By Gustavo Sierra
“Could I still be a presidential candidate and campaign from jail?”a Republican analyst seriously wondered last night in one of the forums of the CNN that have been going on non-stop since the special prosecutor Jack Smith decided to take the historic step of impeaching the former president Donald Trump for the charges of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, willful retention of national security documents, falsehoods and violations of the espionage law. “How can you be a candidate for anything with those positions?” a University of Virginia law professor in the same program asked angrily and in response. The questions have been in the air since noon on Friday when Trump learned that he had to appear in court next Tuesday. Can he continue to be the favorite within the Republican Party to be nominated for the presidency in this context? And what is even more important for this man who handles himself with the ease of a center forward in the area when it comes to media exposure: Does this process benefit or harm you in your presidential campaign?
“This is a double-edged process,” Explain Andrew DavidProfessor of History of the Presidency of the boston university. “Because, on the one hand, you want your leaders to be accountable to the rule of law like everyone else. This is a sign that things are working. On the other hand, the unprecedented nature of this is scary to some degree. It’s interesting that other former presidents have come close to this line, but we’ve never crossed it, and what that means going forward raises many questions. In Trump’s case, the prosecutor may inadvertently be doing his presidential aspirations a huge favor”.
Boxes with secret documents deposited on the stage of the great White and Gold Ballroom of the Mar-a-Lago club, owned by Trump in Florida. (US Justice Department/Handout via Reuters)
Trump could soon join a notorious club that includes Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, Nicolas Sarkozy y Jacques Chirac from France and Park Geun-hye y Lee Myung-bak from South Korea. All of them were prosecuted and convicted of corruption in the last 15 years. The consequences of what happened to them were different in all cases, but Trump is closer to looking in the mirror of Berlusconi, who continues to mark Italian politics despite his conviction and advanced age. Are “political animals” that once they arrive they are not willing to retire in any way and are very difficult to eliminate by their rivals or to extirpate by the democratic system. And the more they “chase” them, the better for their aspirations. They are based on the epic of “martyrdom”. They make believe that they are always victims, that everyone wants to harm them.
Carl TobiasProfessor of Law at the University of Richmond, in Virginia, believes that “the prosecutor acting in the case is very far from the political centers, they have a very good record and until now they have acted correctly. Of course Trump’s lawyers are going to try to accuse him of whatever they can, but a lot is going to be in what the Republican Party does. It is there where it is necessary to see if with their actions or words they legitimize the process or not”. For now, everything indicates that the Republicans are going to defend him to the letter instead of taking advantage to get rid of him and update themselves.
“It is inconceivable that a president impeaches the main candidate who opposes him,” he tweeted. Kevin McCarthy, Speaker of the House of Representatives. “I, and all Americans who believe in the rule of law, we stand with President Trump against this grave injustice”. Ron DeSantisthe governor of Florida and Trump’s main rival in the Republican presidential primary, wrote on Twitter: “The arms race of federal security forces poses a deadly threat to a free society… Why so much zeal in persecuting Trump and so much passivity before Hillary or Hunter (Biden)?”. The senator JD Vancefrom Ohio, called it “sham accusation”the senator Bill Hagertyfrom Tennessee, compared the US to a “Banana Rebublic” and the senator Josh Hawleyfrom Missouri, told Fox News: “If the incumbent president can jail his political opponents, which is what Joe Biden is trying to do, we no longer have a republic.”
Special counsel Jack Smith as he filed the 37-count indictment against former President Donald Trump at his Washington prosecutor’s offices. (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)
They repeat what happened less than three months ago, when Trump was accused by the New York State Attorney of 34 felony falsifying business records for a bribe payment to a porn star. The former president saturated news channels, enjoyed a boost in the polls and forced his primary rivals to rally around him. He raised more than $4 million in the 24 hours after the indictment was made public.
Social networks are collapsed with messages from Trump supporters beating the patch with which it is about a “witch hunt” in which justice has double standards because both President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence were also caught with classified documents in their homes. They obviously dismiss the fact that both Biden and Pence complied with the authorities when they were required to return them while Trump refused to do so. But the arguments don’t matter. Almost 30% of the US Republican electorate continues to believe what Trump says without questioning anything at all.
Y more than 12 million Americans, almost 5% of the total population, say they are willing to use violence to restore Trump to power as happened in the insurrection and the assault on Congress on January 6, 2021. An exhaustive work by the Project on Security & Threats (CPOST) from University of Chicago indicates that there is a persistent part of the population of the United States that is willing to resort to armed violence for Trump to govern and defend the most extreme ideas. Those same analysts believe that the imputation of Trump will increase that support for the former president, as well as the tendency to the armed struggle to defend the right to bear arms and prohibit abortion.
Supporters of former President Donald Trump during the assault on Congress on January 6, 2021 to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s presidency. (EFE/Jim Lo Scalzo).
The same study by Chicago political scientists shows that one in five Americans remains convinced that Trump’s re-election was stolen. 10% believe that the government in Washington is controlled by a satanic cult of pedophiles. And 25% accept the theory of “The Great Replacement” whereby the Democratic Party would be replacing American voters with “obedient” voters from the Third World.
In this context, it should not be surprising if the process approved by the Miami grand jury ends up being a platform for Trump to rise in the polls, becomes the undisputed candidate of the Republican Party and ends up becoming president of the United States again on Tuesday, November 5 of next year. A lot will depend on whether the US judicial system manages to show that it is doing a clean process and free from political interference. Regardless of whether Trump supporters believe it or not.