The first of several forthcoming criminal indictments against Donald Trump was announced early on the evening of March 30, 2023, shortly after a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict the former president – crossing for the very first time the Rubicon that no person is above the rule of law in the United States.
We still do not know what the exact charges are and will not find out until Tuesday when Trump is scheduled to surrender at the courthouse accompanied by one or more of his Secret Service agents, and to appear for his open arraignment subject to the usual booking process of being fingerprinted, photographed, and so on.
We do know from reading the New York Times that the indictment contains 34 separate charges or “counts” including multiple felonies, which likely will involve some kind of tax violation or federal campaign crimes.
This indictment has been a long time coming. It was back in 2018 when Trump’s personal attorney and fixer Michael Cohen plead guilty and went to federal prison for paying hush money to cover up at least one sexual affair of his former Boss just days before the 2016 presidential election.
What we are already witnessing even before the charges are publicly known is that the “cult of the personality” leadership of the GOP is continuing to circle the wagons around Trump, to cast aspersions on the prosecutors of the rule of law, and to politicize the slowly turning wheels of due process and the administration of criminal justice.
For example, in the world of the Trumpian “pot calling the kettle black,” the unannounced and assumed 2024 Republican presidential contender who is already polling a distant second behind Trump for the nomination, Governor Ron DeSantis (FL), immediately following the announced indictment posted his antisemitic tropes defending the former president @GovRonDeSantis:
“The weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda turns the rule of law on its head. It is un-American. The Soros-backed Manhattan District Attorney has consistently bent the law to downgrade felonies and to excuse criminal misconduct. Yet, now he is stretching the law to target a political opponent. Florida will not assist in an extradition request given the questionable circumstances at issue with this Soros-backed Manhattan prosecutor and his political agenda.”
This is, of course, “all bark and no bite” since Governor DeSantis will not be asked by District Attorney Alvin Bragg to extradite Trump from Florida since his attorneys have already asserted that he will voluntarily show up at the Manhattan courthouse on Tuesday.
From Trump’s point of view, his imagined indictments and criminality were always a matter of the political struggle for power and the “rule of law” versus the “rule of mob” as these play out together in the courts of law and the courts of public opinion.
For example, on the day before the indictment when Trump had perhaps a momentary belief that his forthcoming Manhattan indictment might not materialize at all, or as he had predicted two weeks earlier about his surrendering on March 21 rather than on April 4, the ex-president was playing to the grand jurors that he hoped would not vote to indict him.
From @realDonaldTrump, the ex-president posted in all caps: I HAVE GAINED SUCH RESPECT FOR THIS GRAND JURY, & PERHAPS EVEN THE GRAND JURY SYSTEM AS A WHOLE. THE EVIDENCE IS SO OVERWHELMING IN MY FAVOR, & SO RIDICULOUSLY BAD FOR THE HIGHLY PARTISAN & HATEFUL DISTRICT ATTORNEY, THAT THE GRAND JURY IS SAYING, HOLD ON, WE ARE NOT A RUBBER STAMP, WHICH MOST JURIES ARE BRANDED AS BEING, WE ARE NOT GOING TO VOTE AGAINST A PREPONDERANCE OF EVIDENCE OR AGAINST LARGE NUMBERS OF LEGAL SCHOLARS ALL SAYING THERE IS NO CASE HERE. DROP THIS SICK WITCH HUNT, NOW!
Having his “cake and eating it too,” Trump was posting @realDonaldTrump less than 24 hours later, and only minutes after his indictment was announced: These Thugs and Radical Left Monsters have just INDICATED the 45th President of the United States of America, and the leading Republican Candidate, by far, for the 2024 Nomination for President. THIS IS AN ATTACK ON OUR COUNTRY THE LIKES OF WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE. IT IS LIKEWISE A CONTINUING ATTACK ON OUR ONCE FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS. THE USA IS NOW A THIRD WORLD NATION, A NATION IN SERIOUS DECLINE. SO SAD!
Donald Trump, Jr chimed in from his podcast shortly thereafter – “Apparently, Soros-backed Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg is indicting my father. Let’s be clear folks: This is Communist-level shit. This is stuff that would make Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot blush.” This is all part of his dad’s narrative on the campaign trail, “They’re not coming for ME, they’re coming after YOU – and I am standing in their way.”
The antisemitic references to George Soros by DeSantis, Trump, Jr., and others should be concerning to all of us as Joyce Vance has written: “This sort of casual hate baiting is in the former president’s wheelhouse as well. Trump has always been cavalier about the impact of his words on his followers’ propensity toward violence. But if Trump summons a mob,” Vance believes they will come. I am not so sure that after January 6 that they still will. Time will tell.
More likely as Vance underscores, “individuals have answered his call too, as with the attack on Speaker Pelosi’ husband. It’s appalling that neither the Trumps, nor apparently DeSantis, understand that real people” can fall victims to their hateful speech.
This won’t be over for a long time, folks. With all the defense motions and due process to play out, a trial on the merits of this indictment will not likely happen before the summer of 2024. In the meanwhile, look for several more criminal indictments against Trump to materialize. One from Fulton County, Georgia for trying to overturn its statewide presidential election. And two from the Justice Department, one for inciting an insurrection, and the other for deliberately stealing classified document and lying about it.
Gregg Barak is an emeritus professor of criminology and criminal justice at Eastern Michigan University, a co-founder of the Journal of White Collar and Corporate Crime, and the author of Criminology on Trump (2022) who is currently writing the sequel, Criminalizing a Former President: The Case of Donald Trump and the Missing Struggle for a New Democracy.
from The Crime Report https://ift.tt/SHDkqVf
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