Donald Trump’s reaction to the justice that accuses him is like that of the scorpion in the fable before the frog that crosses the river. “It’s my nature”, says the arachnid to the batrachian when he stings him halfway with all the consequences. Apparently, the former president of the United States cannot avoid responding with insults to anyone who questions him. Not even when the one doing it is a representative of the law who is prosecuting him and can add charges if he insists on his offenses.
Hours after becoming the first US president to be arrested and criminally charged in New York, specifically for 34 counts of forgery related to his $130,000 bribe to porn actress Stormy Daniels in the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump said at his residence in Mar -a-Lago, in Florida, that “the criminal is the district attorney” who accuses him, Alvin Bragg, who in his opinion should “immediately indict himself” for having leaked indictment reports.
In an unusually short intervention, barely 30 minutes when his speeches are usually less than two hours, Trump also attacked the magistrate who is hearing his case, Juan Merchan, and even his relatives. “He is a judge who hates Trump, like his family; with a wife who hates me too and a daughter who works for Kamala Harris,†he said.
The ex-president had already attacked those who are prosecuting him from his positions in the prosecutor’s office and the Manhattan court, but this time he did so after being charged and warned about it: by the prosecutor and even by one of his lawyers, Joe Tacopina, who A few days ago, he distanced himself from some initial insults from his client to Bragg, whom he called “animal”.
On Tuesday, Trump also took it against the special counsel overseeing inquiries into his role in the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol and the concealment of secret documents at his Florida residence. “We have this lunatic Jack Smith threatening people every day through his representatives,†he snapped.
The jurists who have been commenting on the legal cases against Trump agree that the Republican risks another indictment for defaming or slandering the prosecutors and judges who are investigating him. But it is more likely that, if he continues to stretch the rope, the magistrate will issue against him what in the US is called a “gag order”, which is a prohibition or restriction on one or more parties in the process to prohibit them from speaking about he.
The former president described the charges against him as an “insult to our country.” He added that they constitute “a persecution, and not an investigation”, as well as “electoral interference” to cut him off on his way to re-election in 2024. And he repeated what he had written hours before on his network, Truth Social, during the journey from Trump Tower to the Manhattan courthouse: “I never thought this could happen in America.”
But the message that Trump emphasized the most is that “there is no case” against him because the accusations do not hold up. And there the former president, in addition to insisting on his resort to insults, denial and kicking, was pressing a key that some jurists do not find entirely out of tune. Because the case can be difficult to sustain in court, and there are certain doubts about its legal construction.
The charges stem from a $130,000 cash payment that Trump attorney and mediator Michael Cohen made to Stormy Daniels on behalf of the then-presidential candidate. According to the prosecutor, the politician and tycoon reimbursed Cohen the money with “eleven checks for false purposes” disguised as professional fees. In all, “34 false entries were made in New York business records†to hide the down payment. And each falsehood constitutes, according to Bragg, a felony.
The problem is that the charges of forgery imputed are, in principle, under New York law, misdemeanors… Unless it is proven that they were committed based on a greater crime. And in this sense, Bragg suggested two possibilities: one related to the “conspiracy” that Trump “orchestrated” to avoid a decrease in votes, which would entail a serious violation of electoral laws; and another option allusive to the objective of hiding the operations from the treasury.
The former president “repeatedly and fraudulently falsified state business records to hide crimes that concealed harmful information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential elections,” the letter states regarding the electoral aspect. As for a possible tax offense, he adds that “participants in the fraud took steps that mischaracterized, for tax purposes, the true nature of the refunds.”
The process will be long. The defense will surely ask the court that touches, the dismissal of all charges. And the prosecutor will have to provide more information on the basis of his accusation of 34 serious crimes of falsehood, based on the commission of that felony that he has not yet finished specifying.
The next hearing with all the parties was set for December 4. The prosecutor proposed that the trial begin in January 2024: in the middle of the primary campaign, which starts in January. And he remains to see how and when the other cases against Trump progress, such as the attempt to falsify the 2020 elections in Georgia, the assault on the Capitol and the concealment of secret papers.
Calendars can clash. The earthquake continues its course.
