9 June—Donald Trump’s second indictment brings to mind his third indictment. More specifically, when will he be indicted for trying to trump the Georgia vote on a recorded line? And, now the cork’s out, there might be even more indictments to keep us entertained. It’s certainly taken the Department of Justice long enough to score the indictment around Trump’s mishandling of classified material. So maybe the others will follow more swiftly.

You wonder how Trump has been able to get away with all of his shenanigans since he was a big bully in his earliest years. Money helps, of course. But it goes to show that, like it or not, bullying works. All levels of government depend on it, after all, so why not individuals and non-governmental organizations?

And people are just waiting to be conned. Usually they don’t find out about the con until it’s too late. When it comes to voting, candidates are presented and present themselves in only the best light. But Donald Trump was a notorious—and pretty well admitted—scumbag well before his presidential candidacy.

Trump showed his disgraceful stuff and total ignorance in the Republican candidate debates, yet he was nominated pretty easily over less notorious, obnoxious, ignorant candidates. Then he showed his disgraceful stuff and total ignorance in his confrontational scrimmages with Hillary Clinton, yet he bettered her in electoral votes.

Of course, a lot of those votes were actually against Clinton rather than for Trump. You wonder how Trump would have done against Bernie Sanders, with a considerably less abrasive campaign personality than either Trump’s or Clinton’s.

Pleasant personality usually pays off in elections, certainly in local ones, and even at the presidential level. But Trump was elected in spite of his decidedly unpleasant personality. Credit that to Clinton, too, with her equally unpleasant personality. Her husband, on the other hand, could have beat Trump hands down. On womanizing as well as votes.

So how does Trump continue to hold on to his hordes of admirers, most of whom know full well that he’s a liar, con man, and bully? Well, that’s precisely how. And why. The great unwashed vicariously admire him for all that they’d like to be.

Getting back to Trump’s latest and future indictments, then, the scumbag may have a legitimate defense in mens rea. It means “guilty mind” in Latin and refers to criminal intent, a defendant’s actual state of mind required by law in order to convict him of a particular crime.

Given Donald Trump’s well-known sociopathic narcissism, it’s not impossible that he really imagined—and imagines—himself to be above the law, like a king who rules by divine right. His unabashed unlawful acts lend some credence to that possibility. On the other hand, he may be ignorant but he’s not stupid, so he may have had the mens rea defense in mind all along.

On the third hand, assuming a Republican president would pardon Trump, were he to be convicted, it’s a good reason to vote for a Democrat president who would just commute Trump’s sentence. To save the nation, of course.

In all events, Trump wouldn’t be the first president to get away with all manner of criminal behavior that would get others locked up . . .