A satire: Indict Ron DeSantis now!
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hopes to be indicted in order to bolster his flailing campaign for president. The Republican DeSantis has told aides to find a crime he can do that will bring the law immediately down on his head, as well as garner eye-popping headlines and time on cable news.
The governor has even toyed with the idea of plugging someone on the beach at Miami, though sources say he has recently ruled that out. “Ron’s not that kind of guy,” the source said. “For one thing, he can’t stand the sight of blood. Besides, he’s not a straight shooter. He might shoot himself in the foot.”
If he were to manage to be indicted, the governor would join former president Donald Trump in the crosshairs of prosecutors. Trump is attempting to return to the White House largely on the strength of multiple indictments.
The 44th president revealed on social media last week that he is the target of an investigation conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice, located blocks from the Joe Biden White House on Pennsylvania Avenue.
While another Trump indictment is not guaranteed in the case involving the Jan. 6, 2021, siege of the Capitol, the prospect has whetted DeSantis’ appetite for “some of what Trump is experiencing,” said an an aide on background because he was not authorized to speak on the matter.
“Ever since his first indictment in New York, Trump has been pulling ahead in the polls,” the source, who is close to the Florida governor, said. “Ron feels he’s got to get on the indictment train.
“Republican voters like to see their candidates indicted. We don’t want to disappoint them.”
Since leaving the White House, Trump has appeared to welcome criminal indictments at both the state and federal levels. It was reported last week that prosecutors in Arizona were looking into a Trump White House scheme to overthrow Biden’s 2020 victory in that state.
The Michigan attorney general recently indicted more than a dozen individuals on charges they attempted to carry out a plan to have a bogus list of Trump electors sent to Congress, even though Biden carried the state in the election.
Trump campaign insiders were said to be disappointed their candidate was not charged in Michigan. “There’s still time,” a source said. “In the indictment game, hope is always an option, and we’re hoping. The boss told us, ‘Can’t something be done? I’d love to be fingerprinted in [the state Capitol] Lansing.'”
If nominated for a third time, Trump would be the first candidate for president to have done so while under indictment.
“At first, we thought maybe being indicted would sink his candidacy,” the DeSantis campaign aide said, speaking of Trump. “After all, Ronald Reagan was never indicted. Eisenhower was never indicted. Richard Nixon might have been indicted for Watergate, but Jerry Ford pardoned him.
“Wonder if Nixon ever glimpsed the [political] possibilities of an indictment? Heck, it might have gotten him back in the White House. At the very least, he could have been the nominee again.
“That would have been his fourth nomination, equaling FDR. Was Roosevelt ever indicted? I don’t think he was. How’s that work?”
In addition to his other political successes, Trump has been the focus of possible charges in Georgia, where the Fulton County prosecutor has been looking into the former president’s post-election phone call to state officials, whom he asked to come up with just enough votes to overcome a narrow Biden margin in the state.
“Twice indicted and the prime suspect in other cases,” the DeSantis aide mused. “Wish some of that luck would rub off on Ron.”
“I don’t think it’s luck,” said Phil A. Writ, an attorney and author of the 2010 winner of the Huey Long Prize for his book, “Warren G. Harding and the Politics of Oil (Leases).” Trump is a genius. No one knows Republican voters like he does.”
“The governor talks the talk, but can he walk the walk? Trump’s got the walk down pat. No one walks into a courtroom like he does.”
Writ noted that every successful candidate has a “gimmick” propelling his candidacy. “Look at Ike [Eisenhower]. He was the Army general who defeated Hitler in World War II. JFK had charisma. Reagan was the ‘great communicator.’ Bill Clinton played a pretty good sax.
“A candidate has to have something,” Writ said. “I think DeSantis has to have his own thing. It looks to me like Trump has got a lock on the indictment route to the nomination.”
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.