Donald Trump is at it again
Remorse is an important element of justice. Judges look for evidence of remorse in newly convicted defendants when handing down criminal sentences. One stark clue of absent remorse is if the defendant continues to offend even after they are caught and put on trial.
Donald Trump will be one defendant for whom remorse for his crimes will be difficult, if not impossible, to establish. For example, instead of immediately apologising and returning the classified documents he stole, he instead has continued to insist that they’re his, that they were planted by the FBI, or that they instantly ceased being classified because he said so. He disdainfully refers to the men and women investigating his January 6th crimes as the “unselect committee.” He insults and belittles the wife of Jack Smith, the man chosen by the Attorney General as independent counsel to investigate him.
And now, after coming under investigation for fomenting an insurrection for encouraging an angry and armed mob to storm the Capitol and interfere with the confirmation of Joe Biden as President, he’s at it again. This time Donald Trump is insisting, despite losing in a close vote, that Kari Lake be “installed as Governor of Arizona” because of “broken voting machines.” Kari Lake agrees with him, of course.
Monday morning Trump took to “Truth” Social and insisted that there were, “Massive numbers of ‘BROKEN’ voting machines in Republican Districts on Election Day,” and that “Mechanics sent in to ‘FIX’ them made them worse.”
As with the 2020 election, this is a continuation of the rhetoric that began before any votes were cast. When the polls made it clear that, as with the presidential election, the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election would be close, Trump joined Lake in insisting without evidence that the election was “rigged.” In so doing he could immediately and with a breathtaking absence of sportsmanship insist that Lake won anyway, just as he did in 2020.
Trump’s ego had to kick in, of course. He also insisted that the Arizona election was “almost as bad” as the 2020 presidential election. No supposed outrage committed against anyone else could possibly be as bad as the one committed against him. Nobody suffers like poor Donald Trump.
Trump’s unrestrained hubris will come back to haunt him. If he’s ever convicted of any of his almost uncountable major crimes then by the time of his sentencing it will be too late to claim remorse. His sentence will be all the more severe on that account. And at Trump’s age, any sentence of any significance is a life sentence almost by definition. I, for one, am glad. So keep it up, Donald Trump. Keep it up. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.