Archive Link from archive.today
Original Link from The New York Times
They famously got Al Capone on tax evasion, and nobody thinks of him as “the tax cheat” first and foremost.
Besides, I suspect that this is a case where the floodgates are going to open up in terms of investigations and charges, once the first set sticks to him. There’s also the NY state fraud charges already filed, and the GA state election tampering investigation that is widely expected to lead to charges.
I suppose that’s a good point about Al Capone. Though he famously had people murdered in the streets and everyone knew it. With Trump, he has a whole army of deniers who will try bend history to make him a hero.
If he were indicted and convicted on his most serious crimes (subversion, bribery, attempted extortion of foreign heads of state, etc), it would be harder for his cultists to rewrite history.
Either way, I’m glad he’s facing the music on something, anything.
Alas, I think that history has some dismal lessons for us on how the die-hard MAGA crowd are going to keep carrying water for their guy, as (among other things) it’s been almost 160 years since the end of the Civil War and lost-causers are still out, loud, and proud. The best we can hope for is a thorough public reckoning for Trump via the court system, that will strip away as many of his persuadable low-information followers as possible.
