Prosecutors in Trump cases are doing just what they should

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Former President Donald Trump is mired in a tarpit of civil and criminal investigations and lawsuits. All but two of them are unlikely to keep him from occupying the Oval Office again.

The apparently imminent indictment that is so front of mind for Trump will be handed up by a grand jury convened by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Bragg's office has been investigating whether Trump and others in his company falsified business records to cover up 2016 hush money payments to a woman who said she had a sexual tryst with him.

Is this the most perilous legal challenge facing Trump? Probably not. He clearly fears being handcuffed, fingerprinted and perp-walked before TV cameras and the media, as anyone would. It's a criminal case, so the threat of winding up behind bars looms. Whether or not that comes to pass, it wouldn't necessarily prevent him from running for president again.

The only qualifications the U.S. Constitution requires for a presidential bid are age, citizenship and residency. Eugene V. Debs and Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. both ran for president even though they were convicted of crimes. Campaigning from a jail cell may prove awkward for Trump, but in a digital era anything is possible.

Meanwhile, New York Attorney General Letitia James has been prosecuting Trump, his company and his children for possible financial fraud. That's a civil case, so there's no possibility of prison time attached to that one. In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is conducting a criminal investigation into whether Trump and his allies tried to illegally overturn Georgia's electoral results after the 2020 presidential election. Will that case land Trump in prison? Again, who knows? If it does, though, it still may not preclude a presidential bid.

One of the federal statutes that could come into play in the Mar-a-Lago investigation bars anyone who has been found guilty of mishandling government records from holding any federal office. If the Justice Department successfully prosecutes Trump for insurrection related to the Jan. 6 siege, the 14th Amendment of the Constitution gathers force. It bans insurrectionists from holding any public office. There's a loophole in that one, though: Congress, by a two-thirds vote in each house, can make someone immune from that particular penalty.

Trump's congressional supporters would undoubtedly try to give Trump that kind of protection, but I wonder how many mainstream Republicans could stomach the MAGA wing flexing that kind of anti-democratic muscle. Nothing should surprise us anymore, I guess, but that would surprise me.

Trump is a threat to democracy, the rule of law, pluralism and public decency. He should never occupy the White House again. On my scorecard, that makes Garland's prosecution first among equals.

That's not to say that Bragg, James and Willis aren't doing exactly what they should be doing. They are not obligated to coordinate their investigations with any others, and they are right to continue pointing out that nobody — especially a former president — is above the law. All three of those prosecutors are Black, and they also went into this knowing that Trump's predilection for weaponizing racism and partisan politics could eventually land on them.

One of the debates swirling around hinges on the idea that sending Trump to jail would somehow inalterably damage the majesty or utility of the presidency. Therefore, no matter how grotesque his actions, Trump should be given a pass. Maybe, the argument, goes, Trump will then just agree to never run for president again. As if Trump, epic breaker of deals, would ever honor an agreement like that. I'm in the camp that believes that the rule of law is paramount and applies to all, and hand-wringing about the presidency is less important.

Whatever path Bragg's prosecution follows, it would be well worth staying focused on the larger goal and what the Justice Department chooses to do.