Benjamin Netanyahu has just been criminally indicted, and Donald Trump is next
For the past several weeks we’ve been watching the Israeli electoral process play out as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has twisted in the wind. He tried and failed to form a governing coalition that might have kept him in power. Then his rival tried to do the same. Yesterday it became clear that a whole new election might be on the horizon. If Netanyahu wants to try to run again, let’s just say that things got a lot more complicated for him.
For quite some time it’s been clear that Netanyahu was going to be criminally indicted on charges including bribery and corruption. The big question was whether the government would wait until after he was ousted from power. But now that Israel may be about to hold a new election, the government has gone ahead and officially indicted Netanyahu today.
This will force Netanyahu to at least consider the possibility of agreeing to step down in exchange for some degree of leniency. He can also try to remain in power as a way of trying to shield himself from arrest, but he’s facing an election that he’s unlikely to win – and if he loses, he’ll be dragged out by his ankles and arrested. There’s also a movement to strip him of his immunity and arrest him now, while he’s still in office.
This is a stunning bad development for Donald Trump. It’s not just that Netanyahu was his corrupt far-right ally and partner in crime. It’s that this helps set the precedent for how Trump could go down. Trump is also in the process of being indicted on state charges by a New York grand jury. He’s also running in an election that he’ll have a hard time winning. We don’t know if New York will indict Trump while he’s still in office. But Trump’s buddy Netanyahu just got indicted while he was still in office. Trump now has yet another thing to worry about.
