Sound like harassment to me.
The serious answers to your question are:
- The value system of the career prosecutors.
- Public opinion.
Googling, it seems that lawyers don’t like it, but the defendant can make a plea and then waive the right to attend the trial.
One concern I have is that he can’t get a fair trial due to massive prejudicial pre-trial publicity. This thread is not reassuring in that respect.
Also, there’s a timing problem in that he plans to run for office again. This will probably cause any trial to be delayed for fear of interfering with an election.