In executing what Democrats think is their relentless pursuit of Donald Trump, they may be doing Republicans a much needed favor.
On Monday the Dem led J6 committee referred Trump to the DOJ for criminal indictment on obstruction an official proceeding of Congress. The committee also referred Trump for conspiracy to defraud the federal government, making a false statement and inciting, assisting, or aiding and comforting an insurrection.
This is mostly bosh. The last note is ridiculous, as it was a riot, not an insurrection. Did Trump incite, etc. that melee with his incendiary speech just prior to the Capitol riot? Oh, hell yes. But politicians incite, etc. riots all the time. Remember Dems during the 2020 Antifa and BLM riots? Exactly.
And anyway, the now defunct J6 Committee was just tedious political theater. The Kangaroo Committee was completely predictable from the beginning. It also has no legal authority.
Says legal analyst Andy McCarthy, “In effect, it is theater because there it doesn’t have any binding effect. I think the Justice Department will ignore it. The concern that the Justice Department has, or at least should have, is that they [the criminal referrals] can have the counterproductive effect of undermining whatever prosecution, if any, that the Justice Department decides to bring because they give former President Trump the ability to make the claim, if he’s charged, that the charges are the result of political pressure rather than evidence.”
The indictment decision actually rests with AG Merrick Garland, who has a grudge against Trump for keeping him off the high court in 2016. However, there is another facet.
Trump is damaged goods politically, especially after his recent lines on the Constitution and the bizarre trinket sale. The more legal damage the Dems do to him the more it could hurt him in the 2024 Republican primaries and thus open the door to a stronger GOP nominee like Ron DeSantis, who could beat any Democrat. This would be a major boon for Republicans.
Or Trump could play the martyr card with his base, revving them up in the primaries, and giving him wins. Dems aided Trump proxies with cash in the last set of GOP primaries then bested them in the general. It was a smart and successful investment.
That could be the same tricky Dem game here. Get Trump the GOP nomination by Newton’s Third Law and then take advantage of the damage done with independents in the general. But, it could backfire.
Trump could be wounded already with Republicans on the electability factor alone. His recent weirdness has cost him with Republicans. To what measure is presently hard to say. But it cost.
Throw in further Trump bleeding, possibly legal, and the aforementioned DeSantis option, a Dem nightmare, could become a reality. Democrats may be outsmarting themselves this time.
They would be smarter to leave Trump alone, give him enough rope to get the Republican nomination, and then hang him in the general election. Will their Trump obsession allow them to act that rationally? Stay tuned.