No ‘Double Atandard’ for Donald Trump’s Case, Even if His MAGA Supporters Want One
Yet, the former and twice-impeached president proposed a “REMEDY” in two Monday posts: “Declare the rightful winner or — and this would be the minimal solution — declare the 2020 Election irreparably compromised and have a new Election, immediately!”
Well, don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen. After almost 22 months of trying to buck the system, he still doesn’t sound like he understands how the system works.
Maybe he’s still relying on what President Biden calls “ultra-MAGA” forces to rise up and install him in office. Maybe he should go over to the District of Columbia federal court where more than 900 defendants are being tried for participating in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
When one defense attorney in February said his client believed Trump could authorize overturning an election, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, the chief federal jurist for D.C., responded that a president who could do that would be no different from “a king or a dictator,” and “that is not how we operate here.”
Well said. If Trump is too full of resentment to know that, Graham, a retired Air Force lawyer, certainly should. Yet, like too many other leading Republicans, he’s willing to tap the rage that the FBI search of Trump’s compound ignited.
A look at the polls offers clues as to why. Trump’s poll ratings, which softened enough to look encouraging for potential 2024 rivals like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, suddenly strengthened after news of the FBI search was released — by Trump himself.
The speed with which most Republicans still circle their wagons around Trump helps to explain why Graham seems so eager to jump out in front of the former president’s herd of defenders.
But I couldn’t help but wonder, as I often did after the Jan. 6 attack, how law-and-order defenders like Graham would have responded if those had been supporters of Democrat Barack Obama storming the Capitol.
We shouldn’t have to guess. “Equal justice under law,” which is engraved over the entrance to the Supreme Court, is a principle that is not always easy to follow, but the future of our republic depends on it, regardless of which party is in charge.
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)
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