Lavrenti Beria, Joseph Stalin’s secret police chief, is famous for having said, “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.”  I heard through the grapevine that Judge Juan Merchan has a picture of Beria hanging next to his law degree, but it might just be a rumor.

No one, including those who are celebrating Donald Trump’s conviction, takes seriously the Beria-styled prosecution he endured in Merchan’s courtroom.  Fortunately, Trump is not in danger of being executed, but with Democrats in power, anything is possible.  It’s just a matter of morphing the right misdemeanor into a capital-punishment crime.  Short of that, however, if Michael Whatley and Laura Trump are able to throw a monkey wrench into the Democrats’ well-oiled rigging machine, Donald Trump should be taking charge of the Oval Office on January 20, 2025, even if he has to pardon himself from a jail cell to do so.

The big question then becomes, what will Trump do, and not do, the second time around?  To answer this question, we have to be honest about who Donald Trump is.  He is not Matt Gaetz.  He is not Stephen Miller.  He is not Steve Bannon.  He’s not even Chris Salcedo or Rob Schmitt.  That’s the bad news.  The good news is that he’s not Mitt Romney, he’s not John McCain, and he’s not Mitch McConnell.  Trump is neither a true conservative nor a libertarian.  He’s a one-of-a-kind, incredibly courageous pragmatist with good intentions.

That said, if Trump somehow gets back into office, he will no doubt accomplish even more than he did during his first term.  Following are a few things I believe he will and won’t do:

At the top of the list of certainties, he will quickly and drastically curb the invasion at the southern border.  There’s even a good chance he will complete the wall.  As to implementing “the greatest mass deportation in history,” I’m not going to get my hopes up on that one.  More likely, he will deport mostly known criminal illegals (even though all illegals are, by definition, criminals).  I’m hoping he proves me wrong on this one by going full-steam ahead on deportations.

As he did in his first term, Trump definitely will make major cuts to regulations and taxes, which will bring down inflation.  Equally important, he will dramatically reduce gas and oil prices by unleashing fossil fuel exploration.

On the international scene, you can expect Trump to unequivocally support Israel and crack down on Iran.  He might also end the war in Ukraine, though that’s far from a certainty, because Zelensky will play the role of groveling sycophant if that’s what it takes to keep the vigorish flowing into his Swiss bank account.

Though it pains me to say it, Trump will not drain the swamp.  I do, however, expect him to tinker around the edges.  The full job would take decades, and then only with MAGA-types continuously in charge.  The problem is that there are thousands of bureaucrats, donors, government contractors, and several million rank-and-file government employees who have a vested interest in protecting the swamp.  Declaring that you intend to build a new, $200 million building for the corrupt FBI rather than shutting it down is not a good start to draining the swamp.

Aside and apart from the swamp, it will be interesting to see if Trump can avoid putting clowns and traitors into key positions this time around.  Shockingly, after Nikki Haley said she was going to vote for him, Trump said, “I think she’s going to be on our team, because we have a lot of the same ideas, the same thoughts.”  Huh?  Nikki Haley hates Trump with a passion, and you can be certain she will turn on him once again at the first sign of trouble.

It’s also worth noting that Trump praised Benedict Arnold 2.0 (aka “Mike Johnson”), saying “he is doing a very good job.”  Johnson’s turncoat behavior makes uniparty leaders like John Boehner, Paul Ryan, and Kevin McCarthy look like Marjorie Taylor Greene by comparison.  When Democrats vote to keep you in your position, it’s de facto proof that you should not be in that position.

Trump’s choice for vice president is relatively unimportant, except for the fact that whoever he picks will have the inside lane in the 2028 presidential primaries.  I would have liked to see him pick Stephen Miller, who was his senior advisor in his first term, but Trump inexplicably seems to have forgotten he exists.  Worse, if he picks someone like Tim Scott, it will be another major mistake.  Scott is not only totally unqualified, he proved his RINO creds by endorsing radical-left Trump hater Lisa Murkowski.

Aside from Stephen Miller, my top picks for VP (excluding Tucker Carlson, who I don’t believe Trump would consider) would be Byron Donalds, Josh Hawley, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Elise Stefanik.  Of course, if Trump wanted to drive the left even more insane than it already is, his choice for VP would be Matt Gaetz, but, realistically, that won’t happen.

Given the explosion of Democrat lawlessness, the most important job Trump has to fill is that of attorney general.  As I have repeatedly said, the one guy who would harshly prosecute Democrat lawbreakers is Kash Patel.  Patel has made that clear by publicly stating, “We will go out and find the conspirators — not just in government, but in the media.  Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.”

No one else in the Trump orbit has said anything like this.  Certainly not Matt Whitaker, who is a baldheaded version of Bill Barr without a pot belly.  Nevertheless, right now it appears he probably will be Trump’s pick for attorney general.  If so, you can be sure the Department of Justice will be run in an honorable manner that will make RINOs proud, but you can forget about Democrat criminals being punished.  Hopefully, I’m wrong about this, but if not, Democrat lawlessness will continue unabated.

One of the worse things Trump has said is, “We’re going to make this country so successful again, I’m not going to have time for retribution.”  No, no, no, and no!  Holding Democrats accountable should be your first priority, because if they are allowed to roam free, they will continue to perpetuate criminal hoaxes like Russia collusion, January 6, and political prosecutions again, and again, and again.

If there is to be real change, political criminals must to be punished to the fullest extent of the law.  If there are no consequences to criminal behavior, what motivation do criminals have to change their ways?

In any event, November 5 is a lifetime away, and in the meantime Trump and his bodyguards would do well to heed Rule No. 1 When Dealing with Democrats:  Never underestimate their willingness to kill you if you get in their way.  To say the least, Donald Trump is very much in the way of the totalitarian Democrats, so let’s hope the Secret Service agents guarding him aren’t controlled by the deep state.