People are lying out their ass because they hate Donald Trump so much they will destroy everything good in this country to "get him".

Not realizing they are opening Pandora's box in their arrogance.

When it comes to Trump, people seem to be blind to the effects of soft power. Trump is beloved by his base in a way no other president in the last 100 years is.

The danger of this half-assed prosecution to the republic is fucking enormous, I'm actually scared.

Trump's "base" doesn't particularly matter. They'll continue on in denial/spite regardless of what happens. The damage they themselves can do is limited, as long as we have functioning law enforcement.

The only way we're getting out of the larger situation is for Republicans and independents to realize that Trump is/was just another basic grifter capitalizing on frustration with the system. Just because someone is despised by the people at the country club doesn't mean they're your friend. While we're hungry for reform, this doesn't mean that every type of change is a step in the right direction. And despite the suffocating dynamic, there's actually a damn good reason we've come to expect that politicians should be a bit neutered. Ultimately true conservatism for the American status quo that we've come to take for granted, as much as it pains my past self to write that.

Trump’s base scares the hell out of DC for very good reason.

“Jan 6th but an actual insurrection with guns and political/military leaders”

Or

“Southwestern sheriff decides to expel illegal immigrants on his own, requests ‘MAGA patriots’ to come on down and get deputized, atrocities ensue, feds get involved and it spirals into a state vs federal fiasco (which sounds fanfic but Abbott and DeSantis are clearly sympathetic to the idea)”

I honestly think that the second scenario or at least another Malheur Wildlife Refuge/Waco style standoff is only a matter of time - and judging by DoJ’s public priorities, they’re extremely concerned about it as well.

What about the rule of law? Isn't it important? Isn't it possible that Trump committed a crime and should be prosecuted?

There has been an 8-year witch hunt looking for a way to shut Trump down, with 10s of millions of dollars spent accessing and scrutinising his affairs looking for a legal attack vector. Likely no politician could have withstood that level of scrutiny without some sort of technically-illegal activity turning up.

A big part of the rule of law is treating people equally. Given the lead up, this is probably a question of selective persecution.

"some sort of technically-illegal" is a funny way to describe a combined lawfare coup / violent coup attempt.

Meh, he's an ex-president. Of course indicting him is political. Not indicting him would be also political. It's not like there's a "non-political" Oracle that will tell us the most impartial course of action.

I don’t.

He committed crimes, drew a bunch of attention to himself, and here we are. I don’t think it’s any more complicated than that.

In a sense, any prosecution of a political figure can be considered political. But what's the alternative? Treating political figures as immune from criminal prosecution? What would that mean for the rule of law? And what would that mean for our expectations of our leadership -- who, if anything, should be held to a higher standard as model actors for our society and our children?

The alternative would be for prosecutors to focus their attention proportionally to `severity of crime * prior probability of guilt`. In an ideal world, you'd see Democratic prosecutors going after Democrats and Republicans going after Republicans just as often as the opposite. But I have no clue how to get from our current world to that world.

In an ideal world you wouldn't have a partisan justice system, just that aspect of the USA's justice system is already pretty bizarre.

In the sense that they are trying to get him for things that they would never even consider charging a Democrat for, yes.

That doesn't mean he did or did not do something illegal. The difference is Hillary/etc. can't be prosecuted for anything.

How many campaign finance skeletons do you think most of the big politicians have in their closets that will never be investigated much less prosecuted?

At the very least we have to concede that investigation and likelihood of prosecution is proportional to the noise that is made in the media and by vocal voices. It's a thousand tiny little decisions that affect the direction on the aggregate.

I'm trying to keep this comment impartial. But I want to note that right now there is a huge belief that the media and companies and the wider "acceptable" social narrative are biased against a lot of the core beliefs that people on the right align to. I too hold that belief, and I've yet to see sufficient proof to convince me otherwise.

You combine these two wide points, and I'd argue that we should sympathize with those people and not call them "crazy conspiratists" for trying to shed light on this. It's actually a difficult to prove and isolate, second-order type of conclusion.

In the sense that a former president of the US was just indicted for the first time ever, yes, it's political. By definition, in fact.

However, to engage in a counterfactual: would I expect in the scenario that a different president not eligible for reelection were to generate the same fact pattern as Trump to also be indicted? Or another scenario: a politician who is eligible for reelection to a different lower office?

Yes, in both cases.

In other words, by virtue of Trump's position I think special care and thought was taken to make sure things are on the up and up. I think prosecutors are smart people and generally are aware and thoughtful about the position they are in. I do not think they are pursuing this issue with extra vigor because Trump is Trump.