Two legal events on opposite sides of the Caribbean have made it clear to me why former President Donald Trump’s been calling Caracas a “very safe” city.
It’s not because Venezuela’s capital is, as he says, crime-free. (It’s frighteningly crime-ridden.) It’s because he knows it’s a place he could potentially take refuge in.
Consider that last week, U.S. special prosecutor Jack Smith submitted his revised indictment of Trump for his alleged conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election he lost — including inciting the violent mob that attacked Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.
Then recall that the week before, the Venezuelan Supreme Court approved socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro’s brazen and brutal theft of a July 28 presidential election that all evidence shows he lost by a landslide.
Should Trump face prosecution here, he knows he can seek safe haven there.
Not that Trump faces trial for sure, of course.
Smith had to tweak his indictment to accommodate the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling, in a case titled (surprise!)Trump v. United States, that presidents enjoy broad immunity from criminal prosecution for acts committed while in office as part of their duties. Smith now has to show Trump perpetrated his assault-and-battery on the U.S. Constitution as a candidate instead of as commander-in-chief.
The indictment still faces an uphill climb, because the conservative justices’ new, reckless notion of presidential immunity looks a lot like a Monopoly Get Out Of Jail Free card. And what’s most disturbing about it is how it seems to indulge presidential actions in the White House that we usually look for in the extrajudicial deeds of dictators.
Like Nicolás Maduro.
Trump’s narcissistic eye undoubtedly sees the U.S. Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision as the same sort of back-room, transactional favor Venezuela’s lapdog Supreme Court did for Maduro by validating his preposterous victory claim.
And if Trump wins a new term in November, he’ll no doubt take that decision as a nod to executive carte blanche — an untouchability that would make him feel right at home behind Maduro’s desk in Caracas’ Miraflores palace.
But what’s even more disturbing is howchévere, or cool, a despot like Maduro would regard the U.S. Supreme Court’s outlook. Should Smith’s recalibrated indictment get dismissed because of the extra layer of Teflon that Trump now wears on top of his tanning product, it’s hard not to imagine hoodlum heads of state from Nicaragua to North Korea grinning like wife beaters watching the O.J. Simpson verdict.
If U.S. presidents can get away with trying to steal elections, they’ll confide over vodka shots with Vladimir Putin, why should we feel guilty about actually stealing them?
If the country that nags me day after day about constitutional rule of law rolls out the judicial red carpet for a constitutional scofflaw like Trump, says Maduro — or Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega, or Cuba’s communist regime, or El Salvador’s ruffian Nayib Bukele, or Mexico’s authoritarian Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or Peru’s aspiring autocrat Dina Boluarte — then I can tell Amnesty International to get the hell off my lawn.
That’s not the only bad optic, though.
It’s bad enough the U.S. Supreme Court risks dealing Trump the same sort of imperial hand López Obrador holds in Mexico. But consider that right now, the Mexican Supreme Court looks like the braver bench in comparison. It’s fending off López Obrador’s dark bid to put Mexico’s entire judicial system under his thumb — because it had the cojones to limit his powers.
Brazil’s Supreme Court, too, is showing a reassuring wariness of presidential exemption. This year, it approved the indictment of former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro for allegedly falsifying his COVID-19 vaccination status during the pandemic.
Bolsonaro is also being investigated for inciting a January 2023 riot in an attempt to overturn his own re-election loss. If he’s indicted for that alleged crime, there’s little concern in Brazil that he’ll be handed a free pass on grounds that whipping up a bug-eyed usurper horde was just part of his official presidential portfolio.
As for Trump and Jan. 6, Smith’s new indictment could actually stick, too.
If so, Trump knows he’ll at least have Caracas as a “very safe” place to run to.
Tim Padgett is the Americas editor forWLRN, covering Latin America, the Caribbean and their key relationship with South Florida. Contact him at tpadgett@wlrnnews.org.
