Il first president in the history of States United to be indicted. Donald Trump adds another questionable record to a career already studded with scandals and challenges to rules and institutions. In the two and a half centuries of the nation’s existence, no president or former president had ever suffered the humiliation of a criminal proceedings at his expense. It happens with Trump, who is accused by the magistrates of New York to have bought the silence of a ex pornostar, Stormy Danielsduring the presidential campaign of 2016. Trump reacts and talks about “political persecution and interference in elections”. His lawyers say he will turn himself in anyway Tuesday at the Justice of Manhattanto hear the complaints against him. The outcome of a trial is uncertain which, also for the prosecution led by the District Attorney of Manhattan, the Democrat Alvin Braggturns out to be fraught with unknowns and pitfalls. What is certain is that this story will have important effects on the choice of the Republican candidate for presidential elections 2024thereby influencing the very future of American democracy.
It is a little after one on a cold and sunny Thursday when the three main representatives of the Manhattan prosecutor’s office cross the threshold of the building where the 23 membri del Grand Jurywho have been listening for weeks testimonials for and against the former president. What is about to happen is known to all. The New York Attorney’s Office is about to ask the Grand Jury for Mass under indictment of Trump, who allegedly broke the law when he ordered his lawyer, Michael Cohento pay 130 thousand dollars to a former porn star, Stormy Daniels, who was about to reveal to a tabloid newspaper to have had one relation with the then Republican presidential candidate. Trump does not deny that he paid Daniels. However, he says that Cohen had reassured him about the legality of an outlay that was nothing more than an attempt to extortion in his regards. Far from having committed a crime, it would therefore have been he, Donald Trump, the victim of a crime. The Grand Jury doesn’t believe him and gives the green light to the Manhattan Attorney’s Office, which formally indicts Trump. For the former president, this is an unprecedented setback. In 50 years of adventurous career from entrepreneur turned television star turned president of the United States, Trump had been subject to many inquiries, but had always avoided an indictment. This time it goes badly for him and who has seen him these days in his residence of Mar-a-Lago describes him swinging between euphoria e confusioncertainty of final victory and refusal to face reality.
For now, it is not known what the Manhattan prosecutor’s office disputes with Trump. THE charges they will only know each other when they are read to him, on Tuesday, at the time of his delivery to justice. It is therefore not clear whether Bragg and his team have decided to challenge Trump a misdemeanorand crime minorresulting from having accounted for the money given to Stormy Daniels as “legal expenses” of the Trump Organization. Or have they aimed higher, al felonya much more serious crime. By giving those 130,000 dollars to Daniels, Trump would indeed have violated the electoral law of the United States, concealing the amount and destination of funds that were precisely used for his own political campaign. The uncertainty about the charges reveals the difficulties that the prosecution has encountered in putting together the request for indictment. In case it was decided for the felonythe prosecution should in fact use one normawhich governs election campaigning in New York State, for a vote that was up instead base national: an overlap between state law and federal law that does not have many precedents and that could be liquidated at the time of the trial. As already anticipated, Trump will then leverage above all on one topic: that of having been a victim of an extortion. That money wasn’t going to save his political campaign. They would have served to save hers family and his vita. The accusatory paradigm then raises more than a doubtin the same Manhattan court offices. Mark Pomerantzone of the most experienced magistrates in the city, yes resigned by Alvin Bragg’s team in open controversy with the prosecution’s hypothesis. In a book, Pomerantz called the affair one “zombie case”: one of those legal cases destined to wander endlessly, amid a thousand doubts and interpretations, in the corridors of justice.
If it is not yet known what will be contested against Trump, one can imagine what will happen on Tuesday, when the former president arrives at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse to hear the charges. The defense lawyers and the prosecutor are currently negotiating on the conditions of the delivery. The former president would be spared the humiliation of handcuffs. But it will come anyway photographed and they will be taken fingerprints digital. The judge should decide immediately after her liberation without bail. For the type of alleged crimes committed, and for his history and personality, Trump does not present characters of danger social. Trump’s voluntary surrender relieves embarrassment among other things Ron DeSantis. In case the former president had decided not to go to New York, it would in fact have been DeSantis himself, in his functions of governor from the Floridathe state in which Trump resides, to have to implement the extradition request by the New York authorities. A task that DeSantis, who is currently Trump’s strongest rival like Republican candidate of the 2024, he had already said he did not want to comply. “Florida will not cooperate with an extradition request, given the circumstances questionable by a Soros-backed Manhattan attorney,” DeSantis wrote on Twitter. DeSantis’ words recall an accusationwith clear outlines anti-Semiteswhich has been around for some time circles conservatory: the one according to which Bragg is a puppet operated by a clique of Jewish financiers captained by George Soros.
Then there is the chapter of reactions at the indictment. The news immediately grabbed the headlines online and revolutionized TV schedules. On CNN “The Situation Room” was on the air, hosted by one of the most well-known faces of the station, Wolf Blitzerwho immediately put together a team of commentators ed experts which rotated between afternoon and evening. Fox News broke the news while the show was on Sandra Smith, “The Five”. The presenter interrupted the transmission and with a dismayed face, amid the alarm of her guests, she solemnly said: “We have just heard about it. Former President Donald Trump was indicted by a grand jury in New York.” The political reactions are predictable, split between the innocent (the Republicans) and who instead considers the investigation legitimate (the Democrats). “A nation founded on law must believe criminally responsible even the rich and powerful… otherwise it wouldn’t be a democracy,” said the democratic deputy Adam Schiffwho led the charge at the time of the first impeachment against Trump. Outrage, proclamations against “judicial terrorism” instead come from the Republicans. Bragg “has beyond repair damaged our country in an attempt to to interfere with the presidential elections,” explained the Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy.
Meanwhile, from Mar-a-Lago, the offender’s indignation and sense of defiance dominates. Trump is convinced that, once again, he will succeed. He calls Bragg, his accuser, “a misfortune”. He proclaims his innocence. She goes on with life as always. Play to golfreceives guests, organizes prices in his “beautiful residence”, as he called it. However, some of the visitors of the last few weeks describe him as “detached from reality”, unable to really understand how the New York investigation, and the other three opened on him among Washington and the Georgiamay affect the future. In defiance, Trump also posted on his “Truth Social” account, a photomontage, taken from a newspaper, in which he is seen with a baseball bat threatening Attorney Bragg. The post was later deleted, at the request of his collaborators, worried that the stunts could further fuel the harshness of the clash. Just among Trump’s collaborators, however, there is a certain wind worry. There was a widespread belief that the New York prosecutor’s office was slowing down its action, and that the Grand Jury’s vote would come to start maggio. The news from New York has therefore caught many off guard and worrying, in anticipation of the election campaign. Trump’s trial, given the timing of justice, cannot be held for a year. But the general question – can an indicted person become president of the United States? – promises to heavily condition the whole debate politico.