Like Hugh Grant, Dominique Strauss-Kahn or Al Capone before him, Donald Trump will be entitled today to his mugshot, this identity photo taken by the police, as we see in the movies or on the front page of the newspapers. Question: will this be made public? This is what the press of the whole world is wondering, at the dawn of a day as symbolic as it is historic. If the answer is yes, the picture will immediately be on the front page of the New York Times. And will print in the retina of the public an unpublished image of the former president.
Indicted last week by Democratic prosecutor Alvin Bragg, Donald Trump must be presented this Tuesday, April 4, 2023 before this judge for the district of Manhattan (New York) following a procedure that is akin to a cinematographic ritual. The defendant will learn of the facts of which he is accused in the context of the investigation into a payment of 130,000 dollars to Stephanie Cliffords, alias Stormy Daniels, in 2016, via Michael Cohen (the ex-lawyer of Trump). This in order to silence the former actress of movie X to prevent her from revealing, in the middle of the electoral campaign, this affair which dated back to 2006.
Then, the one who is now a presidential candidate for 2024 will submit to fingerprinting and will be photographed. “He will be treated like any litigant, crack dealer or car thief, in the country, notes historian Françoise Coste, specialist in the United States. The question is whether he will be handcuffed, which seems unlikely as Secret Service security agents have already made it known that they will remain with Trump to ensure his physical integrity as per their mission.”
“This is unheard of”
Afterwards, the former tenant of the White House (2016-2020) will have to explain to the judge whether he pleads guilty or not guilty. Then the latter will have to decide whether to release the defendant or not. Freedom seems the most likely case. But even if this hypothesis is accepted, Trump could see his freedom of movement hampered: the judge could impose on him to stay in the State of New York, which would prevent him from returning to his house in Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, on the Florida coast.
“All of this is totally unprecedented, insists Françoise Coste. Never has a former president been prosecuted in this way by justice. In 1974, Richard Nixon had been worried by justice but, a month after his resignation, he had been pardoned by his successor Gerald Ford even before being indicted. And there is another difference: Nixon was not a candidate for re-election. The current situation is unheard of. From the point of view of legal process, it East terra incognita. Because before Trump, the norm was to leave former presidents alone. Even George W. Bush, who lied before invading Iraq, has never been worried about this”, points out the researcher. In the eyes of the former president’s supporters, this is one more reason to mobilize in the street, with a potential risk of overflow, such as during the Capitol uprising on January 6, 2021.
Many questions arise. For starters: what are the charges against the former president? If it is only about the purchase of the silence of Stormy Daniels at the price of 130,000 dollars, not only is the affair grotesque but, moreover, the sum “embezzled” seems derisory compared to the half-billion dollars spent for the Trump campaign in 2016. Above all, the defense of Donald Trump is known. According to him, actress Stephanie Clifford, alias Stormy Daniels – whom he vulgarly nicknamed “horseface”, or “horse head” – wanted to blackmail him. Having learned it from his lawyer Me Cohen, he would have taken the initiative to pay the actress. It is therefore Cohen who is in question, not Trump himself. In addition, Cohen, Trump’s main accuser, has already spent a year behind bars in this case, which considerably weakens his testimony.
It is to be hoped that New York judge Alvin Bragg has more serious charges than this cash story. In the opposite case, Donald Trump will only have to unfold his victimization argument by talking about “witch hunts”, which, for sure, will allow him to weld his troops. On the other hand, Judge Bragg’s timing is likely to disrupt the other ongoing proceedings. This is on the one hand, the investigation into Donald Trump’s interference in the counting in Georgia in 2020 (the president was recorded on the telephone in the process of pressuring the Secretary of State of Georgia in charge of the electoral ballot so that the latter finds the 11,000 votes missing for his victory) and, on the other hand, of the two investigations entrusted to the independent judge Jack Smith. The first deals with Trump’s responsibility for the Capitol insurrection, and the second with the classified documents found at the former president’s home in Mar-a-Lago.
The Unknown Ron DeSantis
These last three cases are considerably more serious than the Stormy Daniels case. But if Judge Smith were to indict the ex-president in his turn, his message would be considerably blurred and weakened by the ambient tumult in New York. One wonders, therefore, why the Manhattan judge – who cannot fail to know these elements – did not delay before summoning the former president.
Politically, Judge Bragg’s summons forces other Republican candidates – who wanted to distance themselves from Trump – to back the former president. In this context, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is unable to find the oxygen necessary to exist in the media for his campaign for the Republican primaries. For its part, Joe Biden’s Democratic camp is calculating that Donald Trump will be easier to beat in 2024 than Ron DeSantis. Some are therefore rejoicing – a little too quickly – at the current crazy dynamic that is propelling Donald Trump into the limelight.
But no one can predict where this senseless circus will lead the presidential campaign. Among the hypotheses studied by political scientists – and by the interested party himself – is the candidacy of West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin. Elected Democrat, he also won over the Republican electorate of his state. In the event of a candidacy, he could nibble voters in both camps without knowing who will suffer the most. A year and a half before the supreme election, and at a time when the war continues in Ukraine, very smart whoever will say where America will be in a year.