Our writers agree on the case's gravity. Its complexities, and difficulties, require further analysis.
 | By John Guida Senior Staff Editor, Opinion |
Our columnists, contributors and Times editorial board members are in agreement on one thing: The new indictment from the special counsel Jack Smith is the most serious one to date to emerge from the investigations swirling around former president Donald Trump and his associates — as the editorial board put it, "the criminal justice system of the United States had never seen an indictment of this magnitude." |
But what does the indictment mean, and is it a strong case? Our writers and contributors have some thoughts. |
The editorial board, for its part, argues that "of all the ways" that Trump "desecrated his office as president," his attempt "to undermine the Constitution and overturn the results of the 2020 election, hoping to stay in office," remains the gravest. |
He failed, as the editorial board suggests, the bedrock test of every president "to honor the peaceful transfer of power through the free and fair elections that distinguish the United States." As the indictment says, until 2021, this process "had operated in a peaceful and orderly manner for more than 130 years." |
For the Times columnist David French, this latest indictment is "the culmination of a comprehensive effort to bring justice to those who attempted to overthrow the results of an American presidential election." |
As French puts it in his recent column, the case boils down to two components: "First, it will be necessary to prove what Trump knew. Second, it will be necessary to prove what he did." And the outcome "is uncertain for exactly the reason it's so important: So very much of the case depends on Trump's state of mind." |
In a guest essay, the former prosecutor Randall Eliason sees the indictment as evidence of very smart lawyering and a shrewd legal strategy. "It will allow prosecutors to put on a compelling case that will hold Mr. Trump fully accountable for the multipronged effort to overturn the election," he writes, and at the same time, "it avoids legal and political pitfalls that could have delayed or derailed the prosecution." |
Ryan Goodman and Andrew Weissmann, in another guest essay, write that the special counsel Jack Smith more or less had to bring the indictment: "To not charge Mr. Trump for trying to criminally interfere with the transfer of power to a duly elected president would be to politicize the matter." |
The risk, as they see it, is "a two-tiered system, in which the people who were stirred by lies to interrupt the congressional certification are held to account but not the chief instigator." |
Even if it is the most serious case, it will also be, as French says, a "difficult case" — and one that will no doubt inspire a variety of arguments and debates over what it means for democracy and America's political future. |
Read Opinion's coverage of the indictment below: |
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