For Trump, 'Lock her up!' becomes 'Let me be!' 

This summer will mark seven years since the Republican National Convention in Cleveland where delegates ferociously chanted “Lock her up!” to taunt Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president.

That has all come full circle. Twice-impeached, twice-indicted and recently deemed liable for a sexual assault, Donald Trump, a one-term president, cries out: “Political persecution!” Clinton, whom he once defeated, gets to laugh.

Remember Jeff Sessions, Trump’s first attorney general? During his 2017 confirmation hearing, Sessions told the Senate that due to his role in the Trump campaign he'd recuse himself from any Department of Justice investigations of Clinton.

“This country does not punish its political enemies,” Sessions added. Trump became disenchanted with the archconservative former senator from Alabama after he refused to weaponize the Justice Department on his president’s behalf to fend off a special counsel's Russia-collusion probe.

Things didn’t end any better with Trump’s next attorney general, William Barr. This despite Barr’s effort to favorably spin the famous Mueller report. Barr quit the administration in December 2020 as Trump tried to nullify his election defeat. Of the current, detailed charges, Barr said: "If even half of it is true, then he's toast.”

But no mere fact would have stopped Trump from saying falsely Tuesday at his Bedminster, New Jersey resort following his Florida arraignment: “Today we witnessed the most evil and heinous abuse of power in the history of this country." He added this triple axel of deceit: “A corrupt sitting president had his top political opponent arrested on fake and fabricated charges in which he and other presidents would've been guilty of — right in the middle of a presidential campaign in which he was losing badly."

First of all, Trump calls all possible rivals “corrupt.” It’s like a tic. Second, he claims President Joe Biden had him arrested; that's how Trump still tells people the Justice Department does business. Never mind that there’s no way to know 17 months in advance who wins an election.

Remember: This is the same pol who tried in 2019 to leverage American aid to Ukraine to pressure its president into announcing a political “investigation” of putative challenger Biden.

That sloppy transgression sparked Trump’s first impeachment. He was acquitted of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress because the Senate’s GOP majority was by design a rigged jury.

All that made Tuesday just another day in Trump's shrinking world. Also true to form, Biden declined comment. For legal and electoral reasons, the current president effectively rebukes Trump's public relations strategy by keeping his mouth shut. 

Biden has good reason; the Justice Department and the GOP-run House are probing the past shady doings of his adult son, Hunter Biden.

Meanwhile, Republicans want to equate Trump's defiance of authorities over nuclear documents with Clinton's email sloppiness. But Clinton was never charged; Justice Department professionals decided the facts didn't call for it. Trump has been charged, however, because the facts seem to offer little choice.

Trump’s lingering relevance now stems from his influence over a minority of the electorate. Is he running again as a shield against prosecution? As a candidate, he maintains the ability to poison reputations and call it "counterpunching."

If this is the beginning of the end for Trump, it won’t be because he was too scrupulous to incite his flock. We know this much from his long years among us.

Columnist Dan Janison's opinions are his own.

By Dan Janison

dan.janison@newsday.comDanJanison

Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.