Many court parallels for Trump and Putin

As of Tuesday, two of the most prominent political figures in the world — both probably in the top five when comes to visibility and influence — face pending criminal charges issued by courts in New York City. Moreover, despite vast differences in personal background and political system, the two accused men have remarkable similarities as populist leaders and cult figures who represent a backlash against liberalism.

And in both cases, the charges may be more important for their symbolism than their practical effect.

Those accused men are former United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On March 17, the International Criminal Court, based in Manhattan, issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest for war crimes in Ukraine — specifically, the abduction of Ukrainian children transported to Russia after the invasion.

On April 4, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg unsealed an indictment in which Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records while paying hush money to an adult film star and reimbursing the National Enquirer publisher to conceal past sexual relationships to avoid scandal during the 2016 election.

In a sense, the cases are obviously incommensurate: financial improprieties and campaign-finance violations versus kidnapping children to destroy their national identity.

Yet there are also striking parallels between the cases against two men who have often been portrayed as a cross-border tandem of sorts — and whose political personas are both profoundly different and uncannily similar.

Putin is a former KGB officer who rose to power in post-Soviet Russia as a protégé of other powerful politicians and then transformed a fledgling, weak democracy into a dictatorship with rigged elections. Trump is a businessman who won a free and fair election and then lost a reelection bid — and who, for all his norm-flouting, operates within a constitutional system more than 200 years old. But on a fundamental level, both men are authoritarian leaders who appeal to resentment and grievance while promising to restore past greatness.

Both flaunt their contempt for “elite” liberal values and promote a “might is right” mentality.

At least, Trump’s instinct for control is curbed by the American political and judicial system.

The two criminal cases also have their parallels. Both are regarded as flagrantly illegitimate — and flagrantly political — by the two defendants’ respective bases. Both cases are regarded as shaky by some experts. The case against Trump is based on a novel legal theory that reclassifies a misdemeanor as a felony to get around statute of limitations issues. The case against Putin is brought in a court whose jurisdiction is not recognized by Russia — or by the United States.

What’s more, in both cases, the charged offenses are dwarfed by the defendants’ other alleged crimes. The abduction of Ukrainian children is horrific, but it arguably pales next to Russia’s bombings of civilian targets, including a drama theater in Mariupol prominently marked to indicate that children were sheltered inside. Trump’s payoffs and financial shenanigans are tawdry but inconsequential next to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. And, in both cases, the present charges are a prelude to more serious ones working their way through various legal systems.

To some extent, the charges in both cases have symbolic significance. Outside each defendant’s hard-core base, they mark both Trump and Putin as pariahs, not legitimate leaders. In both cases, there is hope that this mark of criminality will sink a seemingly unsinkable political career. In each case, the outcome remains profoundly uncertain.

Opinions expressed by Cathy Young, a cultural studies fellow at the Cato Institute, are her own.

By Cathy Young

Cathy Young is a writer for The Bulwark.