“It’s always a big deal when a former president or prime minister is indicted, but in most democracies, it is normal when they’re credibly accused of serious crimes,” said Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard who has written about dozens of countries’ transition to democracy. The United States, he said, has been an outlier in its reluctance to charge a former leader.
“Political systems have to handle it,” he added. “They have to. Because the alternative — saying some people are above the law — is much worse.”
Prosecutions can reflect that the rule of law is strong, that even the powerful are not above the courts and can be held to account. But they can also show that the rule of law is weak, that the legal system is easily weaponized against political enemies.
“Many people are going to immediately assume that it’s for political reasons, and it’s going to be very hard, if not impossible, to persuade them that it’s a legitimate, nonpolitical prosecution,” said John B. Bellinger III, an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington and a top legal official during President George W. Bush’s administration.