In just the past week, former President Donald Trump's contempt for the rule of law has been reconfirmed in not one but multiple ways. He has suggested he would pardon the criminals who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He has implored supporters to launch mass protests if he is criminally charged (as he should be). And it was revealed this week that Trump tore up some of his presidential papers, in violation of laws requiring their preservation, and they had to be taped back together by staffers.

On the heels of all that are new revelations that Trump personally pressed to have the federal government seize voting machines in swing states so he could reverse the election results — an unprecedented and astonishing flirtation with autocracy even for someone like Trump, who has long exhibited dictatorial tendencies.

It's been said before, but it bears repeating in light of all this: The current frontrunner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination is a lawless thug. And any Republican official or candidate who still supports him at this point has no credible claim to the party's law-and-order mantra.

During a rally in Texas Saturday, Trump made his outrageous suggestion that, if elected president again, he might pardon the Jan. 6 rioters — whose injured victims included scores of police officers. At the same rally, he implored his supporters to launch "the biggest protests we have ever had" if prosecutors investigating his financial shenanigans "do anything wrong or illegal." Everyone who knows anything about Trump knows how he defines "wrong or illegal." That is, it's anything that affects him negatively.

Trump's defenders tend to shrug off his more shocking utterances as mere bluster. But new reporting by The New York Times, CNN and others regarding Trump's attempt to overthrow the 2020 election show that it wasn't all talk.

The reporting establishes that Trump entertained the unprecedented proposal of having the U.S. military go into swing states and physically seize voting machines. He ultimately rejected the idea on the advice of some of his lawyers. But Trump personally pressed for the alternative idea of having either the Justice Department or the Department of Homeland Security seize the machines. That any president would even tolerate such a suggestion, let alone press for it, should chill the spine of anyone who cares about the Constitution.

Conservatives who want to move on from the Trump era often ask why the media is still talking about him. The answer is twofold: One, every poll out there shows that Trump is still the leading candidate for the 2024 GOP nomination, if he wants it. And two, the more information that comes out about his very real attempt to overthrow the election, the more clear and present the danger he poses to democracy.

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