The Art of Criminality — and other ways Trump might make amends

Perhaps the wisdom of Trump voters has been greatly overlooked. What better way to fight crime in America than to put a convicted criminal in the White House? No one understands the criminal mind better than our current president, after all.

Donald Trump knows what lurks in the minds of his fellow felons. He understands their disdain for acting within the law and for refusing to live within the accepted norms of right and wrong on which our justice system is based.

Found by a civil jury to be liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll, Trump understands exploiters who forcefully take what they want — in his case, also including classified government material — without concern for those they harm.

He understands criminals who feel no guilt or remorse for their despicable acts and are stopped only when caught and prosecuted. He also, as the Carroll case shows, has direct experience of defamation and its perils.

Found civilly liable for massive bank fraud, and convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, Trump understands the minds of white-collar criminals whose moral turpitude and monumental greed lead them to commit acts of fraud, embezzlement, money laundering, tax evasion, and bribery.

Trump resides in a world where white-collar crime often goes undetected. With a lifetime's knowledge, he could educate banks, other corporations, and the Internal Revenue Service on how to detect the most common types of white-collar criminal activity.

Trump understands how violence in the criminally oriented can be triggered. He knew which buttons to push to unleash his most violent supporters on the Capitol on Jan. 6 2021, knowing that assaulting the undermanned Capitol police was necessary to breach the building.

Trump understands how potentially violent criminals can be goaded to action, whether by an MS-13 gang leader, a Mafia don, or a losing presidential candidate.

Trump understands political crime — the illegal schemes that destroyers of democracy employ to put themselves in power by ousting a country’s elected leaders — better than anyone. Trump knows everything political criminals will try to achieve their goal: violence, coercion, false claims of rigged elections, and enlisting corruptible federal and state officials to carry out their schemes. No one is in a better position than Trump to sniff out illegal, anti-democratic plots.

If Trump used his criminality for the good, he could help atone for his own crimes and rehabilitate his blackened image. Trump could become the law-and-order president he brazenly proclaims to be.

Up to now, though, Trump has personally contributed more to crime than he has to bringing it down. His forays into law and order have been chilling shows of authoritarian power.

He called out the National Guard in Los Angeles, unlawfully according to a federal judge, to quell predominantly peaceful protests. He called out the Guard in Washington, D.C., where the violent crime rate had dropped 35 percent, to its lowest level in 30 years.

In addition, it’s never a good look for a law-and-order president to pardon violent criminals convicted of assaulting police officers at the Capitol; to pardon husband-and-wife reality show stars convicted of massive bank fraud; and to refuse to rule out pardoning sexual predator Ghislaine Maxwell, who despicably lured young women into the evil clutches of Jeffrey Epstein, to whom the nature of the president’s connection remains undetermined.

But people can change, and plenty of terrible criminals have turned around their lives and contributed to society.

As Trump gets ever closer to meeting his maker, he may undergo a religious epiphany. A greater inducement, however, may be the lure of financial gain: The Art of Criminality, a sequel to The Art of the Deal, would be a potential bestseller that could also benefit the government, law-enforcement agencies, businesses, communities, and individual citizens.

Frank Abagnale, one of the greatest conmen and forgers of all time, was ultimately caught by the FBI and given the option of prison or working with his captors. Abagnale chose the FBI, examining suspicious checks and showing banks across the country how to spot forgeries. Working for the FBI for 36 years, the erstwhile criminal helped to catch thousands of forgers and saved banks hundreds of millions of dollars.

Donald Trump has the opportunity to be another Frank Abagnale, possessing a motherlode of knowledge that could help bring criminals to justice. Like Abagnale, Trump could reinvent himself by using his personal expertise to help make America a safer place. No people love a redemption story more than Americans. Trump’s would rank among the greatest.