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Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but when the Roman Republic tried that they descended into a series of bloody civil wars. Once prosecuting ex-politicians was on the table, their leaders realized that letting go of power meant being at the mercy of their successors. The inescapable conclusion was that the only thing to do was to never, ever let go of power. Eventually they emerged as an Empire ruled by a succession of military strongmen.
So that's one reason.
If you never hold politicians accountable you encourage corruption and tyranny. Holding politicians accountable means prosecuting them when they commit crimes.
We already prosecute politicians. The constant special pleading for Trump makes no sense.
If you only hold opposition politicians accountable, you are also encouraging corruption and tyranny. Hence why prosecutions of politicians needs to be even-handed, and why counter-corruption campaigns are an archetypical narrative justification for politically-motivated prosecutions by tyrannical governments.
Because you're dismissing objections as special pleading, rather than acknowledging like-to-like contemporary actions (and lack of actions).
Naturally if you ignore context, context-based objections likewise can be ignored as senseless.
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I’m for accountability. But I think the forum for that is impeachment. The reason is there is too much risk that with venue shopping one can goose the jury and make the conviction political (see the NY trial as an example). Impeachment likely requires bipartisan agreement the conduct was beyond the pale. That, to me, is the correct approach.
McConnell seemed pretty pissed about J6, and didn't defend Trump at all. His stated argument was that Trump was already out of office, and therefore the judicial system was the correct forum. For all the talk about lawfare and political hitjobs, impeachment is also a highly political process, and Trump was likely protected from impeachment because McConnell didn't want to lose Trump voters.
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