Trump’s Third Indictment Shows the Senate Failed

Like the children in a gifted family, all of Donald Trump’s indictments excel in different ways. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of him for alleged hush money payments is the tawdriest of the lot. Special counsel Jack Smith’s federal indictment of him on charges of obstinate retention of government documents is the most clearly justified by statute. And the latest indictment concerns the most serious misconduct.

After Trump lost the 2020 election, he attempted to get state legislatures and courts to ignore or throw out millions of votes based on claims of widespread vote fraud. He never provided any serious evidence for these claims and frequently heard, from his allies and aides, that they had no basis. He lobbied his vice president, Mike Pence, to block the counting of electoral votes, which neither the Constitution nor any statute allowed. And he summoned a crowd to pressure Pence and Congress not to certify that he had lost.

The latest indictment runs through the whole miserable story and adds some previously unknown detail. Whether it makes a strong legal case that will or should result in criminal convictions is, reasonably, the main debate it has sparked. What it should make clear is that our existing methods of dealing with presidential misconduct are inadequate.

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