Trump, Fox, and the Law: The Ex-President of the New York Times and a Dark Cloud to Face the Law, Truth and Decency
He’s due back in New York on Thursday under a dark legal cloud to answer more questions about his conduct, a week after becoming the first ex-president to be charged with a crime.
Last week, Trump pleaded not guilty in a case related to a payment to a film star. He’s expected back in the city where he made his name to give a deposition in a separate civil case alleging that he and three of his adult children falsified Trump Organization accounts in a years-long fraud to enrich themselves.
The two trips encapsulate the converging legal battles that are putting Trump’s time-honored strategy of delay, denial and distraction to its ultimate test.
The barrage of legal jeopardy doesn’t mean the ex-president is guilty of anything, and he denies wrongdoing in all cases. But it shows that at least Trump – as well as some of those most involved in amplifying his election fraud misinformation after the 2020 election – may be forced to answer for conduct that critics and political opponents have long argued flies in the face of the law, truth and decency.
Trump requested a delay of a month so that the media wouldn’t interest him in the trial. Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer for the judge, wrote in a letter that Trump is not suited to complain about fairness because he has instigated so much of the very coverage about which he now complains.
A panel of 12 jurors and 12 alternates are going to be formed when 300 potential jurors are summoned to the Delaware Superior Court. The trial will be about six weeks long and will examine Fox’s presidential election denialism and the role of misinformation in American politics.
“I’m very uncomfortable right now,” Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis said on Wednesday after rebuking the network’s lawyers from the bench. Fox denies wrongdoing in both the issue raised by the judge and in the broader case, arguing that it was simply covering Trump’s allegations of election fraud and that a verdict against it would infringe press freedom.
Trump’s trip back to New York on Thursday follows a deposition he gave Attorney General Letitia James’ office last year before the suit against him and the Trump Organization was filed, in which he cited his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to more than 400 questions. His position is more nuanced now since in a civil case, if a defendant takes the Fifth, a jury can make an “adverse inference” against them.
The former president reacted to the suit filed by James, a Democrat, in the same way that he responds to any accusation of wrongdoing – by accusing legal authorities of pursuing a political vendetta against him.
In response to his indictment in Manhattan, he accused the district attorney of trying to stop him from returning to the White House. In an interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox on Tuesday, the ex-president said he would never drop out of the presidential race if he was convicted and claimed his foes were using the “old Soviet process” to convict him of crimes he said he didn’t commit.
Trump has denied sexually assaulting Carroll, who alleges Trump raped her in a New York department store dressing room in the mid-1990s. She filed a defamation suit against Trump after he denied the rape allegation and said she made the claim to boost her book sales.
Murdoch Media in the No Spin Zone: The Case Against Donald Trump’s Attorney-Forming Ex-President Michele Cohen
The ex-president, who has long been known for using the court system to pursue his personal and political goals, unveiled yet another legal front on Wednesday by announcing a $500 million lawsuit alleging that Michel Cohen breached his contract as his former personal attorney.
The move raised immediate suspicions that Trump was seeking to intimidate or silence Cohen, who testified before the Manhattan grand jury and is likely to be a key witness in Bragg’s prosecution. Prosecutors allege that Trump tried to hide hush money payments to adult actress Stormy Daniels to avoid harming his 2016 campaign.
CNN legal analyst Karen Friedman Agnifilo said on “Erin Burnett OutFront” on Wednesday that Trump appeared to be trying to get around the judge’s warning that the matter should not be tried in the court of public opinion. The timing is suspect, the claims are questionable, and I am not sure how this will work because of that, said a former chief assistant district attorney in Manhattan.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, meanwhile, stepped up his apparent effort to thwart Bragg’s investigation – or at least to discredit Bragg in the eyes of voters – in the latest move from Trump’s allies to fight the case in public before it ever reaches the courtroom. The committee from Ohio will be in New York on Monday to hear a case against Bragg going after Trump for political reasons.
A series of recent pretrial rulings has provided more clarity on how Judge Davis operates, and shows he has taken steps to reassure both parties that he had not predetermined the outcomes.
It is there, in Courtroom 7E, where the biggest figures in Murdoch Media, accompanied by a throng of high-powered lawyers, will attempt to mount their defense after repeatedly failing to convince a judge to toss the now-historic case.
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Fox News will enter the No Spin Zone where deception is not allowed. Where it is not in charge. In this case, the top executives like Murdoch and Scott cannot simply ignore a request for comment and resort to attacking the media on-air.
But this time is different. This time, the normal tricks the network turns to during times of crisis will not free it from trouble. The network will have to present a fact-driven argument in a court of law.