The former president has a knack for avoiding consequences for his misbehavior.
With each new scandal involving Donald Trump, the question arises again: Is this the one that will finally exact some pain on the former president?
The question is in the air once more following the FBI’s seizure of top-secret documents from Mar-a-Lago last week. On the one hand, as both Trump’s allies and adversaries have noted, such a warrant on a former president is unprecedented, one of Trump’s lawyers reportedly told the government all files were returned prior to the search, and Trump has offered nonsensical defenses, all of which point to the seriousness of the situation. On the other, many cases involving mishandled classified information end without charges—just ask Hillary Clinton—and some experts speculate that the goal of the search may simply have been to recover the documents rather than to build a criminal case against Trump.
But because this case is only the latest in a string of scandals, the question can’t be separated from a broader context: Trump’s repeated ability to escape the most serious, and sometimes any, consequences for his serial misbehavior.
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Article URL:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/donald-j-trump-guide-getting-away-anything/671165/