Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News
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The latest verse of the ballad of former President Donald Trump’s legal woes was, if nothing else, in full harmony with what has come before.
It’s a telling sign of our times that, in less than a year, the idea of a former president being indicted has gone from unprecedented to something approaching banality.
Certainly, there has been no shortage of verbiage from political actors and watchers, but beyond additional risk for Trump’s criminal record, the process has become dated and predictable.
There was an announcement, in this case Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis bringing about 41 charges against Trump and 18 of his supporters.
The indictment centers on Willis’ assertion that Trump orchestrated a wide-spread effort to undermine the 2020 presidential election, which Willis asserts is a violation of Georgia’s version of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
Willis has accused Trump of engaging “in a criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia’s presidential election result subsequent to the indictment.”
As was the case thrice before, the news of the indictment was met with a wall of anger, derision, and dismissiveness from the Trump camp and conservatives more broadly.
“Can you believe it? This failed District Attorney from Atlanta, Fani Willis, where murders and other violent crime soars daily to new record highs, is charging me with 2020 Presidential Election Interference,” Trump posted Tuesday on Truth Social. “No, Fani, the only Election Interference was done by those that Rigged and Stole the Election. Those are the ones you should be going after, not the innocent people that are fighting for Election Integrity!”
The anger has, as has continuously been the case, been accompanied by a series of articles in which learned, well-compensated analysts agree that we still don’t know what this means for the 2024 presidential race.
It’s certain that Trump remains the favorite to win the Republican nomination but, again in keeping with recent trends, his prospects in the general election are less certain.
A recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll suggests about 53 percent of Americans do not support Trump for a second term, but Trump has outpaced the polls before.
Such information has been met, as it has all along, by allegations on the right that Trump’s chances are precisely the point of all the indictments.
“The idea that these Democrat prosecutors are not colluding is bull c***,” conservative talk show host Mark Levin tweeted. “They’re all in on it and the Biden DOJ is coordinating it.”
In a separate tweet, he added, “Stalin would be proud.”
Stalin would be proudhttps://t.co/l7fHSEP4qQ
— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) August 15, 2023
Fox News polling shows that 53 percent of respondents believe Trump has done something wrong, but that the indictments are politically motivated.
Coincidentally, Trump has blasted Fox as antagonistic to his presidential campaign. .
“FoxNews is going all out, just as they did in 2016, to figure who in this very large, but failing, Republican field, can beat your favorite President, Donald John Trump,” the former president wrote on Truth Social. “They use only the most negative polls, which are still great for me, and do everything possible to show that they still have a chance.”
Another “in keeping with tradition” moment repeated itself this week when another progressive prosecutor gave, either intentionally or by coincidence, justification for saying political maneuvering lies behind the legal process.
Willis, who has given Trump and his fellow defendants until noon on Aug. 25 to surrender (Trump has not turned himself in as of this writing), is asking that the Fulton County trial begin on March 4, 2024. That is the day before Super Tuesday.
“In light of the Defendant Donald John Trump’s other criminal and civil matters pending in the courts of our sister sovereigns, the State of Georgia proposes certain deadlines that do not conflict with these other courts’ already scheduled hearings and trial dates,” a filing from Willis reads.
But Trump has countered that this and all of his trials should be postponed to avoid them affecting the 2024 election.
“All of these Biden Administration bogus trials and cases, including the locals, should be brought after the 2024 Presidential Election,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “What they have done is already Election Interference, but if the trials are held before the Election, then it would be Interference on a scale never seen in our Country before.”
In all likelihood, the Fulton County case will not start the day before Super Tuesday and, even if it did, there has been no indication that a trial would hamper Trump’s primary prospects.
The real question will be what a trial or trials would mean in the general.
It’s well within the realm of possibility that the various legal processes could drag on beyond Election Day 2024.
Trump’s legal team can slow the proceedings considerably with motions and the trials figure to be lengthy.
If he is acquitted across the board, it will be another continuation of contemporary history. Trump will claim victory over his political adversaries and be able to boast of surviving two impeachments and numerous criminal charges.
However, were Trump to be convicted before or after being reelected, and neither the conviction nor reelection are guaranteed, then the nation would face the possibility of another unprecedented moment – that of a sitting president who could attempt to pardon himself from federal convictions or, as presidential pardons only apply to federal cases, angle to have himself pardoned at state level.