Donald Trump started one of the hardest journeys of his life yesterday. The former president flew to New York from his residence in Florida to surrender himself to justice today Tuesday, to hear the charges that the grand jury charges against him for the $130,000 bribe to the porn actress Stormy Damiels and to submit to the fingerprinting and other formalities of an arrest and prosecution: a bitter sip that, despite this being the first criminal indictment against a President of the United States, he is trying to turn into a show and a martyrology with electoral revenues; a strategy in which he is having some success, as indicated by the polls and the income of his campaign as a candidate for re-election in the 2024 presidential elections.
Trump took off at noon yesterday from West Palm Beach airport, very close to his Mar-a-Lago residence, to spend the night at his former New York residence in Trump Tower before going to the judicial headquarters where, at a quarter to three in the afternoon (a quarter past eight in the evening in Barcelona), judge Juan Merchan and prosecutor Alvin Bragg are waiting for him for the reading of charges.
The Republican leader boarded his private plane – a Boeing 757 called Trump Force One and emblazoned with his surname – after traveling to the Florida airport in a ten-vehicle motorcade no less ostentatious than a president’s in exercise The main televisions broadcast the movements live.
Trump’s supporters have called a protest demonstration against his impeachment in front of the courthouse for today. There will be one of the most exalted spokespeople for Trumpism, the representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, as she announced as soon as the imputation became known. Green has defended the bloody assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, for which his idol is also being investigated. If it had been up to her – he said – the ultras would have “won” in their attempt to annul the proclamation of Joe Biden as the winner of the elections, among other things because the attack would have been “armed” .
In front of the judge, Trump will plead “not guilty” of the crimes charged against him, his defense has confirmed. The indictment can exceed 30 charges. According to some leaks, it would be, on the one hand, 33 minor crimes (misdemeanors) for forgery, at the rate of three for each of the 11 payments that the then presidential candidate made to his lawyer Michael Cohen at the end of the campaign 2016. These disbursements were passed off as professional minutes but were actually reimbursement of the $130,000 that the lawyer had given on behalf of Trump to Stormy Daniels to silence her. A serious one (felony) would be added to these minor crimes, in reference to the electoral purpose of the payments, which would have been made to avoid a loss of votes as a result of the revelations that the actress had planned to make public around the extramarital affair she had with the tycoon ten years earlier. The combination of some illegal acts and the others could lead to a sentence of up to four years in prison.
The former president strengthened his legal team yesterday with the hiring of a prestigious specialist in white-collar crimes, also former federal prosecutor Todd Blanche, who already showed his effectiveness when he represented an ally of the former president Paul Manafort. Blanche will work hand in hand with Susan Secheles and Joe Tacopina, who has stood out from his client’s attacks and threats to the prosecutor and the judge.
After the reading of the charges, Trump will be released and return to Florida to, once there, deliver a statement that will surely turn into something of a rally. The defendant will focus on his repeated complaint of “political persecution” and instrumentalization of justice, arguments that his electoral team is using successfully in their fundraising emails: in the first 48 hours after the announcement of the indictment, the Trump campaign raised five million dollars. And polls taken after the impeachment became known also show a slight increase in his lead over his likely strongest challenger in the 2024 primary, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Another thing is the effect that this process and those that may come in connection with the storming of the Capitol, the attempts to falsify the election and the concealment of secret papers at Mar-a-Lago may have on the election itself .
Trump’s future could not be more uncertain. Neither does the United States.
