Don’t nominate a criminal Here is where that framing has inevitably led. From Jonathan Chait: John Yoo, the former Bush administration lawyer (who himself escaped prosecution for his role in constructing legal justifications to torture detainees, many of whom turned out to be held wrongfully in the first place), has an essay in National Review arguing for revenge prosecutions. The imprimatur of Yoo, a Berkeley law professor and fellow at two of the conservative movement’s least-insane think tanks (the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution), underscores the progression of “lock her up” from wild seriously-not-literally Trump-campaign demagoguery in 2016 to party doctrine in 2024. “Repairing this breach of constitutional norms will require Republicans to follow the age-old maxim: Do unto others as they have done unto you,” urges Yoo. “In order to prevent the case against Trump from assuming a permanent place in the American political system, Republicans will have to bring charges against Democratic officers, even presidents.” […] There are several problems with Yoo’s argument, beginning with the “age-old maxim” he cites. The saying, derived from the Bible, is “Do unto others as you would have done to you,” not “Do unto others as they have done unto you.” I am not a biblical scholar, but the basic thrust of the teachings the line summarizes is to treat people the way you would wish to be treated, rather than instructing people to take revenge for slights. Second, Yoo attributes Trump’s prosecutions to “the Democrats”: Republicans keep asserting that the Democratic Party, or Joe Biden, collectively decided…