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.

Donald Trump Tweet Rants

Opinion in The Washington Post by David Von Drehle 

Robert Mueller is circling the Donald Trump campaign's connections with Vladimir Putin and Russia ~ a potentially treasonous affiliation.  If Donald Trump were innocent of illegal behavior, he'd have already been vindicated.

Unbelievably, Donald Trump's erratic Tweeting increases the appearance of his guilt in Russian compliance in his illegal election. If Donald Trump were innocent of invoking Russian interference in the American government, the fact is, he'd have already been vindicated. It's impossible to believe that Donald Trump is innocent of obstruction of justice and conspiring with Russia to illegally influence the 2016 American election. If Donald Trump were innocent, he would've been vindicated before now. Instead, the circle of conspiratorial and treasonous guilt continues to tighten around his administration.

Donald Trump! If you're innocent, why do you act so guilty?

Donald Trump protests his innocence with intensity worthy of Alfred Dreyfus (Alfred Dreyfus was a French artillery officer whose trial and conviction in 1894, on charges of treason, became one of the most tense political dramas in modern French history with a wide echo in all Europe.)

Donald Trump says he's the victim of a “hoax,” a “fraud,” a “witch hunt.” After the Justice Department announced the indictment of 13 Russians, including an oligarch close to Vladimir Putin, for meddling in Trump’s favor during the 2016 election, he nearly melted his phone as he furiously published an epic of self-exonerating tweets.

You or I might do exactly the same thing if we found ourselves targets of an unjust investigation. Few experiences are more maddening than to be wrongfully accused, whether the alleged offense is taking money from your brother’s sock drawer, flirting with a stranger at the Christmas party, cheating on a test or cooperating with foreign agents to improve your chances of winning the White House.

But as Queen Gertrude observed to Hamlet, “the lady doth protest too much, methinks.” Surprising as this is in a veteran of showbiz, Trump seems not to understand how a close-up magnifies every gesture. His jumpiness around the subject of Russia; his hand-wringing over ways to end the investigation; his rhetorical flop-sweat at the mention of the letters F, B and I — all these and more have his audience thinking: Gee, for an innocent man he sure does act guilty.

In the classic film “Rope,” Alfred Hitchcock has a pair of clever young men serve drinks to their professor over a trunk stuffed with their murder victim’s corpse. The tension comes from the professor’s slow discovery of their crime. A remake with Trump in the leading role would open with him tweeting: “There’s NOTHING in the TRUNK!”