Accountability for elected officials is a common feature of democracy

[Nevilledog]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/03/20/trump-ny-indictment-foreign-countries/

No paywall
https://archive.is/DiIOj

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) is one of Donald Trump’s most stalwart defenders in Congress. He supported Trump’s efforts to retain power despite his loss in the 2020 presidential election, to the extent that he refused to comply with a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the ensuing Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. The committee later recommended that he face an ethics investigation.

Given both his loyalty to the former president and his demonstrated antipathy to the mechanics of democracy, it’s not surprising that he would rush to Trump’s defense as the specter of a possible indictment looms. In a tweet published over the weekend, Biggs suggested that potential prosecutions like the one Trump faces “only occur in third world authoritarian nations.”

That is very much not the case.

We can begin in France, which is neither a “third world” nor authoritarian nation. It is a modern, developed democracy. And, in the past decade, multiple former political leaders have been convicted on charges of corruption.

In June 2020, it was former prime minister François Fillon, once a leading contender for the country’s presidency. Less than a year later, it was former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s turn. In each case, mirroring Trump and his allies, supporters of the convicted men argued that the investigations into them had been politically motivated or tainted by politics — if nothing else establishing that casting probes as political is what happens in developed democracies.

*snip*

[SheltieLover]

1. Absolutely!