Legally, it was a historic day today for the USA. Two important legal cases are now being conducted simultaneously that concern former President Donald Trump. New York State’s Manhattan trial indicting Trump began Monday. It is the first court case in our nation’s history in which a former president has been charged with a crime, in this case 34 felonies. If Trump’s lawyers lose, he could wind up in prison.
The other legal case began today. The U.S. Supreme Court began considering whether former President Trump had immunity from prosecution as president on January 6, 2020, Certification Day, and a mob stormed the Capitol trying to overturn the previous election results in which Joe Biden won the presidency. The question is whether or not President Trump had immunity from prosecution if he in any way caused that riot. He had given an outdoor speech minutes earlier in which many Americans believe he tried to inflame passions among the rioters to overturn the election results.
The Manhattan trial has many sordid details that will likely make for a successful movie someday, especially if Trump loses this case. It involves two women–an adult film actress and a Playboy model–who claim to have had sexual affairs with married man Trump back in 2006, and Trump supposedly paid them off to buy their silence only days before the 2016 presidential election, which thrust him into the White House.
The first and only witness to testify this week is David Pecker, the CEO of the former National Enquirer tabloid. He was involved with Trump’s “fix it” lawyer Michael Cohen in paying these women off. In Pecker’s testimony today under questioning, he said the Federal Election Commission (FEC) began to question if Trump had broken federal election campaign laws.
When Trump became president, he had chosen former U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama for his attorney general. Pecker testified today that due to the FEC inquiry, he phoned Michael Cohen to alert him about it. Pecker said Cohen replied, “Jeff Sessions is the attorney general, and Donald Trump has him in his pocket.” He meant that Sessions would do whatever Trump said. Why?
Jeff Sessions was a professing Christian and churchman. He believed the Bible says all Christians, thus himself, must obey our president no matter what. Sessions said this publicly during that time Pecker mentioned. When it happened, I blogged about it, and the biblical text Sessions cited for support, in this post–“Sessions on Romans 13.”
This text, written by the apostle Paul, reads as follows, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; … whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed” (Romans 13.1-2 NRSV). In an earlier post–Did Paul Teach Unconditional Obedience to Civil Rulers?–I explained how many Bible readers misinterpret this admonition. And because of it, Donald Trump had Jeff Sessions “in his pocket.”
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