THE TIGHTENING NOOSE:

First, and most straightforward, the work of the January 6 committee has helped to make clear many facts relevant to whether to prosecute. These facts include Trump's state of mind and state of knowledge regarding events at the Capitol and the efforts to derail the certification of electors, as well as the seriousness of those events. I've always accepted in principle that these might be enough to overcome a presumption against prosecution, but the committee's output moved me along to where I was willing to say, "Yes, they do."

Second, if you're going to trade off the interests of thorough justice against those of civic peace, you need to actually get the civic peace. Approve or disapprove of the Nixon pardon, Nixon, having resigned, soon settled into a post-presidential career of benign elder statesman, a role seemingly meant to calm the storms of his tenure and help Americans forget what a divisive figure he had been.

In retrospect, I think I underrated how divisive and destructive of civic peace it can be to see criminal behavior prosper, above all when it strikes at the process of democratic succession itself. Letting a brazenly unrepentant elected official walk free after such conduct will only embolden more and worse behavior of the same kind.

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