It’s Moment of Truth for GOP after Trump Video Scandal and His Threat to Imprison Clinton
By Chris Edelson, Assistant Professor, AU School of Public Affairs
This blog was originally published by MarketWatch.com on Oct 10, 2016. Chris Edelson is an assistant professor of government in American University’s School of Public Affairs. Edelson will talk about presidential power and his new book, “Power Without Constraint: The Post 9/11 Presidency and National Security,” during a Facebook Live event on Oct. 20 at 11:30 a.m. Visit American University’s Facebook page for more information.
Over the weekend, I suggested that the 2005 video showing Donald Trump bragging about his star power as a celebrity giving him license to sexually assault women raised important questions about what Trump would do as president. During Sunday night’s debate, Trump made it even clearer how this could be a problem when he threatened to put Hillary Clinton in jail if he is elected president.
Trump was giving his base the reddest of red meat to savor. Supporters who have chanted “lock her up” surely exulted when their candidate promised to do just that to his opponent. To others, though, Trump’s threat crossed a line and posed a threat to democracy itself. FBI Director James Comey, a lawyer who previously served as a top Justice Department official in the George W. Bush administration, has already concluded there is no basis for prosecution related to Clinton’s email controversy. Legal determinations like this — decisions as to whether to bring prosecutions — are supposed to be insulated from political considerations. But Trump has politicized the matter by not only declaring he would re-open the matter but that he has already reached a conclusion — that Clinton would go to prison.
The idea that elected officials would put their political opponents in jail is something we normally associate with authoritarian regimes. For instance, Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin has been criticized for prosecutions that landed his political rivals and critics behind bars. This isn’t the only way in which Trump has been compared with Putin. Garry Kasparov, the Russian chess champion and a fierce critic of Putin’s, suggested Sunday night that Trump’s checklist when taking office as president would be: “1 Jail opponent. 2 Media crackdown. 3 Support [Syrian dictator] Assad. Coincidentally, that was also Putin’s checklist.”
Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, seemed to understand that Trump’s threat to imprison Clinton was a bridge too far; she claimed after the debate that it was merely a “quip”. In fact, it’s impossible to take Conway’s defense seriously. Trump’s tone was anything but joking, and the candidate himself has highlighted his threat by posting on Facebook the stark message “She would be in jail.” above the quoted excerpt from last night’s debate where he made his threat to Clinton.
I have two initial reactions to Trump’s dangerous threat to turn the federal justice system into his own personal mechanism for carrying out political vendettas. First, it seems like Clinton missed an opportunity to eviscerate Trump. When he threatened her, she might have responded by saying something like “Donald, you’re a bully. I know that has worked for you at many times during your life. You bullied Alicia Machado, you bullied two Gold Star parents, you bullied your way through the primaries. That stops now. You can’t threaten me, and you can’t and won’t bully your way into the White House.” Of course, it’s easy for me to put those words together now. In the heat of last night’s debate, it would be a different story.
Moreover, Clinton could argue, she succeeded simply by letting Trump’s over-the-top words speak for themselves. Trump’s threat is dominating coverage of the debate. Even some Republicans say Trump went too far. Former George W. Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said “winning candidates don’t threaten to put opponents in jail”. Former Romney strategist Stuart Stevens tweeted: “Only time I’ve ever heard a candidate threatening to jail his opponent was in the Congo. He lost [and] was later convicted of war crimes.” Post-debate polls suggest voters see Clinton as the winner of last night’s debate.
My second reaction has to do with how Trump’s own party will respond. Over the weekend, Republican elected officials began breaking with Trump over his obscene comments in the 2005 video. Some were calling on him to drop out of the race. It seemed possible that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and perhaps even Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, might join the flood of Republicans running away from the party’s presidential candidate. Now, however, after Trump energized his base by threatening to jail his opponent, Pence issued a statement congratulating Trump on his performance in the debate and saying he is proud to stand with the Republican presidential nominee. This is a serious mistake. Trump has made very clear that he would be a dangerous president if elected.
Elected officials sometimes speak of putting country above party. Now is the time for Trump’s fellow Republicans to demonstrate those words have meaning by refusing to stand with Trump. Paul Ryan seems to recognize this; he reportedly told House Republicans Monday morning that he won’t continue to defend Trump and instead will spend his time working to defend Republican majorities in Congress. This is a promising first step. Hopefully others will follow Ryan’s lead, and Ryan himself will go further by expressly concluding Trump is unfit to stand for office.
