editorials
Trump Pleads Not Guilty
E arlier this week, former President Donald Trump
entered a Miami courthouse to respond to criminal
charges made against him by the Office of Special
Counsel of the Department of Justice that, among other
things, he violated the Espionage Act by knowingly
mishandling classified documents that he kept upon
leaving office and obstructed the government’s efforts
to reclaim them.

The 37-count indictment against the former president
— which provides detail regarding the charges of willful
retention of national defense secrets, conspiracy to
obstruct justice and the making of false statements in
response to inquiries about them — are serious criminal
charges. A conviction on any one of them could have
significant consequences. Trump pled not guilty.

We feel like we’ve seen this movie before, even
though we haven’t. Trump, who loves to claim he is the
first person in history to do one thing or another, now
has the dubious honor of being the first former president
to face federal criminal charges. But part of the reason
we feel a sense of déjà vu is that the federal indictment
comes about two months after local prosecutors in New
York City filed more than 30 felony charges against
Trump in a case arising from hush money payments
made to a porn actress before the 2016 presidential
election. Trump denied those charges.

And we have been regularly reminded about two
other criminal investigations that are being pursued
separately from the New York and Miami indictments:
First, a Justice Department investigation of Trump’s
wide-ranging efforts to stay in power after losing the
2020 election, and how those efforts led to the Jan.

6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.

And second, an inquiry by the district attorney in
Fulton County, Georgia, relating to possible election
interference by Trump in the 2020 election.

Had anything of this magnitude happened to almost
any other national politician a decade or more ago,
the result would have been largely predictable. The
politician would declare his innocence, bow out of public
activity and pledge to devote his full time to support his
family and to the necessary fight against the forces of
evil that conspired to take him down. But that’s not how
Donald Trump operates.

Trump’s approach is to confront his accusers,
declare and repeat his own narrative of the facts that
may or may not be grounded in truth, and ascribe
improper motive to anything his opponents do or
say. Trump is a master at playing the victim card. He
has perfected an aggressive approach that enables
him to strengthen support from his base and beyond
notwithstanding accusations of serious malfeasance,
and parlay that support into increased fundraising and
higher poll numbers. We saw that result following the
New York indictment and are seeing it again with the
Miami charges.

But Trump’s multiple criminal indictments present
an opportunity. Although the ever-expanding group
challenging Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential
nomination needs to walk a careful line, the stage is set
for the emergence of a credible alternative to Trump’s
narcissistic narrative in which he considers himself not
merely above the law, but wholly unlimited by it.

The Miami indictment is serious. Trump would
be well-advised to take it seriously. And so should
his supporters. ■
ast week, Oklahoma’s virtual charter school
board voted 3-2 to approve the opening
of the nation’s first religious charter school. If
allowed to proceed as planned in 2024, the
K-12 online school named St. Isidore of Seville
Catholic Virtual School will be run by the Roman
Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the
Diocese of Tulsa, with religious teaching and
Catholic doctrine woven into every aspect of the
school’s program.

As a charter school — a public school that
is independently managed — the St. Isidore
school would be fully funded by taxpayer dollars.

Since public schools aren’t supposed to provide
religious education (even though they are
permitted to teach about religion) the Oklahoma board’s
decision sets the stage for a high-profile legal fight over
the constitutionality of the plan and the boundaries of the
separation of church and state under the Constitution.

And that’s exactly what Oklahoma’s previously obscure
virtual charter school board set out to do, with the active
encouragement of the state’s Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt
and the Republican-controlled state legislature.

The creation of religious charter schools is not a
new issue for Oklahoma. It has been in the works for
years. In addition to the consideration of vouchers, tax
credits and other means to offer subsidies to parents
16 JUNE 15, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
to help pay for non-public school tuition, often at
religious schools, the question of the legality of creating
a religious charter school was presented in 2022 to
Oklahoma’s then-Attorney General John M. O’Connor.

He opined that Supreme Court precedent supported
the view that publicly funded religious charter schools
are permissible. That opinion was withdrawn by the
state’s current attorney general, Gentner Drummond,
who recommended strongly against the plan.

But Stitt was on a mission. Three days before the
board vote on the religious charter school proposal,
Stitt appointed a new board member who provided
the deciding vote in support of the plan. Stitt
celebrated the board’s “courage” and declared,
“This is a win for religious liberty and education
freedom.” His attorney general, on the other
hand, bemoaned the fact that “board members
violated their oath in order to fund religious
schools with our tax dollars.”
While some government money already goes
to a wide range of religious private schools
throughout the country, including Jewish day
schools and yeshivot, those funds are earmarked
for secular or other non-religious purposes like
health and safety issues, special education,
secular textbooks and busing. And although
organized efforts are being pursued to expand
funding, Jewish schools have been sensitive to what
has been understood until now as the need to steer
clear of government funding for religious education and
programming. As unlikely as it seems, that could change
under the Oklahoma case.

Shortly after the board’s vote, Americans United
for Separation of Church and State announced that
it is preparing legal action to challenge the decision.

Proponents for and against the plan are lining up on
respective sides of the issue. The case will ultimately be
decided by the Supreme Court. And advocates on both
sides can’t wait to get there. ■
iStock / Getty Images Plus / klenger
Oklahoma’s Religious Charter School Challenge
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