No ‘Double Atandard’ for Donald Trump’s Case, Even if His MAGA Supporters Want One

When Sen. Lindsey Graham warned that there would be “riots in the streets” if Donald Trump is prosecuted for his handling of classified documents, I wondered what the South Carolina Republican was up to.

Was this a prediction, suitable for a political pundit? Or was it a threat reminiscent of a mob boss?

Either way, it appeared to be approved by his party’s de facto big boss, former President Donald Trump, who immediately retweeted Graham’s sentiments on Trump’s financially challenged social media platform, Truth Social.

Graham twice made a “riots in the street” reference on Fox News’ “Sunday Night in America” as he charged a “double standard” in the FBI’s court-approved search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.

Repeating an often-heard Republican charge, Graham compared the Mar-a-Lago search to the FBI probes of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state and President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, who is under investigation for tax liabilities. Republicans have called for that FBI case to be expanded into Biden’s overseas business dealings.

“And I’ll say this,” Graham added. “If there is a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information after the Clinton debacle … there will be riots in the street.”

Oh? My antenna perked up at the mention of riots. As a cub reporter in the politically tense 1960s, when more than 110 riots erupted in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Detroit and other cities across the nation, I was warned sternly by my editors to avoid quoting predictions of riots. There would be more than enough to report if such mayhem actually happened, which it too often did. No need to encourage it.

Yet, with memories of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack by Trump’s “Stop the Steal” supporters, encouragement seemed no longer to be off the table for the former president.

The next morning, Trump was back to claiming falsely in upper- and lowercase that he would have “easily won” if not for “massive FRAUD & ELECTION INTERFERENCE at a level never seen before in our Country.”

Fact check: More than 60 court cases, including some tried by Trump-appointed judges, found otherwise.

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.)