Every savvy promoter knows that building anticipation with preliminaries is a smart way to increase the interest of the audience leading up to the main event. That’s why theaters show movie previews before the feature film and why concert bookers have a lesser-known band play before the headliner. It’s the reason that JV teams play before the varsity takes the field.
Special Counsel Jack Smith is not a showman by any stretch of the imagination. But he understands the strategy of building a crowd. As historic and as tumultuous and as earthshaking as the 37-count indictment he filed against former President Trump last week will be for all of us, it actually is just the prelude for an even more cataclysmic legal and political battle that will soon follow.
There is no precedent in American history for even a single federal indictment to be leveled against either a former president or a presidential frontrunner — let alone more than three dozen – and so it is impossible to predict the tests our country will face as the case against Trump progresses.
It’s clear from the first analyses of the allegations against Trump that extraordinarily sensitive national security intelligence may have been compromised. But given the historic nature of these charges, little attention is being paid to the other investigation that Smith is leading, which is also likely to result in additional criminal charges against the former president. And legal action against Trump for his role in the January 6 Capitol riots is likely to be even more explosive.
The confidential documents that Trump took with him from the White House are undoubtedly of significant military and diplomatic import. But even though their potential impact on the nation’s safety is tremendous, that possible danger has not yet been realized (at least to our knowledge). So the impact is still theoretical and therefore less tangible for most of us. The violence of January 6 has left a more visceral imprint on the country’s psyche, and although many of Trump’s most loyal supporters now dismiss the import of the events of that day, most of the American public does understand the nature of the threat that was posed to our government by those who stormed the Capitol.
The feelings on both sides of this fight are much deeper and rawer. Trump’s critics see January 6 as a fundamental assault on our democracy and the attack as an act of sedition against the United States. His defenders echo his claims that those who came to the Capitol on his behalf were mostly unarmed patriotic Americans protesting an unfair decision against their candidate. But by the time Congress voted to ratify Joe Biden’s election long after midnight, the violence and destruction had left a permanent stain on our national psyche.
By contrast, this current battle is about… paper. Important and top-secret paper, to be sure, but paper nonetheless. The potential damage that could occur should any of the confidential information stored at Mar-a-Lago have fallen into the wrong hands is catastrophic. But at this moment, the consequences of Trump’s recklessness with those documents are still unknown. On the other hand, the harm done by the mob that invaded the Capitol is something that most Americans have seen and felt. For most of us, those scars have never fully healed, and a prolonged public clash over Trump’s culpability for the events of that day will reopen those wounds.
Because emotions run much more deeply over the January 6 assault, those legal charges will lead to an even more divisive political brawl than the one that has just gotten underway. As hard as it might be to believe, this current fight is merely the undercard for the even more bruising one to follow.
In the not-too-distant future, we’re likely to see indictments regarding January 6 that will open an even uglier chapter in this already wrenching saga.
It’s impossible to predict when Smith might move on this second front. But in the not-too-distant future, we’re likely to see indictments regarding January 6 that will open an even uglier chapter in this already wrenching saga. We moved beyond any plausible precedents some time ago: this is uncharted political and societal territory.
Dan Schnur is the U.S. Politics Editor for the Jewish Journal. He is a Professor at the UC Berkeley, USC and Pepperdine. Join Dan for his monthly webinar “The Dan Schnur Political Report” (www.lawacth.org) on the first Tuesday of the month at 5 PM PST. Follow Dan’s work at www.danschnurpolitics.com
