Donald Trump is already challenging his conditions of release directed by the Washington DC magistrate

Is it against the law to be Donald Trump?

Echo editorial opinion published in The Washington Post by David Von Drehle:

At his latest arraignment, the former president was charged with a rather odd collection of crimes: obstructing the government when he was the head of the government, conspiring to commit a fraud that was not ultimately committed, and so on. 

But, the particulars spelled out by special counsel Jack Smith boil down to offenses that Trump commits routinely in the course of being his awful self, a walking almanac of vile character, shamelessly on florid display, who brings out the worst in some people and the best in others.

In Smith’s prosecutorial narrative, Trump brought out the worst in a comical collection of unindicted co-conspirators who could not steal a candy bar, much less an election, while bringing out the best in a series of Republican officeholders who refused to join Trump’s Crazyville putsch.

Smith gives us mendacious Trump, utterly contemptuous of the truth, in the weeks between his Election Day loss in November 2020 and his pre-riot rally on Jan. 6, 2021. He gives us selfish Trump, pressuring others to sacrifice their reputations merely to tickle his personal fancies. He gives us heedless Trump, with nary a care for future havoc should he prove successful in destroying the orderly transfer of presidential power.

Trump in court with Special Counsel Jack Smith on left.

Trump was grandiose in expecting the world to assume the shape of his fevered imagination. Trump was mercurial, turning on former comrades while elevating crackpots as momentary whims and rages swept over him.

Trump was reckless, allowing himself to be recorded as he pressured a Georgia official to “find” — translation: steal — enough votes to tip that state’s election to him. Trump was gullible, falling for kooky conspiracies and crackpot legal theories peddled by pillow salesmen, attention addicts and washed-up politicians with cheap dye jobs.
The list goes on, a reverse image of the Boy Scout Law. You know: A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, etc., etc., etc. Trump is mendacious, selfish, heedless, grandiose and all the rest. Always has been, always will be.

Only one juror, from a country in which roughly 35 percent of adults still like the Trump Show. Such folks are real, and they must be factored into any discussion of Trump’s future and our own. Borrowing a line from the seismic sensation Taylor Swift, I would say to them: It must be exhausting always rooting for the antihero. But I think they would reply: Nope. Not tired.

I don’t think most Trump supporters actually want to live in a world where an elderly sociopath has unfettered power. But they do want to live in a world where those currently in power are cowed and cautious rather than smug. Trump delivers on that. He frightens the insiders, unnerves them, knocks them off-guard. As long as he performs that function, his supporters will stick with him.

I fear that Smith’s latest charges might do less to bring Trump to justice than to make his critics feel better about ourselves. We want to think that the United States would never let a power-mad narcissist get hold of the presidency, then lie and connive to hang on to it — and that, if that somehow happened, we would darn sure make him pay for the offense.

But only a few words of that sentence really matter: make him pay. 

If these charges don’t stick (just as the impeachments didn’t stick and the Steele dossier didn’t stick), then Trump won’t pay any consequences at all, because such consequences as ignominy, embarrassment, loss of respect and the harsh judgment of history mean absolutely nothing to a man without a conscience.