The Last American

Earlier this week, former President Donald Trump surrendered to the New York City courts to face an indictment on 34 felony charges. The case arose from his accounting records of payments to a former paramour, Stormy Daniels. The indictment itself is garbage, the product of an extremely ideological prosecutor.

Elevating these charges to a felony required that the bookkeeping errors furthered some other crime, but the indictment does not even identify the other crime. Indictments are usually bare bones, but the New York rule requires that an indictment “asserts facts supporting every element of the offense charged . . . with sufficient precision to clearly apprise the defendant or defendants of the conduct which is the subject of the accusation.”

Trump Should Resist on Every Front

Why did Trump surrender at all?

Alvin Bragg is a rogue prosecutor acting outside the boundaries of the law. Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, said he would not cooperate in any extradition. If Trump did not surrender, he might simultaneously have defied this nonsense charge and also put DeSantis, his likely opponent, in a bind.

DeSantis does not want to appear to be Trump’s lackey, but he also wants to keep his word. His P.R. gesture eventually would have come crashing down, as a governor does not really have authority to defy an extradition request. But forcing DeSantis’s hand would take some time, and it might have redounded to Trump’s benefit when DeSantis eventually caved.

Not only should Trump not have surrendered, he should be looking for ways to get his allies to sue and prosecute his enemies, including this lunatic Manhattan prosecutor. Starting now, states are going to need to develop creative means of resistance to the federal government, as well against blue states, which are engaged in lawless, extraterritorial power grabs. We need to dust off the 19th century playbook of nullification.

Trump suggests why he surrendered in his Mar-a-Lago speech. Even though he said the justice system was becoming “lawless” and that he is facing “persecution, not an investigation,” his actions show that he believes he will be able to fight this in the courts and win, vindicating himself and his reputation.

For all his faults and his New York cynicism, Trump still believes in America. The old one. This is why he says Make America Great Again. He thinks the country and its institutions are fundamentally good, that its people are decent, and that truth, justice, and prosperity will prevail once again when this temporary emergency passes…