by Charles Lipson
Democracies cannot thrive – and may not survive – when citizens lose confidence in their basic institutions. That is exactly what is happening in America today. This loss of confidence and a bitter ideological divide are our country’s most profound challenges. Those challenges form the essential backdrop for understanding the controversy surrounding Donald Trump’s indictment.
Before turning to the charges facing Trump, consider their larger political setting, which begins with any democratic government’s most fundamental responsibilities: preserving public order, ensuring its citizens’ safety, and applying the law fairly. The institutions charged with those responsibilities are crumbling at the local, state, and federal levels, and millions of voters on both sides of our gaping ideological spectrum know it. Each blames the other and accepts no blame for themselves.
This collapse of public order is painfully obvious in many major cities, where violent crime, massive organized shoplifting, and homeless encampments have become dangerous facts of ordinary life. Law-abiding citizens, the backbone of those cities, have found the quality of their lives declining.
They bear much of the blame themselves. They elected the district attorneys who refuse to prosecute serious crimes and so encourage even more. They elected the mayors and legislators who justify such rampant disorder under the heart-warming name of “social justice.” How do armed robberies, looting, and gang violence qualify as social justice? The same citizens stood silent as police forces were decimated by “defund the police” movements and a torrent of criticism from senior elected officials and political activists.
The results were predictable. The cops hired to “serve and protect” began to retire, without adequate replacements. Who wants that dangerous and thankless job? Many of those who remained on the force concluded that it was smarter and safer to sit in their cars than to pursue criminals. When they know the mayor and city council won’t offer support, why not remain in the squad car, await their pension, and retire early?
There is a national analog to this local disorder: the Biden administration’s stubborn failure to enforce the law on our southern border. Joe Biden and his top aides made a series of deliberate policy choices that opened the border to illegal crossings. Migrants from around the world have taken notice, and taken advantage. Even a determined president would find it difficult to stop this surge, but Biden did something worse. He systematically dismantled virtually all the Trump administration policies designed to stop it and then lied about the consequences. While Kamala Harris fumbles her fruitless search for the “root causes” of migration, her administration has erected a big flashing sign essentially reading, “Welcome, Neighbor. Come on in. We’re not really trying to keep you out.” They mouth the words “don’t come,” but inaction speaks louder than words.
And come they have, individuals from poor countries looking to move up to the First World. Yet the welcome sign is equally attractive to organized criminal gangs looking to tap the market for fentanyl and heroin, child labor, and sex workers. When these illegal immigrants arrive, millions have been released, willy-nilly, into America and told to return in a few years for a court date. Their claims for political asylum will be heard at that distant date and almost always rejected. But why bother to return for the court date at all? You aren’t likely to be caught and, even if you are, you can simply cross the border again. Many illegal migrants have been deported multiple times, a fact we learn only after a few are charged with serious felonies. Besides those who have been “tagged and released” by the border patrol, there are several hundred thousand “gotaways” who were never apprehended at all. They are likely to be the most dangerous kind of migrant – the ones engaged in human trafficking and drug smuggling.
What is the administration’s response to this manifest failure? They deny the obvious, just as “Baghdad Bob” once did for Saddam Hussein, claiming all was well as the bombs fell around him. The Biden team claims, falsely but constantly, that the border is “closed” and “secure.” This is ludicrous.
The administration’s failure and deceit have become obvious as the influx of illegal immigrants spreads out across the country, taxing social services everywhere. Pasadena may not be suffering as much as El Paso, but the entire nation has gradually become a “border county.” Just ask the mayors of deep blue cities like New York and Chicago, which once proudly proclaimed themselves “sanctuary cities.” They made those proclamations only when they thought it was costless. Now that the costs are mounting, the same leaders are squealing and shipping as many migrants as they can to other jurisdictions.
This breakdown of law enforcement at the local and federal levels has been compounded by the politicization and partisan bias of the chief agencies charged with enforcing our national laws: the FBI and the Department of Justice. Their bias, secrecy, and fecklessness have earned the public’s mistrust.
That mistrust, plus the nation’s ideological chasm, form the essential backdrop for Donald Trump’s federal indictment. His supporters say it is unfair. We have a two-tier system of justice, they say, one for Democrats, one for Republicans. His opponents counter that the former president has been credibly charged with a cluster of serious crimes. The tragedy is that both sides are absolutely correct. Very few Americans seem to acknowledge this grim, two-sided truth. It’s far easier to point the finger at the other side and say they are solely responsible.
The charges against Trump suggests the special counsel has ample first-person evidence. And though Trump is presumed innocent until those charges are proved, the indictment makes at least six interrelated charges, some about the retention of classified documents, some about the obstruction of justice. According to the indictment:
- Trump retained documents from his presidency that he had no right to keep.
- Some of those documents remained highly classified; there is no evidence he declassified them as president.
- Trump himself was aware he possessed these still-classified documents.
- He stored these very sensitive documents, mixed with unclassified documents, in unsecured locations, despite detailed federal laws requiring the careful storage of classified materials.
- Although Trump returned some documents after prolonged negotiations with the National Archives, he falsely declared he had returned all the requested documents.
- He ordered an aide, Walt Nauta (who has now been indicted for false statements), to move documents to hide them from Trump’s own attorney so the attorney would sign a document stating that he had searched the remaining documents and that none of those requested remained in Trump’s possession.
How have Trump’s supporters responded? They have spent little time denying the specific charges and more time arguing that the entire justice system is biased. They note, quite accurately, that similar serious charges were waved away when they involved top Democrats. They note that Hillary Clinton illegally stored thousands of documents on a home-brew computer, which may have been accessed by foreign powers, and was never charged. James Comey, who was then-director of the FBI, wrote Hillary’s exoneration before she was even interviewed. They note that Joe Biden’s entire family has been grifting for years, leveraging his public position, and that the investigation has been underway, without result, since shortly after Magna Carta was signed. The IRS officials investigating the family’s potential financial crimes were all fired by order of the DOJ. That, critics say, is exactly what biased law enforcement looks like. And they are right.
The stench covers both sides. The country hungers for leadership that is honest, competent, and determined to enforce the law evenly. That means cleaning the Augean stables at the FBI and Justice Department, and gaining control over the engorged, biased, and largely unaccountable bureaucracies that now rule our daily lives. A candidate who can do that could win the general election and begin restoring social stability to a country that desperately needs it. The question is whether a candidate like that could get past the primaries. After all, those primaries are filled with hordes of party activists whose first order of business is not even-handed justice. It is punishing the other side.
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Charles Lipson is the Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Chicago, where he founded the Program on International Politics, Economics, and Security. He can be reached at [email protected].
