WASHINGTON — Attorney General Merrick Garland is rapidly approaching a choice likely to shape American politics and the boundaries of law enforcement for decades: whether Donald Trump will be the first former U.S. president charged with a crime.
Garland has nothing but hard choices. The nation is split, a bare 47% to 43% plurality backing criminal charges for mishandling classified documents, according to an Aug. 29-Sept. 1 Marist poll. Trump, who is mulling another run for the presidency in 2024, is already openly raising the possibility of dark consequences in the event of an indictment.
Asked last week by conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt whether he would be indicted, Trump said, “If it happened, I think you’d have problems in this country the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen before.”
