Donald Trump’s conduct as a defendant is textbook.
On the vast majority of occasions, the defendants proclaim their innocence (whether they are true or not). “The news is that a defendant pleads guilty”, phrase of Mateo Seguí, veteran lawyer and reference in the courts of Barcelona.
The former president of the United States, and long the leader among the Republican candidates for the 2024 elections, perfectly responds to this pattern of behavior.
Before appearing this Tuesday in a Miami (Florida) court, he has pleaded not guilty to the 37 federal charges against him for taking highly secret documents on the defense of the country or nuclear weapons from the White House, storing them in his mansion in Mar- a-Lago (in places as safe as a toilet, shower, or dance hall), and resist returning them, even with the suggestion of destroying them. This is explained by the indictment of prosecutor Jack Smith, who stressed the danger to national security and that of the allies.
But unlike that vast majority of defendants, Trump has a unique tool. He has more gigantic megaphones in the public gallery and this creates fear of riots.
On Saturday he starred in two rallies in Georgia and North Carolina in which he not only dismissed the matter, his second accusation in just two months, but also resorted to that rhetoric more directed at instincts than reason. General alarm.
In addition to calling the special counsel crazy, manic or thug, he argued that this is a “political coup” mounted by President Joe Biden to jail his rival at the polls (he assumes he will be the candidate) and it equated to Stalinist Russia or communist China. “This is the final battle,” he said. “It’s not coming for me, they’re coming for you,” he insisted.
After the attempt to perpetuate himself in power by force on January 6, 2021, his speeches once again cause security measures to be extreme. The environment of the federal court in the city of South Florida will be armored with a police deployment in which several bodies collaborate, although at the moment, there is no thought of separating the protesters.
“Our country has to protest,” the former president remarked on Sunday in a radio interview. And on his social network he insists with a “see you in Miami.” His incitement has not gone unnoticed in far-right forums. His calls for mobilization have been reinforced by the warmongering language used by his acolytes.
Always with the spotlight on the “Biden justice department” as the instigator of the case, without any evidence -what a big role for the president, who has limited himself to answering with a “no comment”-, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald’s fiancée Jr., Trump’s eldest son, said on his Instagram that “revenge is coming.”
Legislator Andy Biggs spoke of “an eye for an eye” and that “we are entering the war phase.”
Kari Lake, who has not yet conceded her defeat for governor of Arizona in 2022, sent a message from the Georgia conservative convention to Attorney General Merrick Garland, prosecutor Smith and the fake news. “If you want to get your hands on Trump,” he warned, “you will have to come after me and 75 million Americans like me. And I will tell you that many of us have the NRA (National Rifle Association) license. She thus stressed that many followers of the former president have weapons. And she added: “It is not a threat, it is a public service announcement.”
