Why a liberal and a conservative agree Trump's indictment is unwise

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Next we have a skeptical view of the prosecution of Donald Trump. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said this week he was upholding a solemn responsibility.

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ALVIN BRAGG: Everyone stands equal before the law. No amount of money and no amount of power changes that enduring American principle.

INSKEEP: Naturally, many Trump critics appreciated this moment and indictment for falsifying business records to cover up a payoff. Trump supporters called the prosecution political. But we hear this morning from a different category of people. Jonathan Chait is a liberal columnist with New York Magazine. Mona Charen is a conservative columnist with the Bulwark. Both are completely opposed to Trump. And both think this prosecution is a bad idea.

MONA CHAREN: My problem with this particular prosecution is that it is shockingly weak. We kept thinking, there must be more to it than the falsifying business records, which is a misdemeanor, which can only be bootstrapped into a felony if it is in service of some other crime. And we waited in vain to find out what was the other crime. And Alvin Bragg did not say what the other crime was. And this is my bottom line in all of this. It would be a catastrophe for the United States to do anything that strengthens Donald Trump and increases the chances that he will ever sit in the Oval Office again. By bringing a weak case and possibly giving him the opportunity to portray himself as a victim and a martyr, but also possibly giving him the opportunity to defeat the case - have it either thrown out or have him acquitted - it will only burnish his sense of invulnerability. And we've seen what he does with those feelings in the past.

INSKEEP: Jonathan Chait, what, if anything, do you see wrong with Alvin Bragg saying that no one is above the law, and that's why I'm going ahead with this prosecution?

JONATHAN CHAIT: There are a lot of cases, as anyone who knows how prosecutors work, where there's real discretion involved as to whether something violates the law. You could look back at James Comey's decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton over the emails. He said, and I think correctly, that no prosecutor would bring charges under these circumstances. So I think people are using that construction as a justification for what he's doing so that we don't need to actually look at these charges in a specific way and say, is prosecution the correct choice? Is that the choice we would make if it wasn't Donald Trump but some other person who maybe ran for some other office in 2016?

INSKEEP: Are each of you arguing in your own way that the law, or rather the law enforcement authorities, are being unfair to Donald Trump?

CHAREN: Gosh, it is (laughter) so hard to answer that in the affirmative since this is a person who has done more to trash respect for law in this country than any other person since Robert E. Lee. But look; it is an unwise prosecution because it's very weak. And it's so wobbly that even dyed-in-the-wool never Trump fanatics, like me, are twisting our faces up and saying, what was he thinking? I mean, it's not so much the unfairness to Donald Trump that worries me. It's the fact that he won't succeed, that the case will not succeed and will only strengthen Donald Trump.

INSKEEP: Jonathan Chait?

CHAIT: I think Donald Trump is basically a career criminal. But it is possible to frame a guilty man. And I'm not saying he's being framed. But he's being prosecuted in a way that very few people other - in this situation would be charged for. So in a way, he's being singled out unfairly. But I would almost flip the premise of the question around and say - is he being treated unfairly? I would say that Bragg may be doing a favor for Trump by bringing the first legal charge against him, while others are expected to follow. That creates the predicate for his victimization narrative. So the only effect of this will just be to jumpstart Republican support for him and corner the rest of the Republican Party into supporting his legal case, when in other circumstances they might have had more critical distance from him.

INSKEEP: What would you tell other people who are opposed to Trump and the anti-Trump movement to do given the way you see this case?

CHAIT: My advice is just to have a little bit of patience. If you're itching to see a strong legal case where Donald Trump will be convicted and possibly sent to prison, you probably won't have to wait very long for one to come along. And you can have your principles and still have the outcome you want if you just admit to yourself that this case isn't worth bringing, but the next one probably will be.

CHAREN: I agree with that. Unfortunately, there's just - there's no way to unwind what has already happened. So this train has left the station. And the best course would be for people to - rather than try to justify this particular prosecution and twist themselves into pretzels in the attempt to do that, focus on the cases that are stronger, the Mar-a-Lago documents, the January 6 insurrection and the solicitation of election fraud in Georgia.

INSKEEP: Mona Charen and Jonathan Chait. It's a pleasure talking with you both.

CHAIT: Thanks so much.

CHAREN: Thanks, Steve. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.