The First Criminal Indictment of a Former President: Donald Trump, His Frauds, and the Phenomenology of Justice

The first-ever criminal indictment of a former American president creates a uniquely perilous moment for a polarized republic already repeatedly driven to the brink by the endless norm-busting of Donald Trump.

It is the latest stunning barrier broken by the nation’s most unruly president. And it means that after a tumultuous four-year term, a historic two impeachments, an election falsely tainted by Trump’s lies about fraud and a mob attack by his supporters on Congress, a new national nightmare may be ahead.

Sources said a Manhattan grand jury voted Thursday to indict Trump on more than a dozen charges related to business fraud, including allegations that he had knowledge of the payment to Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.

“We have been close before (but) we have never been at this point,” John Dean, former President Richard Nixon’s Watergate-era special counsel, told CNN. No previous president has ever been indicted.

The move was especially stunning given Trump’s long record of impunity, which has seen him constantly stretch the limits of the law and the conventions of accepted behavior with his uproarious personal, business and political careers. Suddenly, Trump’s decades of evading accountability will end. The former president will have to start answering for his conduct, likely beginning in court on Tuesday after he travels to New York to be arraigned in what will be a high-security spectacle given his past incitement of violence.

If Trump’s convicted, it will be harder for him to claim the charges were frivolous and politically motivated. If he was acquitted, you can imagine how Trump would say he was vindicated. He did so even when the Mueller investigation didn’t exonerate him and after his second impeachment following Jan. 6 when a majority of senators – but not the two-thirds required for a conviction – found him guilty.

The ex-president quickly showed that he was ready to cause a political crisis as he began his defense with claims of persecution. He accused Democrats of weaponizing justice to thwart his 2024 White House bid – a claim that threatens to shatter the credibility of the next election in the eyes of millions of his followers and further damage US democracy.

Trump wrote on his Truth SOCIAL network that this was an attack on our country which has never been seen before. It is an ongoing attack on our once free and fair elections. The USA is now a third world nation, a nation in serious decline. So sad!

Like all Americans accused of crimes, Trump is entitled to the presumption of innocence and his full rights under the Constitution, which he tried to overturn on January, 6, 2021. The question of equality under the law, as well as the perception of this case, will affect the credibility of American justice. Is Trump being treated differently because of who he is?

Even if there is plentiful evidence that makes this a relatively simple sell to a jury, the fame and the power of the defendant means the case will unfold in a court of public opinion. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is under enormous pressure since if he fails to secure a conviction, he will be accused even more than he already is of building a politicized case that could tear gaping new divides in the country.

McCarthy claimed that Bragg damaged the country in an attempt to interfere with the election. Ronna spoke of the probe as a “brutality of power from a district focused on political vengeance.”

The speaker of the house said the American people will not tolerate this injustice and added that the house will hold Bragg and his abuse of power to account.

The No. 2 House Republican – Majority Leader Steve Scalise – called the indictment “one of the clearest examples of extremist Democrats weaponizing government to attack their political opponents.” The indictment was a political witch hunt, and it was a bad day for America, according to the House GOP conference chair. There was no immediate comment, however, from Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, underscoring the divides in the GOP over Trump’s past assault on American democracy and political aspirations.

When it was a hypothetical, the electoral politics of the indictment were as murky as they are now. One can picture a world in which a prosecution of Trump will make it easy for conservatives to support him in the election. Imagine a world in which the mess he’s creating with the legal system will be enough to convince some people to go somewhere else. (A poll this week from Echelon Insights showing a swing toward DeSantis in the event of an indictment offers extremely tentative support for that possibility.)

Trump blames Pence for failing to intervene in Congress’ certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory – a position that may limit the former vice president’s political ceiling in a party still filled with Trump loyalists.

Any political boost Trump gets from the indictment will hurt his candidacy for the Republican nomination in Florida. Although he had been portraying himself as a potential president who would be effective in implementing a hardline conservative agenda than Trump was, he had no political room to condemn the indictment because he had been portraying himself as a potential president.

If Trump would refuse to turn himself in, it would make the situation a constitutional crisis, because he could not be put in New York to face charges for crimes he did not commit.

“The weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda turns the rule of law on its head. It is not American. “Florida will not assist in an extradition request given the questionable circumstances at issue with this Soros-backed Manhattan prosecutor and his political agenda.”

The Florida governor made a threat in the middle of an election, which suggests that we will be divisive and dangerous in the months ahead, even if Trump is acquitted.

So even as Trump appears to be unifying this version of the Republican Party behind him through his claims of “witch hunts” and conspiracies, Americans more broadly have lined up against him – and the GOP – over and over these past several years.

Trump said this was the highest level of political interference in history. It was an act of blatant election interference that would backfire on Democrats, and he attacked the New York district attorney who brought the charges.

The indictment against Trump isn’t the result of something a prosecutor or judge did. A grand jury hears evidence from a prosecutor, then decides whether there’s enough there to file charges against a suspect in a crime. They did that.

All of this plays into the air of grievance Trump, a New York billionaire, has puffed into existence that he’s used to propel his political fortunes. He’s argued, successfully with his base of supporters, that the left has it out for him – and, in turn, them – that the system is rigged, and that this indictment and investigation in New York are nothing more than a politically motivated attempt to derail his presidential campaign.

The radicals of the Left have been trying to destroy me ever since I came down the escalator at Trump Tower and became the President of the United States.

It’s all right off the greatest hits heard during the 2016 campaign, the Mueller Russia investigation, two impeachments, the FBI search of his Florida home where they recovered boxes of classified documents – and with relation to, not just this case, but the other three criminal investigations stemming from his conduct after the 2020 presidential election he lost and his role in the lead up to the Jan. 6 insurrection.

While the latest NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist poll this week showed that a majority – 57% – said the criminal investigations into him are fair, 8 in 10 Republicans agree with Trump and call the investigations a “witch hunt,” and 8 in 10 Republicans continue to have a favorable opinion of him.

To Trump’s messaging, a Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday found that two-thirds of all respondents think that the charges in New York are not that serious and 6 in 10 agree that the investigation is politically motivated.

The New York case puts Trump in more danger than the three criminal investigations put him in. But Bragg brought this case first, and the stakes are incredibly high not only for him personally, but also politically.

The Lost and Found: The Case for Donald J. Trump During his First Four Years in the White House, the Underlying Republicans and Their Role in the GOP Legal Problem

The GOP had total control of Washington when Trump was in office. Republicans held both the House and Senate while Trump was in the White House.

The GOP was hurt by a lot of candidates who supported Trump losing key races in swing states. Instead of making big gains, as is usually the case for the president’s party in a first midterm, Democrats actually expanded their majority in the Senate. Republicans took back the House, but more narrowly than they had anticipated.

Republicans have lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. That’s the worst streak for either party in their histories since the Republican Party’s creation in the 19th Century.

The NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist poll found that 6 in 10 people don’t want Trump to be president again, including two-thirds of independents.

The only way that could change, according to Republican strategists – and there’s no guarantee it would even work – is if other Republican candidates home in on Trump’s political vulnerabilities, including that he can only serve four more years, paint his legal troubles as emblematic of the chaos and drama that surrounds Trump and make that argument clear to the GOP base.

It’s not clear if that is even a possibility. Trump’s lawyers and the New York DA’s office will likely simply agree on an arraignment date with Trump either virtually or in person.

The grand jury is likely to hear Trump indictment charges key takes away from the Republican base abuses of the post-Trump era

But DeSantis’ supportive tweet shows the hold Trump has on the GOP base. Trump blasts DeSantis’ personal characteristics and record daily, but he doesn’t offend the very pro-Trump GOP base.

The grand jury’s indictment — and Trump’s charges — remain under seal, and NPR hasn’t been able to confirm other media reports that the DA may arraign Trump on Tuesday.

Kim Wehle, a former U.S. attorney and a law professor at the University of Baltimore, says that Trump is likely to be arrested for violating New York Penal Code 175.10 which states that a person can only be charged with a felony if he or she has committed at least

“It’s quite serious, even if the charge itself doesn’t reach the heights that some people would expect from a former president,” Wehle told NPR’s Adrian Florido on All Things Considered.

Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen negotiated a deal with porn star Stormy Daniels, paying her $130,000 in exchange for keeping quiet about an alleged affair with Trump.

Cohen transferred that money to Daniels less than two weeks before the election. Trump reimbursed Cohen with his own personal checks after he won the election. Trump has denied having had an affair with Daniels, although he has admitted reimbursing Cohen for money paid to her.

According to the Trump Organization, the reimbursements were for legal fees. In New York, that’s a felony if it was done to cover up another crime — in this case, probably the violation of campaign finance laws, Wehle says.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/31/1167281449/trump-indictment-charges-key-takeaways

Are All Candidates Above the Law? The Case of Donald J. Brang, NPR, Associated with the Mueller Investigation into the Manhattan Grand Jury Indictment

NPR couldn’t confirm if Trump is still in Florida. Two reliable flight trackers have not registered movement on his private plane since the 757 flew to West Palm Beach five days ago.

He said he didn’t want to get involved in any type of circus that was connected to George-Sools campaign donations. He is trying to do a political spectacle. I have to deal with some real issues in the state of Florida.

The former president dismissed the Manhattan grand jury’s vote to indict him as a result of political persecution and election interference.

House Oversight Committee Chair Jim Comer and House Administration Committee chair Bryan Steil sent a letter to Bragg demanding information on his investigation into the former president.

Democrats also rallied around a party message, but theirs was one of the need for blind justice, best summed up by the phrase “no one is above the law.”

“A nation of laws must hold the rich and powerful accountable, even when they hold high office. Especially when they do,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a former impeachment manager.

Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and a key witness in the case, also said the indictment shows that “no one is above the law,” but took the moment to call for opinion on the matter to be decided in court.

The potential primary field of the Republican party coalesced on Thursday around a strategy to attack the Manhattan district attorney but not praise Donald Trump.

The Post-Trump Promised Land was Not a Matter of Justice: Former Florida gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.) defended Donald Trump

He said that the idea of the majority of American people believing in equal treatment before the law was offended by the attorney general in New York targeting one particular American.

There is a presumption among a certain kind of analyst — rooted, I presume, in a deeply buried belief in the vengeance of Almighty God — that because Republicans morally deserve Donald Trump they will be stuck with him no matter what. That having refused so many opportunities to take a righteous stand against him, they will be condemned to halt at the edge of a post-Trump promised land, gazing pathetically across the Jordan even as they cast in their lots with the False Orange Messiah once again.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush: Bush defended Trump, saying the indictment was “Not a matter of justice” in a Saturday morning statement.

“(Manhattan District Attorney Alvin) Bragg’s predecessor didn’t take up the case. Bush, one of Donald Trump’s top 2016 presidential rivals, wrote about the case not being taken up by the Justice Department.

Bush wants a Republican to challenge Trump for reelection in 2020. Bush suspended his campaign in the 2016 Republican primaries after Trump insulted him on multiple occasions. The former governor said he would not vote for Trump.

Youngkin vs. Murkowski: The State of the Art in the Indictment of a former President is a Disgrace

Youngkin pivoted to a call for the US to put this kind of politics down, and said that he was more concerned with helping Virginia residents than commenting on divisive national narratives.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski: Murkowski warned in a statement to CNN against “rushing to individual judgment” on Trump’s indictment before hearing the evidence.

Donald Trump’s legal situation is being monitored by me. Everyone deserves a fair legal process, but no one is above the law. The indictment of a former President is unprecedented and must be handled with the utmost integrity and scrutiny,” she wrote. “Instead of rushing to individual judgment, we must also evaluate the evidence as it becomes available and use it to inform our opinions and statements about what is actually happening.”

Barr said at the National Review Institute summit that it is the abuse of the prosecutorial function. “It’s a disgrace if it turns out what we think it is.”

Barr believed it would be damaging to the Republican Party. He said it was a no- lose situation for Democrats who could either focus on Trump in the final months of the election or allow him to get away with another scandal.