'Welcome To The Club': Trump Indictment Unprecedented In US. Abroad? Not At All

Former President Donald Trump said he felt like Elvis Presley after the song "Justice For All" — sung by imprisoned Jan. 6 insurrectionists — reached the top of the charts.

But after his indictment, Trump may identify more with former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Israel's newly re-elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former South Korean President Park Geun-hye or former Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian — all former leaders who were either jailed or prosecuted for wrongdoing.

• Sarkozy was sentenced to prison in 2021 for corruption.
• Berlusconi, in 2013, was barred from running for office after being sentenced for tax fraud (the ban has since been lifted)
• Netanyahu was indicted in 2019 for bribery and fraud.
• Geun-hye, in 2018, was sentenced to 24 years for corruption.
• Shui-bian was convicted of bribery in 2009.

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On the heels of Trump's indictment, NYU Criminal Law Professor Andrew Weissmann told the BBC that the U.S. now joins "other so-called first-world countries around the globe" where criminal cases were brought against their leaders.

"Now that we have seen something historic in this country, which is the first time that a leader or a former leader has been held criminally to account for alleged wrongdoing, that it does make it somewhat easier psychologically for both grand jurors and prosecutors to sort of cross that rubicon and not feel like they somehow have to have even more evidence than you would normally need to have. This is something that is important to the rule of law that you hold anybody to account whether they used to be the president or not," Weissmann, who served as a lead prosecutor in the special counsel office of Robert Mueller, said.

"This is new for us; this is not new for other countries," Weissmann added.

Next: Trump Hush Money Case Not The End Game, Charges 'Far Greater' Await - Former NY Prosecutor

Image, from left: Sarkozy, Trump, Berlusconi (Edited via Pixabay, Shutterstock, Wikimedia Commons)