Justice Delayed

[supergee]

It is generally agreed that indicting a major-party presidential candidate before the election would be seen by many as an unjust intervention in the political process. So I imagine Preet Bharara pondering a collection of charges including federal income tax evasion, mail fraud connected with Trump University, fraud connected to his charitable foundation, espionage associated with Wikileaks, and illegal lobbying associated with Russia, and waiting patiently or otherwise for November 9. There could be a downside.

Comments

[johnpalmer]

My understanding is that it depends on the indictment. But you're right - these *types* of indictments are often deferred until after the election. There's usually *something*. There are morons who think Hillary's e-mail usage was actually illegal and that the Clinton Foundation was "pay to play", in spite of the strong evidence *against* the first, and the complete lack off evidence supporting the second. Republican appointees might nevertheless indict if they could. So there's a very good reason to avoid any legal action during the election season.

But if Donald Trump shot a protestor with dozens of witnesses saying they saw now reason that he felt threatened, whatever he claimed, he'd probably be indicted.

Pardoning him is *not* the answer. That's the answer of Jim Crow - "yeah, we don't like that he shot an innocent black man, a nice, respectful fellow, in fact. But if we let him go to jail over this, a lot of people will be up in arms that we let a white man go to jail for that!"

(That's assuming there were lots of folks in the Jim Crow south that actually were middlin'-honorable but were afraid of "but if...". I'm not taking that as given, just noting that a person could make that excuse.)

There needs to be trust in the institutions and a sense that the institutions are stronger than the mob. If that trust is misplaced, that society is royally fucked, but at least the trust lets it go down fighting for what's right rather than being "good Germans" in WWII.