The historic—yet entirely predictable—indictment of Donald J. Trump
BY NANCY GIBBS
AN INDEPENDENTLY wealthy Republican President is tossed out of office after a single term amid massive economic hardship and fears of political violence. There are rumors he was under surveillance or about to be arrested. Relentless, bitter, appalled at his Democratic successor, he stews in his elegant midtown Manhattan suite, plotting his next move. Except it was not Trump Tower but the Waldorf-Astoria, and the ex-President was Herbert Hoover.
But in this case, history neither repeats itself nor rhymes. Hoover not only respected the presidency, he honored it in his postpresidency. When Franklin Roosevelt announced a bank holiday immediately after his Inauguration, Hoover declared he should “receive the wholehearted support of every citizen.” A decade later, when 100 million people in Europe were at risk of starving, Harry Truman enlisted Hoover’s help managing postwar relief; together they probably saved more lives than any other two figures of the 20th century.
Most ex-Presidents enter post-Oval life bearing scars and regrets. Some take up painting; some lean into atonement. “We all have sorrows,” as Jimmy Carter told me. Or as the prayer of confession puts it, Presidents often leave office haunted by what they have done and what they left undone. The libraries, the foundations and philanthropies, even the memoirs, serve both as explanation and expiation, as their legacies settle and harden.
Such public service, whether in the name of politics or penitence, has been more the rule than the exception of modern ex-Presidents, and so it becomes one more norm that Donald Trump breaks as he enters his long expected season of legal accountability. That he would be the first President ever indicted is both historic and predictable—as is the chance he also will be the second, third, and even fourth, in multiple jurisdictions over myriad criminal charges.
The odds were never great that Trump would see his postpresidency as a chance to serve the public good, having not seen the presidency that way. He never showed that he felt the weight of the office and its fateful duties; it was more a profit center, a platform for shakedowns and ego strokes. The postpresidency is a platform for, as he put it, “retribution.” Plus, sales.
AND THIS IS the ongoing damage he does, the careless splashing of paint stripper on the majesty of the American presidency. His peers were not perfect; but few were vandals. Other President
