Charles Petzold

This is a good-news-bad-news kind of day.

The good news is that the American democratic system has been operating quite smoothly since the presidential election in November. The losing candidate acknowledged that she had lost. She graciously conceded defeat. She did not claim that she was the victim of massive election fraud. She did not rant about rigged elections. She did not use lackeys or friendly news networks to spread lies about crooked voting machines or devious election workers. She did not attempt to organize slates of fake electors in states that she had lost. She herself presided over the electoral vote count on January 6 that resulted in the official certification of her defeat. She did not incite a mob of violent rioters to assault police officers and storm the Capitol building to disrupt the proceedings. No thugs decorated the Capitol with their feces and urine. Nobody chanted that anybody be hung.

The bad news is that this peaceful transition of presidential power is only possible because Donald Trump won the election. If he had lost, it’s not clear what would have happened. The history of Trump’s losses is not encouraging. Four years ago, he demonstrated his utter contempt for democracy and core American values by seeking to disenfranchise those who voted against him.

Trump’s 49.8% plurality in the 2024 election is no reason for us to now ignore his past crimes and what they say about the man and his intents. Trump was impeached twice during his first term. He was later convicted of 34 counts of felonious business fraud, found legally liable for sexual assault and defamation, and was federally charged for illegal retention of classified documents and attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Perhaps the best way to remind ourselves of the gravity of this last charge is by reading Volume One of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Final Report to Attorney General Garland on the election case. That and related material can be found on the Department of Justice website page devoted to Jack Smith’s work:

US DOJ page on Jack Smith

The Final Report itself is a 174-page PDF:

Jack Smith’s Final Report, Volume One

Volume Two (detailing the documents case) has not been released yet because two codefendants are still under indictment.

Volume One details how Donald Trump “engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the legitimate results of the [2020] election in order to retain power” (p. 2) despite the fact that he lost the election, everybody told him he had lost, he knew he had lost, he admitted he had lost, but he continued to say publicly that he had won.

Included in the Final Report are details of the crimes, the federal statutes that were violated, the evidence that would have been presented in a trial, and Trump’s possible defenses (including a “free speech” defense) and why they would have failed. Also included are descriptions how the Special Counsel and his staff conducted the investigation, and a 12-page letter from Trump’s legal team arguing that this report should not be released.

The four federal felonies are listed on page 33:

conspiring to obstruct the governmental function of selecting and certifying the President of the United States …; obstructing and attempting to obstruct the official proceeding on January 6, 2021 …; conspiring to obstruct the official proceeding…; and conspiring to violate the federal rights of citizens to vote and have their votes counted…

Although the fake electors scheme and the Capitol assault are surely terrible crimes — over 1500 people have been criminally charged in the Capitol riot (p. 83) — this last charge is the one that ultimately might be regarded the most serious, for it aimed to cripple the American experiment in democracy. The particular statute makes it unlawful to “conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution of the United States.” (p. 49)

When Trump attempted to pressure state governments into altering their vote count in his favor, he was effectively trying to disenfranchise those citizens who had voted against him. As the Supreme Court stated in Wesberry v. Sanders in 1964: “No right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live. Other rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined.” (p. 50)

Given that Trump was unsuccessful, what purpose was this prosecution supposed to serve? This issue, too, is addressed in Jack Smith’s Final Report:

Mr. Trump’s prosecution served multiple federal interests, including the federal interest in the integrity of the United States’ process for collecting, counting, and certifying presidential elections, and in a peaceful and orderly transition of presidential power; the federal interest in ensuring that every citizen’s vote is counted; the federal interest in protecting public officials and government workers from violence; and the federal interest in the fair and even-handed enforcement of the law. (p. 69)

And again:

Few federal interests are stronger in our representative democracy than that of protecting every eligible citizen’s right to vote and to have that vote counted. The evidence establishes that in contravention of that right, Mr. Trump urged state officials to disregard the legitimate majority of votes for Mr. Biden and instead appoint Mr. Trump’s electors; pressured and threatened Georgia’s Secretary of State to “find” more than 11,000 votes to dilute the legitimate vote count and allow Mr. Trump to be declared the winner of the state; and urged Mr. Pence to discard the legitimate electoral certificates that reflected millions of citizens’ votes in the targeted states. An additional factor meriting Mr. Trump’s prosecution therefore was the need to vindicate and protect the voting rights of these and all future voters. (p. 74)

Jack Smith was not able to bring his cases against Trump to trial, but his consistency and dedication to the job qualifies him as one of the supreme crimefighters of our age.

Donald Trump has a long history of fraud, deceit, and crime in both his businesses and his politics. In his attempt to remain in power in 2020, Donald Trump defrauded the American people by convincing tens of millions of his voters that the election was rigged. By casting doubt on the legitimacy of our elections, he did more damage to the United States and its democracy than any foreign power or terrorist attack.

And today he is inaugurated once again as president. Let us keep in mind Donald Trump’s long history of criminal activity and moral depravity. Let us pay close attention to what he does in the next four years, and let us practice eternal vigilance.