Trump is right to point out that Clinton should be prosecuted

Political rhetoric inevitably involves a degree of exaggeration, and we must distinguish it from the realm of law-enforcement, in which officials are obliged to be circumspect. At the Republican convention, the most effective speech was New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s scathing indictment (in the rhetorical sense) of Mrs. Clinton’s misdeeds. It prompted the “lock her up!” chants that have punctuated Trump campaign appearances ever since. Now, when Americans say that someone ought to be “locked up” over this or that — which we say quite a lot — we are not urging an end run around the due-process protections that apply from investigation and indictment through trial and sentencing.

That goes without saying. During Obama’s 2008 campaign, his surrogate (and later his attorney general) Eric Holder called for a “reckoning” against Bush officials he depicted as guilty of war crimes and all manner of Constitution-shredding. I don’t think Mr. Holder was saying “jail now, trial later” — even if many on the left would have been delighted by such an arrangement.

The Republican base is ballistic over the abuses of power evident in both Clinton’s offenses and the way the investigation of them was tanked. Trump needs to keep them fired up because his best case for election is Clinton’s awfulness, not his own merit. So I don’t see that there is anything objectionable in hammering the point that Clinton’s crimes were abominable and they deserve prosecution. That is true, so why shouldn’t Trump say so?

Where Trump goes over the line, though, is in doing exactly what President Obama did: making statements that predetermine the outcome. Obama essentially acquitted Clinton in public statements made while the investigation was ongoing. When such a thing is done by the head of the executive branch — the president to whom the attorney general and FBI director answer — it conveys the boss’s signal that no charges are to be brought. Similarly, when Trump, who is running to be the next chief executive, says that, were he the president, Clinton would be in jail, he is implicitly stating that this is the outcome he expects his administration to accomplish. Ditto when he reacts to the “lock her up!” chants by indicating agreement that she must be imprisoned.