Other countries have prosecuted their leaders. What took the U.S. so long?

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Donald Trump may be the first U.S. president to be indicted, but he's hardly the first in the world. Other democracies have prosecuted former leaders or even current ones. Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was convicted twice. Italy's former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, was prosecuted for corruption and found guilty. Argentina's current vice president, Cristina Kirchner, made headlines for a corruption trial just a few months ago. Benjamin Netanyahu - I could just keep throwing out names. But when Richard Nixon resigned in this country, he was pardoned. Bill Clinton was impeached but not prosecuted. Why has the U.S. been different up to now? James D. Long is on the line. He's a professor of political science at the University of Washington. He is on Skype at a ridiculously early hour. Welcome to the program, sir.

JAMES D LONG: Thank you, Steve, for having me.

INSKEEP: Thank you for joining us so early. First, are we really that different than other countries, given that the United States does prosecute other political leaders? We just haven't prosecuted a president.

LONG: That's a good question. I think what appears to make us different is that we - precisely what you said. We've never prosecuted the person at the very, very top. As you mentioned in your intro, it is very common for democracies to prosecute former leaders. And it appears to - becoming increasingly common. But this really is unprecedented in U.S. history, and think that is what makes the United States different - is we've allowed a lot of bad behavior and looked the other way with presidents in previous administrations. And I think now this really is the first time that it appears that a president or former president may be held to account for actions that they did before, during or after being in office.

INSKEEP: What is the case for looking the other way, as you put it?

LONG: Well, I think the case for looking the other way has always been that at any one moment, looking at what a president's done, pursuing a prosecution could be more traumatic than trying to hold the person to account. Certainly, that was sort of the thinking of Gerald Ford when he pardoned Richard Nixon. So then the question is, well, if you keep looking the other way over a long period of time, do you eventually develop sort of a moral hazard where any president can reasonably think that they could get away with something if they look at what their predecessors may have gotten away with?

INSKEEP: Is this case, Donald Trump, a little odd because it is not a huge case like, say, some charge stemming from the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol? It's a real crime, falsifying business records, but it doesn't touch on something he did while president, does not touch on any of the biggest issues of his administration. Does that make it a little strange?

LONG: Well, we should note that somebody has already served in jail for something related to this. That would be Michael Cohen. So it is a pretty serious violation of the law insofar as we understand it before hearing the specific charges. But think in a strange way, it might be weird because it isn't from potentially his time in office. And I think perhaps there's a greater appetite for allowing presidents to have more leeway when they're serving in office and the actions that they may have to take as president than what they did before or after. So in that way, it actually might be more of a serious thing for at least some of the public.

INSKEEP: Oh, I'm interested in what you're saying. When you say more of a serious thing, meaning that perhaps more of the public will see this as legitimate because he cannot have the excuse here that he was doing his duty as best he could or that he was following official duties or anything like that. He was not doing any such thing.

LONG: That's correct. I think the potential cases that the DOJ has been looking at related to January 6 and the Mar-a-Lago documents, the mishandling of documents - because those were things that he did do as president - and in his eyes, at least, he was doing it because he was president. And the president has to have certain ability to, you know, conduct themselves in a way that no other citizen has to worry about who's not president - that I think one of his defenses there could be that, well, this is what I had to do because I was president. But he won't have that defense insofar as we understand what the charges in Manhattan will be.

INSKEEP: Haven't there been other world leaders who have been put on trial and nevertheless have made their way back into power?

LONG: Yes. The current president of Brazil, Lula da Silva.

INSKEEP: Convicted of corruption only a few years ago, even spent time in jail and came back into power, won an election to come back into power. Can you imagine that happening in the United States?

LONG: Well, think it does touch on a broader issue, which is that we would probably think our intuition is that when leaders, heads of state, former heads of states are accused of doing things, indicted, perhaps even found guilty, that that would be a negative for them politically. But in a lot of ways, we can think of it as rallying their base if they can make the case that the prosecution has been overzealous or that they've been targeted for any specific reason or that their supporters have been targeted sort of en masse by having the person at the top targeted. I think it can be a rallying political cry that helps to generate a lot of support. And so think it's not necessarily politically damaging always, although whether or not it's politically damaging for Trump is yet to be seen.

INSKEEP: I think sometimes of James Michael Curley, the mayor of Boston, governor of Massachusetts, who went in and out of office even though he was going in and out of prison. Dr. Long, thanks so much for your time. Really appreciate it.

LONG: All right. Thanks, Steve.

INSKEEP: James D. Long, professor of political science at the University of Washington. He joined us by Skype. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.