The right believes the FBI is obsessed with jailing Trump. The opposite is true | Andrew Gawthorpe

Far from being persecuted, Trump has been handled with vastly more deference than anyone else would be

Donald Trump's indictment earlier this month on 37 counts related to mishandling classified information set off a firestorm on the political right. Conservatives accused Joe Biden of using the justice system to prosecute his main political rival and attempting to steal" the 2024 election. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, promised to hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable". In short, the right wants us to believe that Biden and his administration will stop at nothing to put Trump in jail as quickly as possible.

In fact, the exact opposite is true. Worried about just this type of accusation, the justice department under Merrick Garland and the FBI have approached their investigations of Trump much too cautiously. Far from being persecuted because of who he is, Trump's status as a former president and as the unofficial leader of the Republican party have led to him being handled with vastly more deference than anyone else would be. The result has been a series of delays and missteps which may allow Trump to escape accountability once again.

Andrew Gawthorpe is a historian of the United States at Leiden University. He hosts a podcast called America Explained and writes a newsletter of the same name