Before the historic verdict in Manhattan District Court yesterday at 4:20 p.m. (New York time), no American president or former president had ever been found guilty of a “crime” by his country’s criminal justice system. Moreover, no one would be able to politically survive such infamy. None, except Donald Trump, of course! The former billionaire president has long crossed all limits, transgressed all prohibitions, broken all codes.
Elected in 2016 after calling Mexicans rapists, declaring that being famous allowed him to “grab women by the pussy”, inciting the Capitol insurrection of January 6, 2021, here is Donald Trump guilty of seeking to concealing a secret payment to a porn star (so that she would keep their relationship quiet before the 2016 presidential election) and falsified business documents. A disaster for Trump five months before the November election? No way !
“On the contrary, it’s holy bread for the Republican candidate,” says Françoise Coste, author of Reagan (Perrin) and specialist in the Republican Party. As soon as the verdict was pronounced, all party executives closed ranks behind Trump, from the “speaker” of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson to the leader of the Republicans in the Senate Mitch McConnell, including Maine Senator Susan Collins, who is a moderate.” Irony of history: the most conservative Trumpists of the religious right pay no attention to the adulterous relationship of their champion with the pornographic actress Stormy Daniels, famous interpreter of Revenge of the Dildos (the revenge of the dildos), nor the one with Playboy playmate Karen McDougal… It is true that already in 2016, Trump said: “If I shot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue, I wouldn’t lose any voters.”
Pornographic actress and director Stormy Daniels leaves the courthouse in Manhattan, New York, where she testified at Donald Trump’s trial
© / afp.com/Charly TRIBALLEAU
The only certainty: after a lull during the six weeks of trial during which the defendant kept a low profile, the “Trump circus” will resume with a vengeance. Faithful to the tactics of his mentor Roy Cohn, his lawyer in the 1980s, the ex-president will “first deny everything outright, counterattack, then double down” by posing as a martyr in a trial political, like Nelson Mandela. The scenario is written in advance.
On July 11, Judge Juan Merchan will determine the nature of the sentence imposed on Donald Trump: probation or prison – four years maximum. “The suspense linked to this decision will undoubtedly fuel the show of the candidate who is also preparing to announce, in the coming weeks, the name of his or her vice-president for his or her presidential “ticket”, continues Françoise Coste. all, just before the big show at the Republican Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 15-18.” In short, you should expect to eat Trump morning, noon and night.
A reinforced concrete indictment
The Republican candidate, who continues to defend himself outside the courtroom even though the trial is over (“The real verdict will be on November 5,” he proclaims) and who has nothing stopping him from running for the White House (American law does not require a clean criminal record, as in France) has already refined his argument. His trial was, according to him, a political plot. The proof ? The prosecutor responsible for his indictment, Alvin Bragg, is a Democrat (in the United States, prosecutors are elected by universal suffrage). In reality, this in no way prejudges its impartiality. Moreover, it was not him but 12 jurors – carefully selected by Trump’s defense who challenged more than 80 others – who delivered a unanimous verdict. Which demonstrates, if necessary, the concrete solidity of the prosecution case.
Moreover, in other proceedings against him, Trump finds nothing to complain about even though the prosecutor is Republican, as in Florida in the case of top secret documents taken from the White House and hidden in his residence Private Mar-a-Lago. In reality, American judges, Democratic or Republican, must be impartial and put together solid cases so as not to risk discredit.
It will be noted in passing that if only one of the 12 jurors had taken up the cause of the accused and thus exonerated the latter (in the United States, juries must make their decisions unanimously “beyond a reasonable doubt” ), he would have instantly become the “Savior of Trump” as well as the hero of the right, invited on the sets of Fox News and the subject of all solicitations by book publishers. But that’s not the case.
Discretion of Joe Biden
After the May 30 verdict, President Joe Biden finds himself in a delicate situation, forced to sail upwind and exercise restraint. Here he is almost condemned to silence on the subject. If he speaks about his opponent’s setbacks, he will give credence to the idea that Trump’s trial was political. Presidential discretion is therefore required while Donald Trump can spread and occupy all media space, particularly on social networks.
By a coincidence of timing that happens to be good for him, Joe Biden will soon move away from the United States. At the beginning of June, he enters a memorial sequence on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings. A way to capture media attention? Not sure. With the disappearance of the last protagonists of D-Day, the memory of American heroism in the face of Nazi Germany fades, as does the media interest attached to it.
Also called the “Stormy Daniels affair”, the trial which is ending does not fundamentally change the course of the electoral campaign. Certainly, leaving the court, Donald Trump seemed a bit groggy. But if he took an uppercut to the face, he is not KO.
It remains to be seen whether certain undecided voters, more inclined to vote for Trump, will turn away from him. Possible. But not sure. Just like his opponent, octogenarian Joe Biden is also a weak candidate who hardly arouses the enthusiasm of his camp. In the presidential election which will be decided by a few thousand votes in three or four American states, the condemned Trump still has every chance.