To borrow a quip from the Beatles, the long-awaited coup indictment is truly “the toppermost of the poppermost.”
Millions of Americans are benumbed by Donald Trump’s rampant criminality, while millions more rabidly embrace it. I only wish that all zombies and zealots would take the time to read the fact-packed document unsealed this week by the Department of Justice, because it’s far more than a narrative of how we came close to losing our democracy at the dawn of this decade. It’s ultimately a five-alarm warning of what awaits us in the near future unless the failed coup’s ringleader is convicted by a jury of his peers and jailed into old age.
Thanks to confessional material shared with the federal grand jury by a galaxy of Trump insiders — most notably, former Vice President Mike Pence — the indictment demonstrates that “the defendant perpetrated three criminal conspiracies” during the post-election period when he refused to accept defeat and knowingly spread “pervasive and destabilizing lies” about nonexistent election fraud.
According to the indictment, Trump conspired “to defraud the United States” by impairing “the lawful federal government function” of collecting and counting votes. He conspired “to corruptly obstruct and impede” Congress’ ceremonial certification of the election. And he conspired against the average citizen’s “right to vote and to have one’s vote counted” when he ginned up fake slates of electors to replace the real ones.
Special counsel Jack Smith did three smart things. First, he indicted only Trump (not the six unnamed co-conspirators, whose lawyers could’ve slowed the court process), thus boosting the prospects of a speedy trial long before the 2024 election.
Second, he ignored the thorny issue of whether Trump had specifically ordered the Jan. 6 goons to commit violence, instead focusing solely on the fact that Trump “exploited” the violence once it happened, to pressure Congress not to certify Joe Biden’s victory.
And third, in Smith’s quest to prove criminal intent (crucial in a jury trial), he listed all the ways that Trump knew he had lost before “knowingly” lying over and over about how his purported win had been stolen.
Trump knew he had lost, according to the indictment, because he was informed of that incontrovertible fact “on multiple occasions” by his own veep, by his highest senior appointees at the Justice Department, by his director of national intelligence, by the Homeland Security Department’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (“whose existence the defendant had signed into law”), by the “senior White House attorneys selected by the defendant to provide him candid advice,” and by the state and federal courts (sometimes helmed by his own judicial appointees) who’d “rejected every ... post-election lawsuit filed by the defendant.”
Trump’s own advisors got fed up with his lies. One senior campaign advisor lamented in an email that “our research and campaign legal team can’t back up any of the (election fraud) claims. ... I’ll obviously hustle to help on all fronts, but it’s tough to own any of this when it’s all just conspiracy s--- beamed down from the mothership.”
If and when this case goes to trial, it would be a hoot to see Pence in the witness chair, because, having escaped the MAGA noose, he’s well positioned to harpoon the whale. Turns out, he has shared his contemporaneous notes with the feds. He took notes during the dying days of the regime when Trump repeatedly and falsely insisted that Pence had the power to reject Biden’s electoral college win at the Jan. 6, 2021 ceremony. Pence repeatedly pushed back, prompting Trump to tell him on Jan. 1: “You’re too honest.”
Bingo! Trump knew that he was dishonest. That quote will come up at trial.
On Dec. 29, Trump told Pence that “the Justice Department (was) finding major infractions,” i.e., voter fraud. That was a lie. On Jan. 4, according to Pence’s notes, Trump told him: “Bottom line (we) won every state by 100,000s of votes.” That was a lie. Trump also told him: “We won every state.” That was a lie. Trump also told him: “What about 205,000 (more) votes in PA than voters?” That was a lie.
According to the indictment, Justice Department officials had told Trump that was a lie “as recently as the night before.”
Mike Murphy, a veteran sane Republican strategist, arguably said it best on Wednesday night: “Donald Trump did far more to subvert our democracy than the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Party ever dreamed of.”
This wanton mutt will not stop unless or until our democratic system of laws puts him down. Bring on that speedy trial. The ultimate stress test is at hand.
Polman is a veteran national political columnist based in Philadelphia.
