The Civil-Rights Theory of Indicting Trump for Election Interference

Because there are good reasons for Congress not to write the kinds of penal laws Special Counsel Jack Smith needs to justify an indictment, he is in a bind.

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Former president Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Erie, Penn., July 29, 2023.

Lindsay DeDario/Reuters

It was not really tongue-in-cheek of me to observe, in last week’s column on the Hunter Biden debacle in Delaware, that the Biden Justice Department’s next move was to file an indictment . . . of Donald Trump. Of course, we did instantly get a new indictment — a superseding instrument that added a new defendant and new charges against the former president in the Mar-a-Lago documents caper. But that didn’t really step on the Biden corruption story the way Democrats had hoped, and I was really thinking of a new indictment in connection with the scheme to undo President Biden’s 2020 election victory. It is widely believed, including in the Trump camp, that that indictment is imminent — perhaps as early as today.

Such an indictment — as opposed to an indictment of Hunter Biden, which, stunning as this may seem, the Biden Justice Department is in no hurry to bring in the investigation’s fifth year — would be the best way to drown out the bad Biden news. Biden’s ace in the hole is his predecessor. Trump plays the role with brio (because brio is a good look in contrast to Biden’s senescence, and for now, it also suits Trump’s interest in locking up the Republican nomination), and, unlike Biden scandals, criminal and civil lawsuits against Trump get intense media coverage. Meanwhile, Joe can go to the beach — which is to his presidency what the basement was to his campaign.

Andrew C. McCarthy

About the Author

Andrew C. McCarthy

Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at National Review Institute, an NR contributing editor, and author of Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency.

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