You come at the mad king, you'd better not miss

I'm not worried about a Trump indictment. I am worried about a Trump acquittal.

It’s mid-afternoon on Tuesday as I write this, and so far we haven’t seen Donald Trump perp-walked.

If and when it happens, I’ll be torn between wishing I were still on Twitter, and relieved that I’m not on Twitter.

And yet…as long as I’ve been waiting for The Donald to finally face criminal charges, I’m kind of uneasy about the prospect.

Not because of fears about (or explicit threats of) violence from the Trump faithful. They might control one of America’s two major political parties, but not the rest of us. Saying Trump shouldn’t be indicted because of the feared backlash is the right-wing version of arguing that you shouldn’t publish cartoons of Muhammed because of fears of terrorist attac-er, I mean, because we should show sensitivity to the deeply held beliefs of millions of people around the world.

And it’s not because this might somehow help Trump politically. First of all, that shouldn’t factor into whether charges are warranted or not.

Plus, I don’t think it would help him politically, outside of the ride-or-die MAGA fanatics. For the “soft” Trump supporters now leaning toward DeSantis, it will yet more proof it’s time to move on.

No, my uneasiness is not about the prospect of Trump being indicted. It’s about Trump being acquitted.

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Just to clarify: I’m not saying Trump should be subjected to a show trial. The presumption of innocence applies even to him, and the burden of showing proof beyond a reasonable doubt applies to his prosecutors.

Prosecutors usually have some discretion about whether to proceed with charges depending on their opinion about whether a conviction is likely. You never know what’s going to happen at trial - I’ve worked on some cases that looked like slam-dunks only to fall apart in the courtroom, and conducted some apparent no-hoper trials which we actually won - but if the case looks like a loser for the state, it’s better not to waste everyone’s time and taxpayers’ money on it.

In other words: if they’re going to go ahead with this, they’d better think it’s a slam dunk. Because the consequences of Trump being indicted, put on trial and found not guilty would be much more devastating than not charging him in the first place.