Even before Trump goes on trial

When the Supreme Court took up the issue of presidential immunity, it became even more doubtful that the former president’s criminal trials could be completed before election day. So what is a voter to do without a trial? I say, look to information that can be relied upon with confidence. We all experienced the horror of Jan. 6, 2021. Many of the 91 counts charged against the president in various indictments relate to the events of that day.

But what do we know without a trial? We know a lot. We know from uncontroverted reports that a United States president who had just lost his reelection bid did the following:

1) Prior to Jan. 6, he summoned his supporters to the White House saying, “It’s gonna be wild.”

2) On Jan. 6, he exhorted the assembled crowd to march on the Capitol.

3) He further exhorted them to demand Congress not accept Electoral College results submitted by the states.

4) He then watched on television, along with the rest of the nation, while a crowd broke through the police barricades around the Capitol and then broke into the Capitol itself, injuring many police guards in the process.

5) We know that for hours, the former president did nothing to protect the Capitol, nothing to assist the police defending the Capitol, and nothing to protect the lives of the entire Congress trying to do its official business.

6) We know that when the former president finally asked the rioters to go home, they obeyed – almost immediately.

7) We know that some criminal defendants, in their Jan. 6 trials, stated they believed they were working on behalf of the president. This may explain why the crowd left promptly on command.

As voters we wonder: Could all the physical injury to police officers, all the damage to the Capitol itself, and all the endangerment of the lives of Congress members, their staffs and Capitol employees – could all of it have been avoided by an early directive to the crowd to stand down? And why did the former president not so much as try?

Finally, as voters we ask, why did the former president never order reinforcements to the Capitol even though he saw what was happening with his own eyes? Was it not his most basic duty as president to do so?

Did this dereliction of duty at such a critical time violate a specific criminal statute? Maybe yes, maybe no. Regardless, as voters, do we once more entrust the vital job of president of the United States to this person? Or do we apply the old adage, “Fool me once”?

As voters, we do not need a criminal conviction to answer these questions.

Shunji Asari was an appellate prosecutor with the California Attorney General’s office for 20 years before becoming a florist in Anacortes for 20 years. After retirement, he moved to Shelter Bay in 2015.