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When George W. Bush announcedthat the United States had begun military action in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, in retaliation for the 9/11 attacks orchestrated by al-Qaeda, he emphasized that the mission would also focus on providing humanitarian aid to the citizens of Afghanistan. "The oppressed people of Afghanistan will know the generosity of America and our allies," he explained. "As we strike military targets, we will also drop food, medicine, and supplies." The hypocrisy of a military strike framed as a humanitarian mission was on full display. For those of us who could immediately see through Bush's hubris and his malignant American exceptionalism, the global war on terror epitomized the toxic nature of America's culture of political hypocrisy.

It all seems quaint now.

Today we live in a world where chanting "lock her up" at Hillary Clinton for her handling of sensitive documents runs in tandem withoutrage overan FBI seizure of classified documents as "un-American;" where unsubstantiated concerns over election fraud are best handled byattempting to overthrowthe democratic process; where you chant "Blue Lives Matter"except during the Jan. 6 insurrectionor when youattack the FBI; where invoking the Fifth amendment meansa person is definitely guilty, except when you do it; where you call for bipartisan unity on one day andthen stoke party divisionthe next.

It's actually kind of exhausting to try to list even the best highlights of Trump-era hypocrisy. Ascolumnist Don Kahlewrites,since the election of Trump, "GOP hypocrisy has become strategic."

For some scholars, the Bush-style hypocrisy of the War on Terror is considered indispensable for the functioning of the world order. In fact, University of Cambridge professorDavid Runciman arguesthat politics isn't possible without hypocrisy. For Machiavelli expert Ruth Grant,hypocrisy is essential to politicsbecause a political life and a moral life are simply incompatible.

For others, hypocrisy threatens democracy because, as political science professor Austin Saratputs it, hypocrisy "erodes trust and breeds cynicism." For Sarat, Trump's extreme and excessive hypocrisy poses a danger to the future of U.S. democracy because he has normalized it and, thus far, not been held accountable for it: "He has been a master of saying one thing and doing another. He has held up others to ridicule and then done the very things for which he shamed them."

But that's the thing. Whether or not you justify hypocrisy in politics, you have to admit that Trump-style hypocrisy is entirely different from previous examples. Sure, Thomas Jefferson wrote "all men are created equal" while unashamedly owning slaves. Lyndon Johnson said "we will seek no wider war" in reference to Vietnam and then did just that. Richard Nixon said "I am not a crook" when he was. Bill Clinton stated he hadn't had sex with Monica Lewinsky when he had. But not one of the above examples ofhypocritical presidentscomes even remotely close to the hypocrisy of Trump.

Trump hasn't just been a hyper-hypocrite. He hasn't just mastered it; he has redefined the very meaning of it. Part of this shift lies in the fact that Trump may be the chief hypocrite, but every single one of his political allies and supporters is one too. You literally cannot support Trump or work alongside him and not be a hypocrite. In fact, if there is one recognizable element of the Trump party platform it is collective, weaponized hypocrisy. Without the hypocrisy, there literally is nothing else left.

Before we decide what to do about the new turn in political hypocrisy, we first have to understand it. Here are four key changes to keep in mind.

To say that the hypocrisy of Trump and his supporters is flagrant, shameless and extreme is to state the obvious.

In April 2017, Chauncey Devegawrote an essay for Salonin which he called Trump's hypocrisy "flagrant." The trouble is that when you used a word like "flagrant" to describe excess Trumpist behavior in 2017, you ran out of effective adjectives by 2022.

But the in-your-face style of Trumpist hypocrisy isn't just limited to the hypocrite-in-chief. Perhaps there is no better example of the mass approach to Trumpist hypocrisy than its contradictions over health care. One day, pro-Trump Republicans are freaking out over needing to wear a mask during a pandemic; the next they are mandating control over women's health.One ad targeting the hypocrisy of the "pro-life" positionpointed out that Republicans only care about policing women's bodies, not supporting them or their children.

So, we have both a spate of inconsistencies and a mass movement practicing them, but the additional in-your-face feature of Trumpist hypocrisy is the lack of shame. Think, for example, of all of those Trump nominated members of the Supreme Courtwho blatantly misled the public during their confirmation hearings about their position on Roe v. Wade, but also showed zero remorse, embarrassment, or even concern that doing so was not just hypocritical; it was deliberately deceptive.

Trumpist hypocrisy is just there all the time, in your face, and proudly on display.

Here's where it gets really weird, because while it is on display, openly, all the time; it is also invisible. The difference is that some of us see it and some of us can't.

Henry Farrell and Martha Finnemoreargued in a 2017 essay for Foreign Affairthat it was a mistake to consider Trump a hypocrite. "Trump's No Hypocrite," they claimed. Rather, they described him as inconsistent rather than hypocritical. "Hypocrisy requires a minimal degree of self-awareness," they argued, as well as "clear understanding of both one's own interests and of public norms." Their point was that Trump simply couldn't even "recognize" his hypocritical behavior, which meant he wasn't actually a true hypocrite.

Here's the catch and it explains why some of us see the hypocrisy and why those who practice it don't. Farrell and Finnemore's point rests on the premise that hypocrisy depends on being aware of a moral compass and deliberately not using it. But that's the thing about the new hypocrisy:Its moral compass is its hypocrisy.

Once you recognize that the issue here isn't failing to effectively compare one's actions to an ethical code, but rather, embracing selfish, self-serving, irrational, inconsistent and illogical behavior as an ethical code, then you get why those who practice it can't see it. Inside the Trump hypocrisy bubble, nothing that is done by them can be judged against an external ethics. Therefore, they simply can't possibly be a hypocrite.

For the Trumpist hypocrite, everyone else who doesn't agree with you is the real hypocrite, but you never are. Sure, it's absolutely batshit logic and an ethical code that lacks anything resembling ethics, but that's how it works.

In 2017, professors Emile Bruneau, Nour Kteily and Emily Falkpublished a groundbreaking studyon the power of revealing hypocrisy. Studying how communities commonly resort to collective blame after mass violence like whenindividuals blame all Muslims for acts of mass violence committed by a small group of Muslims they tested a range of interventions that could be used to disrupt that habit. What they found was that showing individuals that it was hypocritical to blame all Muslims for the acts of a few, when they don't blame all Christians for the acts of a few, was a highly effective tactic.

The catch, though, was that the study wasn't looking at Trumpist hypocrisy but hypocrisy in general.What is important to note, though, from the study, is that for the average person, it is possible to become aware of one's hypocrisy and alter one's beliefs. That simply isn't true in Trumpland.

Sarat notesthat one of the core problems with Trumpist hypocrisy is the fact that calling it out just doesn't make any difference.He points to a piecein the philosophy and politics blog, Vim, that argues that the reason why calling out Trumpist hypocrisy doesn't matter is because "charging a fascist with hypocrisy is especially pointless." This is so because fascism requires that exposing its inconsistencies and incoherence has no effect on its adherents. Whether we want to use the F-word to describe Trumpist hypocrites or not, we do have to agree that calling it out has made absolutely no difference whatsoever to its grasp on American society.

If you have any doubts, check out the work of Jordan Klepper, who has done brilliant work satirizing the absurdity of Trumpist hypocrisy. His recurring segment for "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah" "Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse" has him out in the field interviewing Trump supporters and literally repeating their hypocrisy back at them. In every case, the interviewee hears Klepper ironically explain their hypocrisy. They then respond by unironically repeating it back to him. The contrast between Klepper cleverly exposing the hypocrisy and the hypocrite happily and obliviously owning it is stunning.As one viewer quips, "This would be so much funnier if it wasn't so existentially terrifying."

When you think about it, Trumpism doesn't just practice hypocrisy it needs it. How else do you explain defending democracy by literally trying to destroy it? Whether attacking pizza or the vice president, this is a politics grounded in unethical inconsistencies and immoral irrationality.

Hypocrisy has now become the signature feature of Trumpian politics. In fact, every single party platform is rife with it. There is literally nothing else.

But it's worse than that. Because Trumpist hypocrisy has also overtaken mostanti-Trump politicsas well. In race after race this primary season, non-Trumpy candidates have literally defined themselves over and against Trumpist hypocrisy to the detriment of offering alternative policy platforms.

It's not entirely clear how we escape the vicious cycle of constantly needing to respond to the latest hypocritical move of the Trump camp. It isn't wise to ignore it, but it's also problematic to let it take up the whole room. It sparks legitimate outrage but also sucks the air out of productive political engagement. And given the fact that signaling it isn't going to affect those who practice it, giving it too much energy isn't tipping any political scales.

It may well be that the most effective challenge to Trumpian hypocrisy comes from satire, like the Klepper segments highlighted above, since satire's creative use of irony is uniquely suited to revealing ironic behaviors. In one excellent example, Trevor Noah offereda highly effective takedownof Trumpist media when he ran tape of Fox News covering Hillary Clinton, but paired it with footage of Trump.

There is a real benefit to allowing comedians to be the ones to skewer the hypocrites. They are experts in irony and they know the difference between the kind of inconsistency that sparks critique while getting a laugh and the kind that makes no sense. Even more important, they get that the best challenge to weaponized hypocrisy may well be to mock it. Since if there is one thing Trumpist hypocrites are worse at than recognizing their own hypocrisy,it is taking a joke. And that's pretty funny.

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How Trump redefined shameless hypocrisy and made it politically indispensable - Salon

When candidate Donald Trump was running for president against Hilary Clinton, he stated clearly and emphatically the importance of handling classified government documents securely so that they would not get into the hands of the wrong people. This was part of his campaign message: Clinton had been careless with classified information by using a private email server while serving as secretary of state.

This was not just extreme carelessness with classified materials, he said on the campaign trail, this is calculated, deliberate, premeditated, misconduct that disqualifies Clinton from running for president.

You go to jail for that, said Trump, after which the crowds would chant, Lock her up.

In my administration, Trump said, Im going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information.

Trump seems always ready to enforce the laws against others while thinking the same laws dont apply to him.

It has been over a year since Trump removed boxes of classified documents from the White House to his home in Florida and months since the National Archives and Records Administration have sought their return. They were able to secure 15 boxes of these materials in February and received assurances from Trumps attorney that he had no other classified materials in his home. That turned out to be false and the Justice Department has been negotiating with Trump for the rest of the documents ever since. Trump even received a grand jury subpoena demanding that the other documents be returned. He refused and forced the Justice Department to ask the FBI to secure them.

So what was Trump planning to do with all of these classified documents?

Of course, anyone else would have been arrested months ago. But, once again, Trump has received special treatment not equal treatment under the law. Trump was given months to return the documents, without penalty, and he did not. To claim persecution now after a judge approved a search warrant for the documents is a joke. But his enablers are there for the rescue. I imagine that if this were Hillary Clinton and not their man, the Republican narrative about the raid on Mar-a-Lago would be very different.

After getting elected president in 2018, Trump signed a bill that upgraded the crime of moving classified government documents from a misdemeanor to a felony. Again, this was in response to Clintons private email server. With the upgrade, a person found guilty of mishandling classified documents could face up to five years in prison.

Multiple White House staff working for Trump, according to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, have spoke of finding wads of paper clogging White House toilets. If true, this is also illegal. Presidential documents belong to the government, not the president.

The president does not get to decide what to keep or flush.

Trump says that former presidents have done the same by moving documents into their presidential libraries. In fact, documents moved to presidential libraries are managed by the National Archives and Records Administration, not the former presidents or their staffs. In the wake of the raid, NARA released a clarifying statement saying all previous presidents have followed the law on this matter.

Efforts by Fox News and other right-wing entities to protect Trump after being caught breaking the law are extraordinary. They are Trumps enablers who believe he is above the law. As stated by Paul Waldman in The Washington Post, Trump has to sell a fantasy of collective persecution in order to protect himself and keep his supporters. Trumps enablers know their audience, and theyre very good at identifying what that audience needs to hear, then repeating it over and over.

All of this misinformation spread by the right-wing media has led to threats and violence against the FBI and Justice Department officials by Trump supporters. It appears that Trump and his supporters are only pro-police when the police are shooting unarmed Black men. How dare they go after their guy as he flaunts the law.

For Trump, it appears that what he said about classified documents, being pro-police, and all that stuff about law and order apply to other people, not him.

Another example of this is when Trump said that taking the Fifth Amendment was like an admission of wrongdoing.

If youre innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment? Trump said at a rally in Iowa in 2016.

Its a terrible thing for a president to take the Fifth Amendment, Trump said referring to President Bill Clinton in 1998.

The mob takes the Fifth, Trump said in 2018.

Yet, just last week, Trump invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 440 times, according to NBC News, during a deposition by lawyers from the New York Attorney Generals Office looking into the Trump Organizations taxes and other questionable business dealings.

Trump is like the child who never has to face consequences for inappropriate behavior. It is always someone elses fault while he plays the victim. His special treatment has emboldened him to act out however he wants and then dare someone to do something about it.

What Trump said about Clinton applies to himself: This was not just extreme carelessness with classified materials. This is calculated, deliberate, premeditated, misconduct. You go to jail for that.

Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His column appears Wednesdays. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.

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Tom Zirpoli: The law applies to everyone, except Trump | COMMENTARY - Baltimore Sun

Nikolas Cruz

The Parkland school mass shooter was damaged since before birth, an attorney told jurors on Monday. Nikolas Cruz, 24, was exposed to intoxicants in the womb because his biological mother Brenda Woodardused drugs and alcohol while pregnant with him, lawyer Melisa Alice McNeill of the Broward Public Defenders Office told Florida jurors in opening statements.

The lawyer said that Cruz was born by C-section. He had the cord wrapped around his neck three times, she added. He was blue for the first minute of his life, had to be resuscitated, and his extremities remained blue for five minutes, she said. When Cruz was three and a half years old, he was determined to be acting like a child that had just turned two, McNeill said.

The defendant was developmentally delayed and received inconsistent help in getting better, the attorney said. For example, adoptive mother Lynda Cruz did not follow up on Cruz visiting a psychologist when he was 3, McNeill said. He was on and off medication in elementary school, with Lynda citing the cost, the attorney said. Cruz did improve when he was in a structured, supportive environment, the lawyer said.

After troubling middle school years, Cruz did better after getting moved to Cross Creek School because it was a specialized environment. He was nonetheless later transferred to Marjory Stoneman Douglas, where he struggled behaviorally, academically and socially, McNeill said. Behavior included cutting himself and drinking gasoline.

When I met Nikolas Cruz on Feb. 15, 2018, I knew that he was a damaged person, McNeill said. But I also know that wounded and damaged people wound and damage other people because they are in pain.

The defense postponed their turn to speak until after the states case. Their job now is to convince jurors that Cruz who admittedly murdered 17 people and tried to kill 17 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018 should get life in prison without parole instead of the death penalty. He pleaded guilty last year. The state had refused to budge on seeking capital punishment, leading to this penalty phase.

Prosecutors went into explicit and extensive detail in laying out the aggravating factors against Cruz. He long planned committing a mass shooting, declaring in a Feb. 11, 2018 cell phone video that he was going to be the next school shooter of that year, prosecutors said.

Cruz attacked his former school with a semiautomatic rifle, stalking the hallways for victims, according to testimony and evidence. He even returned to shoot people he already hurt.

The gunshots were so powerful that you could feel the vibration, teacherRonit Reoventestified.

By all accounts, the wounds were horrific.

Survivors testified to the horrifying near-death experience.StudentSamantha Mayortestified a round shattered her kneecap. TeacherErnest Rospierski, who rushed children to safety, said bullets grazed him on the face and hip.

Law enforcement officers testified about finding slain victims and discussed their efforts helping the survivors.

Im miss him! Corey Hixon, the son of slain school athletic director Christopher Hixon, told the court in a victim impact statement.

Prosecutor Michael Satztold jurors in his opening statement last month that the aggravators outweigh whatever mitigators they might hear, such as details regarding Cruzs childhood and whatever treatment he received.

In addition to Christopher Hixon, the slain victims in the mass shooting were 14-year-old student Alyssa Alhadeff, 35-year-old teacherScott Beigel, 14-year-old studentMartin Duque Anguiano, 17-year-old studentNicholas Dworet, 37-year-old assistant football coachAaron Feis, 14-year-old studentJaime Guttenberg, 15-year-old student Luke Hoyer, 14-year-old studentCara Loughran, 14-year-old studentGina Montalto, 17-year-old studentJoaquin Oliver, 14-year-old studentAlaina Petty, 18-year-old studentMeadow Pollack, 17-year-old studentHelena Ramsay, 14-year-old studentAlexander Schachter, 16-year-old studentCarmen Schentrup, and 15-year-old studentPeter Wang.

There was no defense for Cruzs actions, McNeill said. She emphasized the obsessions he lived with through his life, including video games, guns, bowel movements, vegan diets and even demons.

McNeill told jurors that the defense was not hiding that, but said his brain is broken. Hes a damaged human being.

Family members including Cruzs sister Danielle Woodardare expected to testify. Her attorney in an unrelated, ongoing case appeared before the Parkland shooting court on Monday, saying he had only just learned on Friday about Woodard being set to testify. He said his client would assert her Fifth Amendment rights on matters he did not specify. He said there were concerns about her competency in her personal case, but JudgeElizabeth A. Scherer, who appeared annoyed with the last-minute announcement, said the legal standards of competence were lower for witnesses than for defendants.

[Screenshot via Law&Crime Network]

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His Brain Is Broken: Parkland School Shooters Biological Mother Used Drugs and Alcohol While Pregnant, Lawyer Tells Jury - Law & Crime

BROOKLINE, MA The following letter to the editor was submitted by Brookline Town Meeting member Len Wholey.

Dear Reader,

On Saturday July 8th, 1933, men from the Brookline Board of Selectmen and the Park Commission played the first round of golf at the new Brookline Municipal golf course. Selectman Philip Bowker, one of the proponents of creating a municipal golf course, served as the referee.

In a 1941 Brookline Chronicle interview with Bowker, now a State Representative, the article noted that he could be called the son of Brookline for his long lineage of family in the town (his father was a selectman and school committee member, and Philip grew up at the Griggs farmhouse across the street from the then named Devotion School). The article states he loved politics and hoped to get into national affairs because the battle and strife would in proportion be bigger. Success in politics, he said, doesnt just happen accidentally. It is a science like big business, and you cant fool the people about politics today.

Also in 1941 Bowker gave a radio talk titled The Enemy Within. The Brookline Chronicle paraphrased his comments with There must be no wild hysteria, we have had too much of that; a sane, constant calmness must be maintained... But let none of us rush wildly about, tearing our hair, screaming invectives against any race or creed. America must ever stand for tolerance. But it must also stand for stout, stalwart defense of everything it believes right and sound.

On October 2, 1952, now State Senator Bowker wrote in a Brookline Chronicle article The question of how far to make use of Senator Joseph P. McCarthy of Wisconsin in the Massachusetts area poses a question for the Bay State GOP high command. There is very great anti-communist feeling in this Commonwealth and the Democratic Convention is about to open an all-out drive against the Reds and have even gone to the extent of backing a new probe of red activities. So now the GOP must tee off in the same direction. Thus, use of McCarthys speech making powers around here may be considerable. Bowker also noted later that month after referring to a national draft, When you... then read in the press about professors aiding the Reds and getting mixed up in subversive adfairs [sic], it should make your blood boil. All the more need of something being done to curb communistic activity right here on the home front.

In 1953, twenty years after serving as referee at the golf course opening, State Senator Bowker would now decide who would be publicly branded a communist and a subversive in Massachusetts. Bowker was the chair of the Special Commission Established to Make An Investigation and Study of Communism and Subversive Activities - commonly known as the Bowker Commission. Despite Senator Joseph McCarthys censure by the U.S. Senate on December 2, 1954, State Senator Bowker doubled down on McCarthyism. In 1955, the Bowker Commission published the names and biographical details of 85 people suspected of being involved in the Community Party.[6] The Boston Globe published the names on June 9, 1955, and Senator Bowker successfully argued on the Senate floor to have 2000 copies of the report printed for distribution. Of the 85 people named, some lost their jobs and others suffered professional or business losses as a result.

One of the people named was Marcus Mark Mordecai Alper. Alper graduated from BrooklineHigh School, graduated from Brown University in 1933, fought fascism in the Spanish Civil War, and served in the Army Air Corps during WWII flying 35 combat missions as a tailgunner in a B-24. Marcus Alpers son Joshua said that accusations against his father and other family members and friends had a profound effect on our family, it made our parents tense and anxious to an extreme degree. Their family was unable to obtain passports for travel outside of the United States until after John F. Kennedy became President. Joshua Alper recalled an occasion in his early childhood when an FBI agent came to their house asking to speak to Jeannette, Marcus wife. When the agent confirmed that he did not have a warrant, Mrs. Alper slammed the door in the agents face. Upon receiving a Summons to appear before the United States Senate Internal Security Sub-Committee, Marcus Alper prepared a statement which begins I have always considered myself a loyal and patriotic citizen, I still do. (see complete statement below)

During Bowkers 1958 run for State Senator reelection, his campaign appears to have left out mentioning his work on the Bowker Commission outing communists and subversives. Nevertheless, he suffered a loss to democrat Peter McCormak, exited politics, moved to Florida in 1960, and died in Norway in 1966 at the age of 67.

In 1967, the Brookline Park and Recreation named the Brookline Municipal golf courses clubhouse after the late Philip Bowker, noting his service as former M.D.C. commissioner, state senator, town selectman and moderator in Brookline. Did the Brookline Park and Recreation consider his actions while leading the Bowker Commission and the negative impact on the lives of those named?

name of the clubhouse? Perhaps one of the following people could be honored instead:

Town Meeting Member, Precinct 11

STATEMENT OF MARCUS ALPER, NEWTON, MASS. May 7, 1953

I have always considered myself a loyal and patriotic citizen. I still do.

I am married, and the father of three children. I volunteered to serve my country during the past war, and flew 35 missions over Germany as a tail gunner on a B-24. I was awarded the air medal with 5 oak leaf clusters.

Recent experience has shown that witnesses called under circumstances similar to this suffer much public misunderstanding and often expose themselves, however innocent, to the very real threat of subsequent prosecution. In addition, in these tense days, ones children, family, friends and associates likewise become hurt. Therefore, I find it necessary to invoke the Fifth Amendment.

I know there is some public confusion about the Fifth Amendment. However, as I understand it, it became a part of our law in order to enable all witnesses to avoid giving testimony about themselves and those with whom they may have been associated.

Moreover, I am sure that the committee agrees that the constitution including the Bill of Rights was adopted for the protection of all of us. It teaches us that all Americans may hold inviolate their opinions and beliefs. Any intrusion in this area seems to me not only to violate the constitution but at the same time to involve some loss of human dignity. I have always strongly believed that the First Amendment to our Federal Constitution is an important feature of our way of life, and where appropriate I rely on it also.

I believe conscience and decency require no less. I hope my fellow citizens will understand.

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Letter To The Editor: Philip Bowker, Brookline Politician and Referee - Patch

Police stand outside an entrance to former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate on Monday, August 8, 2022, during an FBI search. (Wilfredo Lee / AP Photo)

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It might not feel like it yet, but the parade of advertisements flashing across my screen tells me that summer is winding down and its time to prepare for autumn. For my wallet, that means shelling out for back-to-school supplies. For the country, it means midterm election mania, when every story and every event gets filtered through the haze of the partisan horse race.

It also means were reaching the point when significant attempts to hold former president Donald Trump accountable for any of his apparent crimes will probably be put on hold, delayed until after the elections. Attorney General Merrick Garland has even said as much, warning the DOJ to avoid making moves that may be perceived as political close to the election.

One result is that weve missed our chance to hold Trump or any of the other attempted coup plotters responsible before voters head to the polls. Whether or not these people ultimately get away with it, they have at the very least made it to the next election cycle without facing any punishment for trying to overturn the last one. In fact, a number of people who openly supported the failed coup, and who still support the debunked notion that Trump won in 2020, will now get to run for positions from which they can overthrow elections in the future. Republicans who support the Big Lie are running for state election boards, secretary of state, and even governor, while senators and Congress members who voted against certifying the election are seeking office once again.

This represents an enormous failureof law enforcement, media, and of the Republican Party, which has embraced lies and candidates who support lies. A strong and well-functioning country simply doesnt let the people who tried to destroy its way of life escape unpunished; it certainly doesnt let them run for positions of public trust from which they can better implement their nefarious plans.

Even so, and despite these failures, Trump remains under a cloud of legal suspicion, subject to many investigations, which have only intensified over the summer. And regardless of how the midterms turn out, the power of various law enforcement officials to pursue Trump will remain intact.

Before the investigations enter a stage of public quiet, lets take stock of where things stand with them.

The Department of Justice executed a search warrant against Donald Trump at his Florida home on August 8 and recovered around a dozen boxes of documents containing sensitive materials. Trump and his sycophants have flooded the airwaves with lies and misinformation about those documents, including an initial claim that the FBI planted them at Mar-a-Lago and a subsequent claim that they were declassified by Trump while he was president. By now, most people should recognize this white-wing playbook: first, they claim that it didnt happen; then they claim that it doesnt matter if it happened; then, if it turns out that it does matter, they argue that Hillary Clinton or Black Lives Matter did something worse. Current Issue

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On the low end of the bad-presidential-behavior scale, Trump may have mishandled official recordssomething I assume hes been guilty of for a long time given his penchant for ripping and even flushing official documents. A violation of the Presidential Records Act, however, carries no teeth.

On the high end of that scale, Trump may have violated the Espionage Act, which can be punished by up to 20 years in prison (the death penalty is really only available in a time of war). Depending on what was in those documents, and how Trump used or intended to use them, he could have violated the prohibitions against gathering, transmitting, or losing defense information, and those violations would hold up even if Trump really did declassify the documents.

The distance between a presidential records violation and espionage is vast. We do not know what other evidence the DOJ has against Trump. We do know that the agency gave him ample opportunity to return the documents voluntarily, but we dont know if that courtesy suggests the relative insignificance of Trumps offense, or if the delay afforded Trump additional opportunity to commit crimes while under surveillance.

This case is a bit like a meteor: Its very hot and it could crash down on Trumpworld with devastating effect, or it could fizzle out in the sky as a pretty spectacle signifying nothing.

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The upshot of the espionage case is that it appears that the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago was wholly unconnected to the ongoing investigation into the plot to overthrow the government on January 6, 2020. The raid was not the culmination of a years-long investigation into Trumps culpability for the coup attempt; it is not evidence that Merrick Garland has been working in secret all this time to bring Trump to justice. Its just another indication that Trumps potential crimes are legion, and any time you actually look at the guyreally look at himyou catch him in the act of committing additional crimes.

That said, there is evidence that Garlands investigation into Trumps attempt to declare himself the winner of the 2020 election is picking up steam. The conclusion of last months January 6 Committee public hearings has opened up new avenues of investigation for the DOJ, mainly thanks to the explosive testimony of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson. We know that witnesses who long stonewalled authorities, like former White House counsel Pat Cippolone, are now willing to talk. We know that the January 6 Committee has worked out a deal to share information and witness testimony with the DOJ. We know that the DOJ has the phone records of key players in the plot to put forward fake electors to contest the electoral countincluding Trump lawyer John Eastman and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. And we know that a grand jury has been subpoenaing witnesses and documents related to January 6, even if we dont know whats happening in front of it.

In short, we know that things are happening inside the Department of Justice. I doubt that we will see any indictments in September or October, before the midterms, but it is an increasingly safe bet that all of this work will lead to the indictment of somebody in connection with the attempted coup. I hope we find out in 2023.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James continues to unravel the web of potential financial crimes committed by Trump, his family, and his organization in New York State. Her investigation recently put Trump in a deposition chair to answer questions about his financial dealings under oath.

Trump availed himself of his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during the deposition. There are many reasons a person would and should take the Fifth when being questioned about their potential crimes. Its the smart thing to do; if I were questioned by Tish James about my damn checking account, I would take the Fifth until I was convinced she was investigating somebody else, and I havent been running a long-term scam to reduce the valuation of my assets for tax purposes.

A target of an investigation, as Trump must surely be, should take the Fifth, and a targets taking the Fifth should in no way hinder a competent investigation or prosecution. Fans of legal television dramas may be addicted to the notion of the bad guy confessing his crimes under an intense interrogation or cross examination, but in the real world prosecutors have documents and testimony that counts as evidence that can be used to prove criminal activity, regardless of whether the criminal cooperates in their own downfall.

Trumps deposition was merely a courtesy to allow him to explain himselfand perhaps lock himself into a story. Trumps (wise) decision to listen to counsel and not answer Jamess questions simply means that she will have to prove his guilt. It was never going to be Trumps job to do that work for her office.

We dont know if James has enough evidence to convince a grand jury that Trump should be indicted for financial crimes, but I suspect James does know if she can get him. I dont think she would have brought Trump in for a deposition if she didnt already have a strong case. I doubt anything will happen in New York before the midterms, but, of all the potential charges Trump could face, the ones in this case feel closest to culmination. Bringing Trump in for a deposition is very close to a final investigative step; now we have to wait and see if James charges him.

While the New York investigation may be the closest to completion, I have long thought that the Georgia investigation into Trumps attempted election fraud, headed by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, is the most likely to lead to Trump going to jail. Thats because we have evidence in the form of a taped phone call of Trump trying to commit election fraud or trying to get Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to commit election fraud on his behalf.

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There have been recent developments in the case that spell potential doom for Trumpworld. Trump political caddy Lindsey Graham has been ordered by a judge to comply with a subpoena in the investigation. And lawyers for Rudolph Giuliani have been told that the former New York mayor is a target of the investigation.

With Graham in the spotlight and Giuliani under the gun, I allow myself to dream that testimony from two of Trumps most constant political allies could one day seal his fate. I allow myself to hope that Trump is ultimately busted for trying to steal an election in a state that, even if he had won, wouldnt have changed the outcome in the Electoral College. I would love for Trump to go down, in the end, because he cant count to 270.

But again, none of that will happen before the midterms. Grifters like Graham and Giuliani will stonewall till the last, and Willis has already said she will pause her investigation if it gets too close to this years elections. Trump is in legal jeopardy in Georgia, but not in imminent danger.

All of these investigations will be waiting for Trump on the other side of the midterms, regardless of where the balance of political power resides in Congress. But every investigation into Trump is contingent on Democratic Party candidates holding positions of power in the long term. Republicans at the state and federal level have refused to investigate Trump and have instead devoted their entire party to his legal defense.

Hopefully, voters will remember that there is only one party that cares about democracy available to vote for this fall.

Read the rest here:
Trump Is a CriminalWill Any of These 4 Investigations Snare Him? - The Nation