The New York Times ran an editorial December 3,  making the argument that we shouldn’t prosecute Donald Trump. Law professor Eric Posner wrote that the problem with prosecuting Trump is “there is little evidence that Mr. Trump did commit crimes as president.”

The fact is, we MUST prosecute Trump. First, Trump is sabotaging America, and failing to punish him will leave him free to continue doing damage. Second, failing to do so sets a horrible precedent that we will pay a big price for in the crimes of future Presidents. Third, he is a long-time criminal who deserves to be punished.

TRUMP IS A SABOTEUR

The most important reason why we must prosecute Trump is that he is a saboteur. He is a bomb thrower who thrives on creating chaos and discord.

He is undermining faith in our democracy. Though he lost the election by seven million votes, he continues to scream the election was rigged. His crazy rants have convinced millions that the election results are fake. He did the same thing in the 2016 general election that he “won.” He claimed that Hillary Clinton’s margin of victory in the popular vote was due to 3 million illegal immigrants voting for her.

Just as seriously, he has obstructed the transition process, at a time of crisis. Instead of doing all he can to ensure a smooth transition, Trump issued orders to his underlings to refused to cooperate with the man who won the election.

But this is just in the last few weeks. Trump has been busy sabotaging America for many years.

Pandemic Response
The most obvious example is the pandemic. While many say Trump’s pandemic response is merely stupid and incompetent, his actions are so outrageously destructive that it is difficult to explain them as anything but deliberate sabotage of the nation. Trump and his Republican sycophants have undermined the pandemic response every step of the way, leading to nearly 300,000 deaths–and counting.

• Trump dismantled the pandemic response office created by Obama and tossed their detailed plans in the trash.
• The Bob Woodward interview on February 7, 2020 shows Trump fully aware of how contagious and deadly the Coronavirus is, yet he politicized the response, calling the virus a “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats. Even days before the November election, with hundreds of thousands dead and hospitals filled to capacity, Trump repeatedly claimed COVID would go away the day after the election.
• Instead of helping America’s struggling poor and middle class and giving them financial wherewithal to stay home and stay safe, Trump insisted on a large part of the stimulus funds going into an account with no oversight.
• His administration sold government personal protective equipment to private companies, which then sold them back to the states at a huge markup. New York Governor Cuomo complained that it was like the states were bidding on E-bay to get desperately-needed supplies.
• To this day, there is no coordinated national response.
• Trump called for the “liberation” of Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia, undermining Democratic governors struggling to do their jobs and control the pandemic. When his rhetoric quite possibly inspired a plot to kidnap and even execute Governor Whitmer of Michigan, Trump showed no remorse. He continues to egg these people on, and has resisted all opportunities to condemn the violent right wing.
• Trump has ignored the advice of medical experts, proposed wacky COVID remedies, and stirred up hostility toward experts to the point that many have received death threats.
• Trump’s people stifled the Center for Disease Control, as revealed by Trump’s appointees at the agency in the NY Times.
• A study at Cornell University showed Donald Trump to be the number one driver of misinformation about the virus.

Think of most any area of the government, and Trump has aggressively created disaster.

Trump quickly alienated leaders of allied nations with aggressive handshakes and other obnoxious interpersonal behavior and policies like withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord. Meanwhile, he has never met a murderous dictator with whom he doesn’t want to climb in bed.

He made a mockery of national security by overruling those challenging security clearance for his unqualified and shady children and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Kushner, incidentally, had to revise his clearance forms several times due to “omissions.” Trump himself would never get a security clearance were he not President, given his huge debt. Who knows what this crooked family has done with state secrets.

Trump has attacked on our intelligence agencies, and purged Russia experts from the FBI.

Harassment of competent government professionals and mismanagement and undermining the mission of government agencies by Trump appointees have led to a crisis-level brain drain, as professionals with years of experience and knowledge have resigned in droves.

Trump will continue to create chaos, tell lies, and stir up trouble after the leaves office–if we allow him.

TRUMP UNPUNISHED WILL EMBODEN FUTURE PRESIDENTS.

Wouldn’t America be a better place if we had sent Presidents to jail? Nixon got off scot-free for Watergate crimes. George Bush Sr. escaped punishment for Iran-Contra. GW Bush/Cheney never had to answer for the war crimes involved with the fraud committed to get us into a war with Iraq and the torture chambers set up there. Unpunished Presidents and henchmen breed even worse behavior. Accomplices to Presidential crimes (think Elliott Abrams, Henry Kissinger, Bill Barr and Roger Stone) have a way of coming back again and again to commit crimes and undermine our democracy.

Eric Posner’s NY Times editorial nonsensically compares the clamors for prosecution of Trump to Trump’s maniacal efforts to prosecute Hillary and Biden. He says it would be difficult to prove that Trump obstructed justice by interfering with, and possibly lying to, Robert Mueller and his investigators or that he his threat to withhold military aid to Ukraine was illegal. It would be hard, Posner claims, to show that Trump corruptly mixed his financial affairs with government business. This is nonsense.

TRUMP IS A BIG-TIME CRIMINAL

Trump’s crimes are legion and have been documented many times: Trump University, theft from charities, violation of the emoluments clause, tax evasion, charity rip-offs, his dealings with with Deutsche Bank, the Stormy Daniels (and other) campaign finance violations, misuse of inaugural funds, and Donald’s many sexual assaults are just a few. Might not his recent effort to bilk his followers by raising over $200M for his legal defense be determined to be fraud, since so much of the money is being diverted elsewhere?

PICK A CRIME. ANY CRIME
Prosecutors should pick a crime and make it stick. Mobster Al Capone was notoriously difficult to convict, but prosecutors finally nailed him for income tax evasion (a crime Donald Trump knows a thing or two about, according to revelations in the NY Times). Prosecute him for that or for Stormy Daniels or for treason or … or … or.

Lock him up and take away his damn phone. Otherwise, he will continue to sow the seeds of chaos and hatred, disrupt the pandemic response, and move us closer to civil war.