Trump's Shield of Power: Evading Justice

Delays, Friendly Judges, and Legal Loopholes

In his just-released report, Special Counsel Jack Smith states that if Donald Trump had not won the presidency, he would have been prosecuted—and likely convicted—of four federal felonies related to the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol by members of his political cult. With Trump’s election, Smith was barred from bringing a soon-to-be-sitting president to trial. Let’s recall what this was all about:

• After the election, Trump launched a relentless campaign to push the fraudulent claim that Joe Biden had stolen the 2020 presidency due to corruption in the election system.

• Trump persisted with this narrative despite losing 60 court challenges and being informed by his own administration that he had lost fair and square.

• He rallied his enraged followers to come to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, the day Congress was set to certify the election, promising the event "will be wild."

• On that day, he incited the crowd, urging them to march to the Capitol and "fight like hell." They responded by attacking the Capitol, clashing with police, and forcing members of Congress into hiding.

• He sat and watched TV for 187 minutes while this all occured.

As Smith’s report concludes, Trump’s actions were part of a conspiracy to disrupt a government proceeding and impede the rights of citizens who had voted in the election. Trump was indicted on four charges, but progress stalled as his attorneys filed delay after delay. Judge Tanya Chutkan, adhering to the long-standing tradition of safeguarding defendants’ rights, allowed the clock to run out.

Chutkan wasn’t the only official who aided Trump by sticking to conventional legal norms. Attorney General Merrick Garland, excessively cautious, took over a year and a half to appoint Smith, delaying the special counsel’s work from the outset. Consequently, Smith never had a realistic chance of reaching the courtroom before the 2024 election. (This, is the thing that I am most upset about personally- it took our first hearing in the summer to launch this inquiry.)

Meanwhile, in Florida, a judge appointed by Trump issued a series of rulings in his favor in a case where he faced a 40-count indictment related to the mishandling of over 300 classified documents. Ultimately, Federal District Court Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the entire indictment, baselessly claiming that the special counsel had not been properly appointed.

The evidence in the documents case seemed overwhelming. Trump had taken dozens of boxes, including more than 300 classified documents, with him upon leaving office in 2021. An infamous photo from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort showed more than a dozen boxes stored in a bathroom. Another image depicted over twice as many boxes in a storage area, while additional documents were even spilled across the floor of Trump’s office. The evidence was so damning that Trump needed a friendly judge—and when Cannon received the case, the outcome was set.

To be fair, Cannon received the case through a routine random assignment process. Here, Trump got lucky. He also caught a break in Fulton County, Georgia, where a grand jury indicted him as a conspirator in an effort to “unlawfully change the outcome” of the state's election results. Trump was even recorded asking Georgia’s secretary of state to "find" enough votes to overturn his loss.

However, in the Fulton County case, District Attorney Fani Willis became embroiled in controversy when her relationship with prosecutor Nathan Wade was revealed. Though Wade resigned, Trump-supporting judges on the state appeals court removed Willis and her entire team from the case, citing the appearance—but not the substance—of impropriety, effectively killing the prosecution.

Having evaded accountability in all three cases, those of us who care about justice and democracy must find solace in knowing that the truth endures in documents like Smith’s report. As he wrote, “The throughline of all of Mr. Trump’s criminal efforts was deceit—knowingly false claims of election fraud—and the evidence shows that Mr. Trump used these lies as a weapon to defeat a federal government function foundational to the United States’ democratic process.”

Trump may have escaped conviction in a courtroom, but he stands convicted by the truth. History will be harsh.