Trump Dodged the Law. Here’s Who to Blame.

We have just witnessed the greatest failure of federal law enforcement in American history.

The reasons for Donald Trump’s reelection are numerous and will be hotly debated in the weeks ahead. But the story of his comeback cannot be told without seriously grappling with how he managed to outrun four criminal cases, including — most notably — the Justice Department’s prosecution over Trump’s alleged effort to overturn the 2020 election.

The two federal criminal cases against him are now dead as a practical matter. Already there is reporting suggesting that special counsel Jack Smith will leave his post and dismiss the pending cases, which is not that surprising considering that Trump pledged to fire him once back in office anyway. The Georgia case, an overhyped and misguided vehicle for post-2020 legal accountability, is going to remain on ice and perhaps get thrown out entirely in the coming years, at least as to Trump (if not his co-defendants). In Manhattan, where Trump was supposed to be sentenced in a matter of weeks after his conviction in the Stormy Daniels hush money case earlier this year, Trump is likely to ask the court to cancel the sentencing date; regardless of the mechanics, there is no reasonable scenario in which Trump serves some period of incarceration while also serving in the White House.

All of this will happen despite the majority of the public’s stated interest in concluding the criminal cases — the federal election subversion case in particular — as well as polling that suggested that Trump’s conviction early this year hurt his standing across the electorate and with independents in particular.

It is now clearer than ever that Garland was a highly questionable choice to serve as attorney general from the start. From the outset of the Biden presidency, it was readily apparent that Garland had little desire to investigate and potentially prosecute Trump.

It was no surprise, then, that Republican primary voters rallied around Trump. Perhaps it was inevitable, but it was certainly made easier by the fact that Trump’s supposed adversaries were all endorsing his legal defense as well as his false claims about the prosecutions themselves.

Last but most certainly not least: The Republican appointees on the Supreme Court bailed Trump out this year — in the heart of the general election campaign and when it mattered most.

The six Republican appointees — three of whom, of course, were appointed by Trump himself — sided with Trump on both counts.

They first slow-walked Trump’s appeal on immunity grounds this year and then created a new doctrine of criminal immunity for Trump that had no real basis in the law — effectively foreclosing the possibility of a trial before Election Day. It was a gross distortion of the law in apparent service of the Republican appointees’ partisan political objectives. LINK