Former President Donald Trump speaks at the America First rally to show support for Nevada Republican gubernatorial candidate Joe Lombardo and Republican Nevada Senate candidate Adam Laxalt at Treasure Island Friday, July 8, 2022.
Sunday, March 26, 2023 | 2 a.m.
View more of the Sun's opinion section
Will he or won’t he — be indicted. That is not the question.
I suppose it says a lot about our country and where its head is today that a person can’t go too far down the street without someone asking that question about former President Donald Trump. He has been, thankfully, out of office for over two years and, yet, much to his own personal pleasure, is still the talk of the town.
But, my friends, that is not the question.
What we should be asking as a democratic country born of a desire to govern ourselves, is whether Trump should be indicted. As this is written, there has been no news one way or the other. Regardless, the question still must be asked.
Knowing full well that somewhere between 20-25% of the people in America will answer that question with the irrationality of a cult member, it falls to the rest of us to determine whether it is true that in the United States of America, no one is above the law.
Another question that could be asked, since there are a number of jurisdictions investigating the messes that Trump has made and the laws he more than likely has broken, is which crime is more important than the other.
I keep hearing from some semi-Trump apologists that paying off a porn star with political funds is small potatoes compared with trying to coerce an election official to magically find enough votes to snatch Trump a victory from the jaws of voter-driven defeat.
None of us knows all the facts of the stormlike case to be able to make the decision that the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, must make, but I do know that Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, went to prison for the part he played in the payoff.
If prison is good enough for the lawyer who carried the cash, is it not good enough for the guy on whose behalf he carried it?
That gets us to the “should” question because too often in this country, we see case after case where the little guy does the time and the big guy — the fellow who calls the shots and derives all the benefit — remains unscathed. I don’t believe that kind of justice system sits well with regular folks. Nor should it.
Of course, if you add the fact that Trump was a president of the United States, what would be a simple answer to the “should “ question gets a little murkier. After all, who could ever conceive of any president doing felony-worthy activities? That question is rhetorical.
So, whether Trump will be indicted for any crime he may have committed is a question that prosecutors will have to answer shortly. But whether he should be indicted for his crimes, if any, is a question to be answered by the rest of America.
After all, it is our justice system that is in the dock. It is our justice system that claims no one — not anyone — is above the law. And it is our justice system that holds itself out to the world as being blind to all but the facts and the law.
If that is true, the answer to whether Trump should be indicted is clear. What remains murky in this world of human frailties is whether he will.
I am betting on the best of what America is to answer that question.
