On Thursday night, word of the government’s indictment of Donald Trump seeped out. The 45th president is reportedly slated to be arraigned this coming Tuesday on seven separate counts. He stands accused of violating the Espionage Act, false statements and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Irony abounds. As a first-time candidate, he led chants of “lock her up”. From the White House, he sought jail for his political opponents. Now on his third bid for the presidency, Trump must contend with an array of pending federal and state prosecutions and investigations.
For the first time ever, the leading contender for a major party’s presidential nomination will be running while under the cloud of indictment and possible imprisonment. In October, he faces a civil fraud trial in New York. Then in March 2024, he will be tried as a criminal defendant on charges related to hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels.
Imagine Trump on the receiving end of the court’s direction: “Will the defendant please rise.”
Still, there is no indication that his Republican rivals will go at him full-bore. The party’s base still belongs to Trump. In that sense, the rest of the Republican field are intruders and would-be usurpers. Already, Ron DeSantis and Mike Pence, together with broad swaths of the Republican congressional leadership, have fallen into line.
On cue, Florida’s mirthless governor blasted the justice department, much as he attacked Alvin Bragg, Manhattan’s district attorney, weeks earlier. “The weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society,” DeSantis tweeted.
To be sure, “free society” and DeSantis in the same sentence is an oxymoron. In office, he has repeatedly sought to muzzle free speech. He also signed a six-week abortion ban, and established an election police force to root out imagined incidents of fraud.
This time, however, DeSantis did not couple his attack on the prosecution with a direct defense of Trump. There is only so much swill that DeSantis, now a declared candidate, can be expected to swallow.
As for Trump’s hapless vice-president, he remains as wishy-washy as ever. Pence described the reported charges as “unprecedented” and “divisive”, while intoning that “no one’s above the law”. His latest bromides are akin to “thoughts and prayers” after a mass shooting.
A reminder. On January 6, there were people who seemed ready to hang Pence from makeshift gallows. Yet hours later, Pence’s own brother, Greg, a congressman from Indiana, voted against certifying the election. The show must go on, apparently.
Indeed, even Chris Christie hesitates to rush in. “Let’s see what the facts are when any possible indictment is released,” the former federal prosecutor and New Jersey governor tweeted. “As I have said before, no one is above the law, no matter how much they wish they were. We will have more to say when the facts are revealed.”
Previously, Christie had opined that Trump’s legal woes are “all self-inflicted wounds”.
At this juncture, only a precipitous drop in donations stands to upend Trump’s campaign. Faced with mounting legal bills, a never-ending parade of woes and little spare cash, the ex-reality show host feeds on other people’s money to stay in the game. For him, politics is about monetization and avoiding jail. After the Bragg indictment, Trump raised $12m.
Looking at the calendar, it is highly unlikely that Trump will be tried on federal charges before the 2024 election. Between his trials in New York, the Republican convention and justice department policy, his figurative dance card is full. If re-elected, Trump would be in the perfect position to force the dismissal of any and all pending federal charges against him.
We have already witnessed a variation of this movie. Back in May 2020, Bill Barr’s justice department moved to dismiss the government’s case against Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser. The fact that he had entered a guilty plea in 2017 was not a deal-breaker. Flynn had not yet gone to jail and was fighting to toss his prior plea.
“It looks like to me that Michael Flynn would be exonerated based on everything that I see,” Trump said more than three years ago. “I’m not the judge, but I have a different type of power.”
We may yet find out how different that power actually is.
Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
