Why is it that in countries like Britain and South Korea, influential figures can face the consequences of their actions, yet the highest office in the United States seems impervious to similar accountability?
In the United Kingdom, the individual previously known as Prince Andrew has been detained on allegations of sharing confidential information with Jeffrey Epstein, highlighting a significant legal development. Meanwhile, in South Korea, after attempting to seize control through martial law, former President Yoon Suk Yeol has been sentenced to life in prison. This follows his impeachment and ousting from power.
In contrast, Donald Trump remains largely unscathed by such repercussions.
Andrew’s legal troubles have been a long time coming, culminating in his arrest following the release of the Epstein files. This marks a significant moment in holding a high-profile figure to account.
In South Korea, lawmakers showed remarkable courage, overcoming physical barriers to oppose Yoon’s martial law declaration. Their dedication led to his impeachment and subsequent court rulings, exemplifying the principles of a functioning democracy. The verdicts extended beyond Yoon to include figures like former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, acknowledging that authoritarian attempts are not solitary endeavors and require a network of enablers to undermine democratic values.
In Korea, committed lawmakers had to brave soldiers and scale fences to vote down Yoon’s declaration, then use political capital to impeach him. The legislature did its part, as did the courts, in a marker of how democracy is supposed to work. Verdicts came down not only against Yoon but those who had facilitated his attempted power grab, including former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, in recognition that attempted authoritarians never work alone to subvert democracies.
In this country, Trump wants to retcon the narrative of the 2020 election and his own attempted insurrection, which culminated in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
The recent raiding of an election office in Georgia’s Fulton County, one of the loci of Trump’s delusions, is a marker that he has no plans to stop pushing his lie about his election loss, now armed with the full apparatus of the federal government. Consequently, he wants all of us to consider the question of his culpability in the insurrection settled; the second impeachment failed to convict and the federal criminal cases went nowhere, and that’s the end of it.
Yet that’s not necessarily true. The prosecution was significantly delayed by the Supreme Court’s asinine decision to give a president blanket immunity over diffuse “official acts,” but it was still moving forwards until Trump was elected again in 2024. That doesn’t erase the crimes against the constitutional and democratic foundation of the country.
Trump has attacked the free press and law firms and independent universities. He’s deployed the military and federal agents against cities with a mandate to round up people based on little more than appearance. And he’s dismantled huge parts of the government, often openly defying the federal courts to do all of the above.
This is but a tiny fraction of Trump’s impeachable offenses, which come at a weekly if not daily clip, and which Congress must act on. It might take a changeover in control after the midterms, but it is their responsibility as a co-equal branch to seek justice against a lawless president.
South Korea has demonstrated that it is not only possible but necessary for the social fabric and the survival of a democratic state to uphold the rule of law for everyone, even a president. So has Brazil, which has imprisoned former President Jair Bolsonaro for his own attempted coup, even if it similarly took years.
Andrew’s brother Charles sits on the throne, but the king says that the “full, fair and proper process” must follow and “the law must take its course.”
It should be the same here.
