By "can't handle" I take it you mean that the reaction would be so consequential as to endanger the entire constitutional system. If you meant otherwise, that the reaction would be only to cost Trump his reelection, I would reject that rationalization of political expediency out of hand. But I credit you with the former assertion, again a well formulated opinion but one which I consider misplaced.
Our exchanges have brought us to this place, I believe that a resort to political expediency in this circumstance threatens the very existence of the rule of law and, in turn, our constitutional governance. You on the other hand believe that to fail to account for public sentiment by pursuing justice would gravely endanger our constitutional system and "our very livelihoods."
Neither one of us is a credentialed soothsayer therefore we cannot know who better sees the future. We can only balance risks against probabilities and probabilities against costs and then, like Yogi Berra, make our predictions about the future. In doing that we ought to look at what facts are available to us.
I have pointed to the ongoing miscarriages of justice that have occurred in the wake of the decision not to prosecute Hillary. I aver that the overwhelming majority of the country has lost confidence in our institutions. We on the right have lost confidence in the Department of Justice and the FBI and virtually every other department of government which we damn as "the deep state." The left has equally lost confidence in government but in different parts of it. Anything to do with Donald Trump is so anathema to the left and his government is so illegitimate that he must be impeached even on transparently bogus grounds. Anything that Donald Trump supports or advances, must be opposed.
As you quite rightly point out, this cleft in our society is exaggerated by the media who, at least that part which we label "the establishment," supports the left at every turn even to the point of fatuity. A point for your side of this argument, at least to the degree that the media can attach to an unlikely verdict a charge of malfeasance to Donald Trump after a jury trial conducted by the Department of Justice. I contend that a verdict of guilty is unlikely in the venues in which Hillary Clinton would likely have been tried. Either way, would Trump be held accountable to the point of serious political consequences?
About 25 years ago I talked to a federal attorney who told me that they were having problems obtaining guilty verdicts because of jury nullification where inner-city juries were impaneled. The trend could only have worsened in a quarter-century, indeed we have seen a notorious example in the wayward jury that convicted Roger Stone.
But let us assume a guilty verdict, let us further assume that the media incessantly contends that Donald Trump has abused his authority by sending the matter to a jury and, finally, let us further assume that that jury, against all expectations, convicts Hillary Clinton. Will the masses rise up and overturn the government? Will they impeach Donald Trump in their anger? Will Republicans lose the house, or the Senate or even the next presidential election as a result?
Before we assume these catastrophes would ensue we must ask, what in history leads us to that conclusion? The acquittal of Donald Trump in impeachment has not raised a hint of such baleful consequences. Why this?
Let us consider the effects on the country of the hearings concerning Brett Cavanaugh. By the logic that says that we dare not prosecute Hillary Clinton, we must, to be consistent, have refrained from defending Brett Cavanaugh. But we did defend him, why? Because the rule of law was at stake. If we permit the Democrats to stack the court we are conceding the end of the Constitution and the end of the Republic. We defended Cavanaugh without fear that the country would burn down if his appointment were consented to.
Of course there is a difference between prosecuting a presidential candidate even after she lost the election and defending a prospective Supreme Court Justice but I suspect Hillary had lost most of her value to the left while she remained perhaps the most hated woman in America. Despised even by many on the left.
Yes, the media would try to pin the prosecution on Donald Trump just as they impeached him and deputized Muller to investigate him but Pres. Trump has withstood it all. It is not a stretch to believe that he would withstand this.
When I weigh the risks against the costs, I still conclude that, “This whole thing went south when Trump said publicly that Hillary ought not to be prosecuted.”
