Another Case Against Trump: Subverting the Sanctity of the Presidency
Graphics by Madeline Barber
Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush all share a certain something in common with former President Donald Trump — each had massive scandals while in office. Nixon, Clinton, and Bush, however, set themselves apart from Trump in their ability to reflect, admit fault, and even resign from office altogether as a result of their scandals. Their capacity for humility, reflection, and reverence for the office of the President of the United States are paramount qualities for the leader of the free world and are owed to the American people whom the president serves.
It would be hard to have missed the news of at least one of former President and current Republican nominee Donald Trump’s eighty-eight felony charges and numerous civil suits. Whether or not Trump will be found guilty or liable for each of these charges has been met with much anticipation from the American people. However, the mere fact that such charges can be reasonably brought against a fairly popular former President and current presidential candidate threatens the gravity with which Americans regard the electoral process. Especially when viewed through a historical lens, the egregiousness of Trump’s actions and his refusal to take accountability for missteps shines a bright warning light on the esteem of the presidency in the minds of American voters. Regardless of whether or not Trump is constitutionally qualified for office because of any legal fault or civil liability found in cases brought against him, his actions and inflammatory nature are detrimentally affecting the office of the presidency and undermining the respect and leadership to which the American people are entitled.
Re-electing Trump to office would be a disservice to the prestige of the office of the presidency as well as to the American people who deserve a competent, gracious, and decent leader. His sustained popular support well into the 2024 election cycle signals a complete collapse of respect for the office—in the way it is traditionally thought of—and only indicates that such behavior will continue if he wins reelection.
To understand why Trump’s presidency and current campaign are negatively impacting the prestige of the presidency, we must first examine the history and present importance of popular support to the office itself. The office of the presidency was not originally intended by the Framers to be an office dominantly impacted by public opinion and popular support. They feared a government hyper-dependent on popular sentiment could, at its worst, invite mob rule and tyranny of the majority. Leadership motivated by the opinions of the masses was thought to produce under-qualified candidates and perhaps even create substantial political instability. It was to avoid these outcomes, among others, that the Framers instituted our system of checks and balances as well as the Electoral College.
President Woodrow Wilson was the primary and initial force responsible for shifting the office away from insulation from the public and towards active engagement in popular leadership. Wilson argued against the detachment of the president from his people as an impediment to effective government. The very strength of government, he argued, depended upon the president’s willingness to “actively engage in popular leadership.” Alongside this view, the necessity of a president to present his own personal policy agenda also grew. By the time President Franklin Roosevelt was in office and hosting fireside chats, cultivation of public support and creation of personal policy agendas became quintessential to the role of the United States President.
In today’s world, public support has evolved to be a key factor in the United States’ legislative and executive decision-making processes. This is largely because public support now translates to leverage over other decision-makers; opposing a popular president increases one’s political risks and, therefore, motivates decision-makers to take action at least partially based on a president’s popularity. Researchers for the Presidential Studies Quarterly found public support to be a substantial influence in ease of renomination by a president’s own party and an indicator of success in the general election. When a president is relatively unpopular he must face reduced legislative options and opportunities and must more frequently use his negative powers, such as the power to veto. Similarly, increased public support produces a wider set of feasible options for a president to execute his duties. As such, the research finds that measures of public support will influence presidential agendas and strategies. One particularly insightful discovery from this research is that public support has been shown to be the “most important determinant” of a president’s decision to implement major military “shows of force.” Clearly, public support boasts real-world impacts beyond the campaign trail and into the decisions made in the Oval Office.
From this historic examination of the politics and importance of popular support to presidential terms, it is clear that Trump’s ability to maintain sizable support will impact his second term if re-elected. Such popular support has been proven to influence presidential behavior, and the research suggests it will elicit more of the same behavior from Trump that first motivated many of his federal and civil cases.
Understanding the charges brought against Trump and the accusations levied is essential to interpreting the harm his tenure as president has done to the office of the presidency. Highlighting some of the more prominent cases, both civil and criminal, currently facing Trump will underscore the ways in which he has desecrated the office he is seeking to hold again in 2025.
Trump’s civil cases span from charges of fraud, defamation, and sexual assault. In the state of New York, a civil suit was filed against Trump for fraudulently reporting the values of properties in order to lower taxes and improve the terms of loans in an effort to distort his net worth; for this, Trump must pay $355 million plus interest. The judge in the New York State fraud case remarked that Trump’s claims were “clearly fraudulent” enough to warrant a judgment without a trial in 2022. A Manhattan defamation suit brought by E. Jean Carroll claims that Trump sexually assaulted Carroll in the 1990s. Upon his denial of these actions and vilification of her character perpetuated by Trump in the media, Carroll additionally sued for defamation and battery. A jury found Trump liable for sexual assault, and he was ultimately ordered to pay just under $90 million for each of the claims brought in 2023. Even more morally damning evidence, however, may be found in the judge’s remarks about the case after Trump’s lawyers contended the jury did not technically find their client guilty of rape. Judge Kaplan asserted that “the finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word…the evidence…makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”
Trump’s criminal charges include unlawful removal of classified documents, election subversion, and falsifying business records for the purpose of hush money payments. The United States Department of Justice has charged Trump with over thirty felonies just for removing classified documents from the White House at the end of his term. The charges include obstruction of justice, false statements, willful retention, and withholding of documents. The DOJ has centered its indictment due to the unwillingness of Trump to hand the documents back to the government, even after repeated requests. Of Trump’s ongoing election subversion cases, Fulton County and DOJ are the most prominent. In Fulton County, charges brought against him include racketeering and conspiracy with intent to subvert the 2020 presidential election. The most notorious evidence for this case includes Trump’s call to the Georgia Secretary of State, during which Trump urged the Secretary to “find” 11,000 votes in his favor. The DOJ charged Trump with four felonies connected to election subversion during the 2020 election. In Manhattan, federal charges have been brought against Trump for alleged falsification of business records for the purpose of paying hush money to women claiming to have had intimate relationships with him. The trial date is set for April 15th, 2024, and Trump could face jail time if convicted.
Beyond the legal jargon and minutiae of these complex cases lies a simple truth: Trump’s outright inability to take any measure of accountability for his actions demonstrates exactly how he jeopardizes the sanctity of the presidency. Consider the three aforementioned presidents—each of whom faced major scandals while in office—Nixon, Clinton, and Bush. Each of these men displayed an understanding of the role of President of the United States and deep respect for the American people through their handling of their errors.
Both Richard Nixon and his presidency have become synonymous with the Watergate scandal. Of course, Watergate was a morally repugnant and legally obtuse effort to disrupt Democratic political machinations. However, Nixon’s handling of the scandal, especially in his open communication with the American people before his resignation, established his respect for the office which he held and for the American people whom he was bound to serve. In becoming the first American president to resign from office, Nixon addressed the public and said, “as President, I must put the interests of America first…By taking this action I hope that I will have hastened the start of the process of healing which is so desperately needed in America.” And although Nixon refused to admit to the crimes he was charged with, he did acknowledge his judgments as “wrong.” Nixon forms a particularly stark contrast to Trump in the handling of this scandal in how he approached both his critics and his Vice President. To his opponents, he said, “I leave with no bitterness toward those who have opposed me…Americans should join together . . . in helping our new President succeed.” This is a far cry from Trump’s relationship with his Vice President Mike Pence towards the end of his term. Shortly after the January 6th insurrection, Trump was reported to have said Pence “deserved” the chants of “hang Mike Pence” from Capitol rioters.
The memory of President Bill Clinton’s time in office is all but overshadowed by his famous assertion that he “did not have sexual relations with” his intern Monica Lewinsky—which, of course, he did. As he was dealing with the fallout of an independent counsel’s investigation of perjury, Clinton took to live national television and spoke directly with the American people. He acknowledged that he “did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate” and asserted that “it was wrong. It constituted a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my part for which I am solely and completely responsible." To take it one step further, Clinton publicly expressed “regret” for the impact of his actions on his wife and family. Through his handling of the scandal, Clinton demonstrated an ability to express deep shame over his actions and understood their heightened impact due to his position as president.
The presidency of George W. Bush is remembered largely for failures in the handling of the Iraq War. Of these three presidential examples, Bush seemed to have expressed the least remorse for his decisions. However, he still demonstrated an ability to actively reflect on his shortcomings while in office and thus separates himself entirely from Trump. Before he left office, Bush gave an interview in which he admitted the “biggest regret” of his presidency was the “intelligence failure in Iraq.” Although Iraq continues to define his legacy in office, Bush did not shy away from acknowledging his utter under-preparedness for war. Despite President Bush’s lack of an apology to the American people for the atrocities of the Iraq War, his capacity for reflection shines through in this interview. He does not deny that unnecessary harm happened during his time in office, and he clearly realized the importance of humility and responsibility in his discussion of the war far beyond anything seen from Trump. Being able to admit his time in office was less than perfect and his willingness to explain his thought process to the American people highlights what most differentiates the Bush presidency from the Trump presidency — a reverence for the role and a respect for the American people.
In stark contrast to these historical examples, stand Trump’s reactions to any and all of his aforementioned scandals. On January 18th, 2024 at New Hampshire political rally Trump compared his legal woes to that of Al Capone, saying, “You know I’ve been indicted more than Al Capone?” Trump practically boasted, “You ever heard of Al Capone? Probably the greatest mobster of them all.” As recently as April 13th, 2024 Trump referred to the criminal hush money case brought against him as a “communist show trial,” and emphasized to his supporters that he was “proud to do it for [them].” In the midst of these trials, Trump continues to stoke his supporters’ fervor through his own social media company, Truth Social. On April 22nd, 2024, in a general response to the ongoing trials and charges he is facing, Trump posted “ELECTION INTERFERENCE!!!”, seemingly accusing the justice system of using his scandals and illegal activity as an avenue for genuine election interference, rather than pursuance of justice in accordance with the law. This behavior is only in addition to his endless denials of wrongdoing and spreading of blame throughout his presidency and current campaign, at rallies, press conferences, and on social media.
The juxtaposition of the behavior of Trump and his presidential predecessors is stark, but what does this mean for the future of the presidency? Trump is currently leading President Joe Biden in select polls, with 55% of Americans saying they now view Trump’s presidency as a success, a number which jumps to 92% when only Republicans are considered. Clearly, many Americans are willing to look past Trump’s legal trouble, which signals the potential for a continued downward shift in what American voters consider the acceptable moral minimum for the office of the presidency. If he wins in 2024 and his public support continues to grow, research shows, so will his legislative options and leverage over other political actors while in office. As long as American voters continue to support Trump in such large numbers, they risk cementing the implication that his demonstrated lack of capacity for reflection, accountability, and responsibility is acceptable for the President of the United States. With this in mind, it becomes clear that regardless of the outcomes of his legal cases, the evidence presented against him in court coupled with the historical incongruity of his response to scandal display of a lack of respect for the American people and the sanctity of the office of President of the United States.