Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley went there (again) on Tuesday night, warning a Fox News audience that "we are seeing for the first time in American history ... a sitting president of the United States try to throw his opponent into jail." Fox itself went there the same night, announcing matter-of-factly in a chyron aimed at President Biden: "Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested."

This and other reckless rhetoric has spread like fire on the political right with former President Donald Trump's indictment last week and his Miami court appearance Tuesday. It's deeply misleading — Biden has no control over the special prosecutor, the grand jury, or the future criminal jury deciding Trump's fate — and it's dangerous.

It is also a direct challenge to the American mantra that no one is above the law. As Americans sift through the histrionics in the coming days and weeks, it's fair to ask what has happened to the GOP's once-proud designation as the law-and-order party.

So pervasive are these three elements to the right's Trump-related rhetoric — misinformation, recklessness and dismissiveness toward the rule of law — that they're worth examining one by one:

Misinformation: The claim that Biden is personally orchestrating Trump's prosecution is particularly insidious, because it preys on the public's general lack of detailed knowledge about how the legal system works, especially at the federal level.

The grand jury that indicted Trump for his handling of classified government documents was convened by special counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, who was appointed by President Biden. It's easy to make that sound like Biden is "having his political rival arrested," in Fox News' astonishingly dishonest words, but it simply isn't true.

The whole point of assigning a special counsel to a criminal case is to keep politically sensitive cases separate from the justice department and the president. Those who believe or imply that a president holds a special counsel's strings like a puppet master should explain why Trump, when he was president, didn't shut down special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Trump's ties to Russia. He certainly wanted to, as he said publicly many times. He didn't because he couldn't.

The misinformation also comes in the form of false equivalence between what Trump is accused of doing and what Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence have done — that is, keeping possession of classified documents. "I don't see Joe Biden getting indicted," Hawley said on Fox Tuesday. "Why is it that no one else ... has been charged with anything?"

Since Hawley is either confused about the basic facts here or (more likely) is pretending to be so in his endless pandering to MAGA-world, let's review: Biden and Pence both immediately returned federal documents discovered in their possession. Had Trump done that when he was asked repeatedly — including a request via subpoena — he wouldn't have been indicted.

Instead, according to the indictment, Trump went to extraordinary lengths to retain the documents, including instructing his attorneys and others to lie to investigators about what they had and where they were, to have them moved around to avoid their discovery, and in at least one instance suggesting they should be destroyed rather than returned.

Does that answer your question, senator?

Recklessness: What's most dangerous about the misleading rhetoric from Hawley and others is its overriding theme that Biden is (again, from Fox) a "wannabe dictator." It's an inherently silly trope as applied to Biden — especially in defense of a former president who has routinely, literally called for jailing his opponents, who tried to overthrow an election, and who last year called for the "termination" of the Constitution so he could return to office. Are these folks familiar with the psychological concept of "projection"?

The "dictator" stuff is more serious than just name-calling. When Trump sicced his followers on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, he didn't do it by saying he just wanted to stay in power; he did it by falsely claiming that oppressive forces were threatening democracy. (Again: Projection.)

When Hawley — who should know as well anyone that words have consequences, given his own role in Jan. 6 — tells the MAGA faithful, "If they can do this ... we do not have a functioning democracy," he is risking that real possibility that some of those he is misleading will again hear it as a call to arms.

Rule of law: Speaking of a "functioning democracy," how exactly does that work if being a former president and/or current presidential candidate has an automatic shield against criminal prosecution? That is the inescapable message under the rhetoric, and it's not just coming from rhetorical bomb-throwers like Fox and Hawley.

"Do prosecutors understand the forces they are unleashing?" asked an editorial headline in The Wall Street Journal, normally one of the grownups in the Republican room. "The charges are a destructive intervention into the 2024 election, and the potential trial will hang over the race," warned the editorial — as if that fact alone is a reason to treat Trump differently than anyone else accused of so flagrantly violating the law.

It isn't. The charges against Trump are ultimately about his alleged willful refusal to obey laws that apply to the rest of us. Americans shouldn't let the dangerous lies being spun by his defenders distract them from that core fact.

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