In a column for The Atlantic, former prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig made the case that, although there is ample evidence that Donald Trump has engaged in a multitude of criminal acts, there is little chance he will ever be convicted.
Rosenzweig, who served as lead counsel in Ken Starr's investigation of former President Bill Clinton, explained that Americans breathlessly waiting to see Trump in jail are bound to be disappointed due to the complexities of achieving a guilty verdict for the crimes he has been accused of.
As the attorney notes, Trump is being investigated by the House select committee looking into the January 6 Capitol riot, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis for a variety of possible criminal actions -- none of which will likely result in jail time.
After writing, "Donald Trump, despite his many seemingly criminal acts, is unlikely to ever spend a day in jail," the attorney added, "Observers of the Trump malignancy have an unfortunate habit of wish casting—believing that their most optimistic fantasies will become reality," before knocking that down.
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"Please don’t misunderstand; I am as convinced as anyone of the criminality of Trump’s conduct, and nothing would please me more than to see him get his deserved comeuppance. He should, and very well may, be indicted in one or more of these jurisdictions. And the civil suits against him may have legs," he wrote. "But years of experience prosecuting fraught political cases (and defending others) has taught me that the criminal law is a blunt tool for achieving justice and a poor means of resolving political issues."
Adding he sees the odds of Trump being convicted somewhere between "slim to none," Rosenzweig -- who admitted that he hopes he is wrong -- maintained that cases brought before juries would be difficult because the charges are overshadowed by politics in a highly polarized country.
"There is a great deal of evidence of criminality on the public record, but having that evidence and presenting it convincingly in court are different things. We should not assume that the evidence is clear and that any vote for acquittal would be the unreasoning verdict of a Trumpist holdout. I don’t think that’s an accurate assessment. In truth, the putative cases against Trump are difficult ones that would be hard charges to bring even in the best of circumstances, much less before a highly politicized jury pool," he explained.
Add to that, he explained, Trump's celebrity both before his political career and after he became president adds to additional obstacles to gaining a conviction.
"Trump is no ordinary defendant, and that makes all the difference. Criminal cases are hard to prove generally. High-profile criminal convictions are even more difficult to pull off, and especially so when a case has political overtones. Many political defendants have resources that exceed those of the prosecution. They also have a platform from which they can trumpet their innocence, controlling the media coverage and shaping public opinion in ways that the prosecution cannot," he wrote. "But perhaps most significant, criminal defendants with public profiles typically enjoy a more robust presumption of innocence than everyday criminals do."
Rhetorically asking, "What to do?" he explained, "We count on criminal law to serve as a deterrent to malicious behavior. But Trump seems likely to evade it. Just as the protection of impeachment against mendacity has proven inadequate, criminal law will probably prove the same. And that means that the only real protection against Trump’s malignancy is the ballot box. Don’t invest too much hope in Merrick Garland. Even with the best of will (which I do not doubt he has), he can’t save democracy. Only we can."
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