Does freedom itself depend on the outcome of this election? Donald Trump's probably does

Donald Trump is at a pivotal point in his personal history. For him, the upshot of the election will be either a series of criminal prosecutions likely to result in incarceration or a few legal nuisances that he can largely or completely dismiss.

A victory for Kamala Harris next week would leave Trump with no new cards to play against the juggernaut of criminal cases already pending against him. We could expect turnover at the highest ranks of the Department of Justice, up to and including Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland. But the new leadership would be nearly certain to retain special counsel Jack Smith, who has earned high marks for his aggressive pursuit of Trump’s alleged federal crimes.

That would allow Smith to continue to pursue the two prosecutions he has brought against the former president: one for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election, culminating with the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol; the other for purloining government documents and obstructing the authorities’ efforts to recover them from his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.

As a matter of sheer legal merit, the latter is the strongest of all the criminal cases against Trump. The evidence is overwhelming that Trump absconded with documents he had no right to possess as an ex-president and then engaged in a nearly two-year stonewalling of the federal government’s entirely legitimate efforts to get them back. His alleged obstruction included lying about the extent of his compliance with a federal subpoena and ordering his co-conspirators to hide documents that he knew the government wanted. And for all we know, his sloppy, selfish handling of sensitive information about national security may have put U.S. assets at grave risk.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-10-31/donald-trump-kamala-harris-election-2024-crime-courts-immunity-sentencing-jan-6-jack-smith-harry-litman