Predictive Backlash against a Republican 2024 Candidate and an Ex-President: Why We Are Doing What We Did Last Weekend
Trump’s prediction on Saturday that he could be arrested this week – and his attempt to ignite a preemptive backlash – made what had been the theoretical prospect of an ex-president and 2024 candidate being criminally charged appear much more real. And it signaled America is headed for an even more politically divisive ordeal that will test his influence over the GOP.
There are signs that the investigation into Trump’s alleged role in the scheme to pay Stormy Daniels hush money is about to be concluded and that preparations are underway for an indictment but it is not known yet when the charges will be brought or if Trump will be indicted.
If the grand jury does indict Trump, the logistics of bringing him in for fingerprinting for an arraignment will be an enormous test of Bragg’s ability to coordinate with the former president, his lawyers, the Secret Service and the police. There are security concerns, including for Bragg and his staff. Trump has always said he is innocent, and he’s been lobbing abuse at the DA on social media all weekend.
The attorney for Donald Trump testified for nearly three hours in front of a grand jury in an effort to undermine the testimony of Cohen who admitted to paying Daniels before the election.
But the ex-president launched a characteristic effort to discredit attempts to call him to account, trying to intimidate prosecutors, mobilize his grassroots supporters and pressure top GOP officials to rally to his side. Every American has a constitutional right to political self-expression, but the ex-president’s call this weekend for his loyalists – “Protest, take our nation back” – struck an ominous tone since he showed on January 6, 2021, that he was willing to incite violence to further his interests.
We are in unexplored territory. We don’t know what this does long term politically. We’d rather he just not be indicted than get some potential boost,” a source involved with Trump’s campaign told CNN.
If an indictment were to come about, it would show that the Republican Party has a tendency to appease Trump in order to preserve his political career as his hold on the party’s most fervent supporters is so great.
Trump and his top allies in the House have been trying to distract from the accusations against him.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Sunday called it “the weakest case out there.” The California Republican, who has directed GOP-led committees to investigate the Manhattan district attorney’s use of federal funds to investigate the payment of hush money to two women, stated at the news conference that he had already spoken to Jim Jordan.
The Judges Aren’t: The Cases Against Trump in the ‘Black Friday’ Collision are Dangerous and Unresolved
The speaker insisted that Trump did not want people to protest over what may or may not happen. “If this is to happen we want calmness out there … no violence or harm to anyone else,” McCarthy said.
Several of Trump’s Republican critics lined up beside him due to his social media post. It felt like a politically charged prosecution as Mike Pence, the former Vice President, said he was considering a campaign to challenge Trump for the nomination. I feel like it isn’t what the American people want to see.
The Bragg investigation was helping to build sympathy for the former president, according to New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu. He added: “I (had) coffee this morning with some folks, and none of them were big Trump supporters, but they all said they felt like he was being attacked.”
— An indictment of a former president would be unprecedented in US history and mark another dubious distinction for the twice-impeached Trump, who sought to interrupt the historic tradition of peaceful transfers of power and lied about his defeat in the 2020 election. No tradition has existed of ex-US leaders being pursued by successors. So, even if the cases against Trump are legally justified, prosecutors in New York, as well as in Georgia and at the Justice Department, face a perilous and uncharted moment.
— There is also the issue of whether the political division and trauma of putting Trump on trial would be in the wider national interest — at least in a fairly constrained case that seems to hold fewer lasting constitutional implications than those connected to the January 6 investigations. History may look negatively on failed prosecutions.
The fact that the Daniels case dates back to an election that is now more than six years old, even as the nation faces another White House campaign, could also raise questions for the public, especially given the uncertainty about the case for anyone outside the small bubble of the investigation. Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” on Sunday that “nobody in our nation is or should be above the law.” He also hopes that if charges are brought that they have a strong case. There are risks involved.
Kelly’s comment emphasized how Trump, nearly eight years after he burst onto the scene with an upstart presidential campaign, is again shattering convention about the role of presidents and ex-presidents in national life. He again may be about to leap to the center, in the most contentious of ways, of the national psyche and political debate.
The legal drama surrounding Donald Trump is being looked at by CNN. Watch “CNN Primetime: Inside the Trump Investigations” Tuesday, March 21 at 9 p.m. ET.
Officials in New York and Washington, DC, are preparing for potential protests as a grand jury empaneled as part of the investigation into Donald Trump’s alleged role in a scheme to pay hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels continues to weigh possible charges.
According to a source, all NYPD officers are expected to be dressed in uniform and ready for deployment Tuesday in New York City where the grand jury has been meeting. Law enforcement officials told CNN there is no credible threat on Tuesday.
The memo came in response to a series of social media posts by Trump in which he called for his supporters to protest in order to show their displeasure after he lost the election. CNN reported Monday that the US Capitol Police force is not currently tracking any credible threats to the US Capitol.
Reply to “Comment on a case for a prosecutorial investigation of the corruption of the district attorney.” An attorney’s response to Bragg after the DA’s investigation
Cohen made himself available to the DA’s office as a rebuttal witness Monday but was “not needed,” according to a statement provided to CNN by his lawyer.
House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, House Oversight Committee Chair Jim Comer, R-Ky., and House Administration Committee Chair Bryan Steil, R-Wis., kicked off their own probe on Monday, sending Bragg a letter demanding documents, communications and testimony related to his investigation of the former president.
A spokesperson for Bragg responded by saying that the district attorney’s team “will not be intimidated by attempts to undermine the justice process, nor will we let baseless accusations deter us from fairly applying the law.”
In every case, we follow the law without fear or favor. A spokesman for the lawyers said they were hard at work.
A possible indictment was described by the chairmen as an unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority and one that federal authorities declined to pursue.
They said they expect him to appear as soon possible before Congress but did not set a date for a hearing. They gave Bragg a deadline of Thursday to respond to them to set up a possible appearance.
House Republicans are huddling at their annual retreat in Orlando, Fla., and the former president, who is running for the GOP nomination in 2024, is dominating the conversation.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy fielded several questions about Trump at a press conference Sunday evening, and largely focused his response on attacking Bragg’s tenure and legal approach, instead of defending Trump’s behavior.
“One of the reasons we won races in New York is based upon this DA of not protecting the citizens of New York, and now he’s spending his time on this,” McCarthy said. “And the statute of limitations are gone.” He added about an indictment: “This will not hold up in court, if this is what he wants to do.”
The fate of the Manhattan district attorney’s office after the grand jury verdict on Donald Trump’s probe of colloquium misconduct in bragg’s case
Questions about Trump continued to be front and center as House Republicans attempted to showcase their legislative agenda in the majority.
The first question asked at the press conference was about Bragg’s probe. “It certainly smells like it’s political” was the same phrase that most GOP lawmakers have used, according to Rep. Carlos Gimenez.
The Mar-a-Lago mansion is where President Donald Trump and his advisers are preparing for a possible indictment from the Manhattan grand jury.
Two advisers said that the former president appears to have resigned himself to the likelihood of an indictment, with one close adviser calling his perceived distancing from the matter “compartmentalization.”
In the latest twist in the case, CNN reported exclusively Tuesday evening that communications between Daniels and an attorney who is now representing Trump have been turned over to the Manhattan district attorney’s office. The exchanges – said to date back to 2018, when Daniels was seeking representation – raise the possibility that the Trump attorney, Joe Tacopina, could be sidelined from Trump’s defense.
CNN hasn’t seen any of the records and has not heard of a conflict between his office and the records. He has no recollection of meeting or talking to Daniels. The impact of the disclosure on the case will be determined by the substance of the communications and the circumstances.
It’s clear for the first time in history that theJustice Department believes Trump may have committed a crime because of a finding that was part of a ruling Friday from the DC District Court. The burden was on the prosecutors to overcome Trump’s right to shield discussions with his lawyers.
A New Watchdog: How Donald Trump’s Twitter comments on the January 6 attack on the US Capitol may be viewed as a sham
An adviser questioned whether an indictment from the New York grand jury could derail plans for Trump’s first major campaign rally since announcing his third presidential bid.
Over the weekend, Trump on his social media page called for protests of what he said was his impending arrest. He moved away from that language in the past few days after allies and advisers asked him to tone down his rhetoric, a sign that he is listening.
Federal officials, including those at the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, are monitoring calls for civil war and other violent rhetoric online, because they say there has been an increase in violent rhetoric since Trump made those calls. US officials and security experts tell CNN that so far it has been limited to chatter and lacks important information that would have assisted in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
Bragg may have to make a decision as speculation mounts that Donald Trump may be charged over the payments to an adult film actress.
There’s no excuse for this to be a sham. And something that we want to know: were federal funds involved? The congressional concerns we have as Congress are what may have led to the growth of this.