The end of a tough week. But a new start for Chicago.
Chicago has a crucial mayoral runoff election on Tuesday between two candidates with sharply different visions for the city. Something else is expected to be going on that day.
Even in this city, it’s unlikely that the runoff ’s winner, either Paul Vallas or Brandon Johnson, will have the headlines to themselves. They will have something in common with the victims of the shooting at Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee: Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney, all 9, as well as custodian Mike Hill, Katherine Koonce, head of the school, and substitute teacher Cynthia Peak.
They too have quickly vanished from the news, as Americans angrily jousted with each other over transgender issues and the easy availability of lethal weapons. They disappeared even deeper into our collective Orwellian memory hole as Donald Trump, that narcissistic, one-man force of destruction, proved himself peerlessly capable of cleaving an America that should now be focusing on keeping its schoolkids safe.
On Thursday, reports emerged that Trump will become the first former president to face criminal charges, with a likely arraignment taking place Tuesday in New York, a place associated with Trump for most of his life. The charges are expected to involve so-called hush money payments made in 2016 to porn star Stormy Daniels who had been trying to sell her story about an affair with the former president, an affair he has denied.
Trump is expected to fly to New York, surrender and subsequently plead not guilty to all charges. He is not expected to do so quietly. His past behavior, which has included posting a threatening picture of himself with a baseball bat, would suggest he does not care about the impact of that occasion on the country. Some patriot.
Preempting the public release of the actual charges, our colleagues at The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board argued Friday that any criminal charges against a former president must “be solid enough that a reasonable voter would find it persuasive.”
Which reasonable voters are those? That’s a question we ask as politicians and their supporters predictably lined up along
party lines. Even former Vice President Mike Pence, who has had a front-row seat to Trump’s past flouting of the rule of law, expressed outrage at the unseen.
Moreover, it is actually incumbent on the prosecutor not to persuade some apocryphal “reasonable voter” but a jury in the courtroom. Trump is presumed innocent of these charges until proven guilty, a foundation of the U.S. legal system that seemed to escape former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as she referenced Trump “proving his innocence” in a crude social media post Thursday.
No one charged with a crime in the U.S. has to prove their innocence, even Trump. But no American is above the law, and that includes the former president. Charges do not have to be any more “solid” against a
former president than the humblest U.S. citizen. That’s a foundational concept of our legal system, just like the presumption of innocence.
Certainly, there are grades of severity when it comes to criminal charges. There are misdemeanors and felonies of various stripes, and the justice system hardly is free of negotiations and expedient choices. But those grades must be applied based on the severity of the offense, not the status of the defendant.
Al Capone, the notorious Chicago gangster responsible for many deaths, was convicted on five counts of income tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years in federal prison. Capone also committed far more serious crimes, but what mattered most on Oct. 17, 1931, was that he was found guilty of
tax evasion.
So we suggest Chicagoans ignore the noise and just let the system do its unpleasant job on Tuesday, a task that most certainly requires the prosecutor to prove his motivations in charging Trump are not merely political and that the charges he brings match their definition. Just as mayoral candidates should be considered on their merits, so must any charges. It’s as simple as that, however many screaming mouths tell you otherwise.
We consider the city lucky to have two smart, seemingly honorable candidates for mayor who have waged a hard-fought but ethical campaign. Their contest is far more interesting and infinitely more ennobling than anything happening next week in New York.