No instruction will be given on his part to prosecute Trump, but “if Trump is found to have violated the laws and is therefore charged, so be it,” Biden said in Atlanta.
The chase could hardly trigger a predictable response
Now, the television station NBC News reported, citing various sources in the president-elect’s environment, that a legal review of the Trump presidency is not actually being sought. This is the only way to avoid an even deeper division between the state and society and to heal the wounds of the last four years. A criminal prosecution directed at Trump would trigger an unpredictable reaction from his supporters and carry Biden’s goal of uniting the nation into the distant future.
August 9, 1974: To avoid impeachment over the “Watergate” affair, Republican Richard Nixon became the first US president to resign from office.
Photo: Keystone
The left wing of the Democratic Party in particular does not want to let Trump have his way. Progressive Democrats maintain, among other things, that Richard Nixon’s pardon for his successor Gerald Ford in 1975 made it much more difficult to accept Nixon’s crimes. A political fairy tale had emerged on the American right, according to which Nixon was “criminalized” by his enemies because of political differences.
A case for an independent commission
One way out of the Democrats’ dilemma would be to establish an independent commission of historians and congressmen from both parties to review certain areas of the Trump presidency. The model for this could be the 9/11 background clearance commission or, better yet, the Senate special committee named after Senator Frank Church, which investigated clandestine CIA and FBI crimes in 1975, including the Nixon administration involvement.
Such a commission could also develop recommendations to reform the US presidency and electoral law. Ongoing investigations by the state and the City of New York against Donald Trump would not be affected.
