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Donald Trump political prisoner tweet
After he successfully dodged prosecution for his crimes in business for decades and in politics for nearly another decade, the law has finally caught up with Donald Trump. The jury that convicted Trump on all 34 felony counts for falsifying business records to hide his sleazy personal life from voters and win the presidency in 2016 was just the beginning.
The only reason Trump hasn’t been criminally prosecuted yet for creating the violent insurrection to try to overthrow President Biden’s election and stealing top-secret nuclear documents is those trials have been delayed by corrupt judges he appointed as president.
The supreme irony is the crime that will send Trump into November’s election as the only former president in history ever to be convicted of multiple felonies is the crime Republicans thought would create the least political damage to their party.
Minor Crimes?
The national media dismissed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s indictment of Trump for falsifying business records to cover up financial payoffs to porn star Stormy Daniels as one of Trump’s minor crimes. That’s an extremely relative term for the most criminal presidency in American history. Now Trump’s criminal convictions for multiple felonies by that New York jury could have a far more profound effect on the presidential election than party leaders and most of the media expect.
What’s most important about those convictions is they have so enraged Trump that no one has any idea what he might say or do next. All Republicans know is it will get really ugly and Trump will demand their total support. They will have no choice but to continue debasing themselves by falling in line.
Here's another guarantee. Trump’s raging, scorched earth presidential campaign of political destruction won’t be designed to win over any of those moderately conservative suburban swing voters in closely divided states like Wisconsin who will decide the presidential election.
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Rule of Law in Danger
Trump is already vowing to destroy the rule of law in America by firing all the nonpartisan prosecutors in the U.S. Justice Department and replacing them with political supporters who will throw out all his federal criminal indictments and start locking up Biden and anyone else, Democrat or Republican, who dares to oppose him.
None of that, even if Trump really could deceive enough voters into electing him again, will make any of Trump’s felony criminal convictions go away. The president of the United States has no power to pardon any felons convicted by juries in state courts.
Here's the other political problem Republicans have in counting on short political attention spans to reduce the importance of Trump’s felony convictions and indictments by Nov. 5. A series of high-profile national events will keep them before voters for the rest of the year.
Trump’s historic criminal convictions will certainly be a topic in the first nationally televised presidential debate between Biden and Trump of 2024 on June 27. Democrats are counting on Biden’s passionate defense of American democracy as a stark contrast to Trump’s increasingly unhinged anger and paranoia.
Supreme Court Waits, and Waits
The second major political event this month or early in July will focus on Trump’s political destruction of the U.S. Supreme Court, already one of the top issues in the election. The Supreme Court will issue its long-delayed decision on Trump’s preposterous claim that presidents should have immunity from prosecution to commit as many crimes as they want including assassinating their political opponents.
Americans are supposed to feel fortunate only corrupt Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas may agree. But other Trump-supporting justices also halted Trump’s trial for his role in the violent insurrection while stalling for months to issue a final decision in the absurd case to try to prevent Trump from being prosecuted before the election.
It will depend upon what legal complications the justices throw into what should have been an open-and-shut case in early February how long it will take for Trump’s criminal prosecution for his role in the January 6 insurrection to resume in Washington, D.C. under Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan.
In the meantime, there will be plenty of attention throughout July on Trump’s felony convictions with Judge Juan Merchan scheduling Trump’s sentencing in the case for July11, four days before the opening of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. No major political party in history has ever nominated a convicted felon before who is still facing other trials for crimes against democracy around the country.
That unprecedented fact will be just as inescapable a month later at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. But here’s the major difference between the two parties. Democrats will be celebrating the principle that no one is above the law in our democracy. Republicans will be enraged about that.
I’m still betting the positive message of Democrats in support of equal rights for all Americans will attract far more voters than the anger and hatred of Republican extremists.
