Think back on the outrage over Ginni Thomas’s text messages to Mark Meadows egging him on to overturn the 2020 election, or her emails to Republican Arizona state lawmakers, or her other fascist “activist” work that was reported publicly over the last year or so. A lot of National Zero readers angrily reacted in the comments here, saying she should be prosecuted for it. They were not wrong to be upset. She should burn in hell for being such an evil cow and hopefully she will.

But what did she do that was illegal? More importantly, what did she do that could be proven to a jury in a court of law? We’re not lawyers here, but years of following political legal news have given us a fairly solid understanding of what moves the law against people and what doesn’t. Ginni was nothing more than an angry Karen squealing in frustration over an election that didn’t go the way she wanted. The only difference between her and a Breitbart commenter was her access.

If you don’t think the Republican state lawmakers in Arizona and the other swing states, the White House, the Supreme Court itself, the Justice Department, the Pentagon and all their individual figures didn’t get the same emails from literally millions of other Trump fans ordering them to take action to overturn the election then you probably haven’t been reading this site for very long. Many, probably even most, were demanding they take illegal actions.

Did those people commit crimes too? Probably yes, theoretically. How many voicemails did Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office get from random MAGA Georgians saying more or less the same thing Donald did in that call? It’s not zero, whatever it is. Obviously these people were not in the same position, but to the letter of the law they’re just as liable as Trump.

The point is that the outrages over what we here in National Zero land see correctly as grave crimes against democracy are very rarely crimes that are practically going to result in a conviction. Paper trails and receipts of wrongdoing aren’t the same as nine videos clearly showing from different angles a person wearing their fucking painting business’s phone number on their jacket while they’re beating a cop with a “Thin Blue Line” flagpole. The crimes that are committed communicatively are just simply not as easy to prosecute as the ones committed physically.

This isn’t to say we should be happy with a headline like “Congressman Scumbag (R-MAGAtucky) may have benefitted improperly from land deal with shady local businessman.” We absolutely should be pissed. But absent a “smoking gun” recording of Congressman Scumbag knowingly accepting an overinflated sale price for the abandoned trailer park he inherited from his grandfather in exchange for opposing some bill in his committee, the remedy for that is supposed to be political. Congressman Scumbag’s constituents should punish him for his corruption. That they buy into his “witch hunt” bullshit – or worse don’t care because they’d rather have a criminal than some gay-ass libtard groomer representing their district is on them, not law enforcement.

There’s a reason why it’s called “the smoking gun evidence” (or “smocking gun”) when there’s irrefutable proof of a crime in an email, text message, audio/video recording, or solidly corroborated written/verbal testimony: Crimes of corruption are often very complex and hard to parse. Crimes of violence are often not. Forensic accountants and ballistics experts rarely testify in the same trial.

Prosecuting Trump for January 6th was always going to be a tall order. We know he’s guilty. Even he knows it, but for what? “Collusion isn’t a crime,” his minions would say, admitting he did it with the extra glee of “Fuck you libs, he did it, he’s going to get away with it, and all you can do is scream at the sky.” And they were right, hard as it is to admit. Sure, he was at least partially held politically accountable for that shit, among litany of other impeachable offenses plus his overall failure as president when Americans voted him out in 2020, though he and his Reich in exile still remain a serious threat to democracy, whether or not he gets reelected in 2024.

The fact is that building a case against the Donald for January 6th was always going to be hard and extremely risky. The Capitol rioter who smashed a cop over the head with a fire extinguisher’s guilt simply isn’t as open to subjective interpretation as that of the fat fuck who told him to do it. Determining which statutes to pursue, which ones would secure a conviction and result in a punishment befitting his actions in the lead-up, setting aside all the fucking bullshit games his lawyers would’ve played before, during, and after the trial. A hung jury would be extremely enervating to those of us who have been waiting years for him to be punished.

So what a fucking gift Trump just simply handed to Merrick Garland by stealing classified documents when he left office and then refusing to return them. As far as Trump crimes go, this is really straightforward and simple: He wasn’t supposed to have these documents. The MAGA Reich are trying to make it more complicated than it is as a political strategy, but legally, he’s fucked.

They’re right when they say extensive amount of black ink in that search affidavit mean the FBI is trying to hide something from the public. That’s beyond dispute. The fact is that they’re trying to hide information that would get people killed if it were made public. It could lose the war for Ukraine. It could put Chinese tanks on the streets of Taipei by the end of the year. It could give Iranian hackers the keys to Israel’s missile defense systems. That’s really not going to be all that difficult to sell to a jury when explained in those terms. What Trump’s fanboys think is helpful politically is going to really, really, really fuck him in court.

And it’s really going to happen. He’s going to be charged just as if he were a 7-Eleven cashier caught on tape stealing a roll of scratch-offs and a garbage bag full of cigarette cartons. Don’t be surprised if it’s sometime within the next month. It will get ugly. There will be violence… well, more violence. Probably a lot more. But sometime within the next year Trump will be facing a jury who arrive each morning on the trial via armored military transport.