To hear it from Donald Trump and his supporters, his prosecution in New York is an unprecedented abuse of the court system for political ends based on the most trivial of charges. Trump, of course, uses far more colorful language to make that point, but even former Vice President Mike Pence — no friend of Trump — says that an “unprecedented indictment of a former president” built on campaign-finance abuses is an “outrage.”
True, no former president has ever been arrested and hauled before a court as Trump was on Tuesday. But there’s nothing unprecedented about holding the nation’s top public officials accountable when they run afoul of the law, even for seemingly trivial violations. Other top politicians have protested almost as loudly as Trump, only to see their careers subsequently go down in flames.
In 1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew argued that he was immune to prosecution because of his executive-branch status. Agnew was under investigation by the U.S. attorney in Maryland for corruption-related activities committed while Agnew was the governor of Maryland. Like Trump, Agnew claimed he had been victimized by “scurrilous and inaccurate” allegations based on “the wildest rumor and speculation.” Like Trump, Agnew insisted the news media was out to get him. He wound up resigning after appearing in court to plead no contest to a single count of tax evasion on his 1967 return. No, Agnew wasn’t the president, but he had been only a heartbeat away.
Two heartbeats from the presidency in 1988 was House Speaker Jim Wright, D-Texas, who was forced out of office not by some egregious criminal act but for the lowly crime of collecting $54,000 in royalties from a book in violation of House rules on earning outside income. The entire ethics investigation was couched in political terms, with Republican leader Newt Gingrich leading the charge to unseat Wright.
Gingrich later became speaker, only to face his own grueling ethics investigation, which contributed to his departure in 1998.
After years of investigations focusing on the Whitewater real estate deal in Arkansas, Special Prosecutor Ken Starr was unable to come up with enough evidence to prosecute then-President Bill Clinton. Not even the fact that Clinton had an affair with a White House intern constituted an impeachable offense. But Clinton did wind up being impeached in a party-line vote in the Gingrich-led House. His crime: lying under oath.
New York prosecutor Alvin Bragg is taking a big risk by pursuing this case, but none of Trump’s loud protestations will ultimately matter if Bragg can convince 12 jurors that Trump’s alleged crimes rise to the level of labeling him a convicted criminal. Trump can credibly claim to be the only ex-president to face such a legal ordeal, but he’s hardly alone among top politicians claiming to be victims of political witch hunts based on seemingly flimsy charges.
