Many experts doubt the ultimate ability of the criminal justice system to convict Donald Trump because it’s possible he really believed he’d won the election.
The argument goes this way: His conduct — trying to overturn a legitimate election — may look like a crime, but was there criminal intent? If he is so much of a sociopath that he believes his own Big Lie (or, to state it with the sort of constitutional precision utterly foreign to him, there is a reasonable doubt whether he has that belief), could he wriggle out of culpability?
He can’t — or he shouldn’t. Intent in a criminal case depends on the defendant’s state of mind about a specific criminal act, not an overall state of affairs. That’s “hornbook law” — so basic it doesn’t require citation for law students. And it should satisfy the “he really believed it” concerns about the criminal charges Trump may face.
