Precedented

From today’s installment of Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American:

This is the first time in history a former United States president has been indicted, although it is worth remembering that it is not new for our justice system to hold elected officials accountable. Mayors have been indicted and convicted. So have governors: in fact, four of the past ten Illinois governors have gone to prison. Vice presidents, too, have been charged with crimes: Aaron Burr was indicted on two counts of murder in 1804 while still in office and was tried for treason afterward. And in 1973, Richard Nixon’s vice president Spiro Agnew resigned after pleading no contest to tax evasion to avoid prison time.

Illinois leads the nation in imprisoned governors: Otto Kerner, Daniel Walker, George Ryan, and Rod Blagojevich. As you may recall, Donald Trump commuted Blagojevich’s sentence in 2020. Blagojevich now calls him a “Trumpocrat.”

[Leaders of other democracies have been prosecuted as well.]