Touched, but still not sunk. While the commission of inquiry into the insurrection of January 6, 2021 will continue to spread its revelations in July on the coup attempt orchestrated by former American president Donald Trump, rumors are now rife in the United States on a hasty declaration of the populist’s candidacy for the 2024 presidential election.
With this announcement, Donald Trump would thus seek to reduce the risk of seeing charges brought against him in the wake of the overwhelming evidence produced during the public hearings of the commission.
Last week, a former White House adviser, Cassidy Hutchinson, came forward to tell how the ex-president knew armed protesters were outside the Capitol and how he sought to march with them on the Democracy Dome. US to overturn congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election.
Trump’s immediate entry into the 2024 presidential race would also pull the rug out from under his succession hopefuls, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who appears to be benefiting from the panel’s blows to the populist. to turn the page on the Trump chapter of the Republican Party.
“Given the evidence exposed by the Commission’s public hearings on January 6, it seems more likely than not that Donald Trump committed a series of crimes. [alors qu’il était en poste à la Maison-Blanche] “, summed up in an interview with To have to jurist Daniel Medwed, professor of law at Northeastern University in Boston.
“If he were to officially declare his candidacy for the next presidential election, it would not make it impossible to prosecute him, but things would be more complicated for the attorney general – a person appointed by President Biden – since the charges against Donald Trump would become then politically charged. »
“Becoming a candidate does not change anything legally for Trump,” said Brian Frye, a political law specialist at the University of Kentucky. He recalls that a president, under executive privilege, is protected from prosecution “during his term”, but not when he becomes a candidate again. “Prosecutors could find something to charge him with if they want to. But they don’t like to conduct high-profile cases without solid evidence to back up serious charges. And they especially do not like to lose. »
Last Saturday, a former Republican adviser to the House of Representatives, Kurt Bardella, came to fuel speculation about Donald Trump’s hasty entry into the 2024 presidential election, saying on MSNBC that the populist would “soon” do part of his intentions. “We all know from experience that Donald Trump doesn’t care about anyone but Donald Trump,” he said. It does not surprise me that, in the face of the criticism that is piling up at the moment, in the wake of the public hearings on January 6, he is thinking of pulling the trigger. »
A project confirmed by several close advisers and confidants of the populist, who say that Donald Trump is currently bored at Mar-a-Lago, his headquarters in Florida, and “can’t wait to return to the political arena as a candidate and not as a kingmaker”, summed up the NBC network, a few days ago, after probing the hearts and minds of those around him.
Supports that sag
The pressure for a quick return of Donald Trump to the front of the stage is increasing in order to maintain his grip on the Republican Party. The ex-star of reality tv maintains more and more divisions there.
On the airwaves of Fox News, an ultra-conservative ground yet acquired by the ex-president and his conspiratorial and authoritarian leanings, political commentator Brit Hume argued the day after the second public hearing of the parliamentary committee on January 6, 2021, in June, that the damage inflicted on Donald Trump could be “appreciated” by “many members of the Republican Party” who dream of breaking with the sulphurous style of the populist.
If the elected members of the commission “succeed in damaging him, in sullying him in such a way that he is unable, for legal or political reasons, to run again, they could be doing a great service to the Republican Party, a- he said. A lot of Republicans think they can’t win with Trump anymore. But they are afraid of his supporters and do not want to stand up directly against him. If the effect of this committee is to block his possible candidacy, a large number of Republicans would be very happy about it in private.
Sign of sagging, a recent survey by the University of New Hampshire carried out in view of the Republican primaries which could be held in this often decisive state now gives Ron DeSantis a lead (39%) over Donald Trump (37%); ex-Vice President Mike Pence trails far behind at 9%. This is a major reversal since last October, when the ex-president still led the way with 43% of the voting intentions, against 18% for the governor of Florida.
“Some Republican voters are moving away from Donald Trump,” party strategist Scott Jennings commented last week in the pages of the New York Times, without being surprised at the idea of seeing the ex-president hastily submit his candidacy. “In his place, you would also try to put out the fire. Because the hotter it gets, the more it burns. »
A risky bet
This early return, however, is far from unanimous within the Trump clan, several members of which fear that such an announcement will harm the Republicans next November.
While the midterm elections are usually a referendum on the first half of a presidential term (very difficult for Joe Biden, whose popularity rating is at its lowest), an official presence of Trump in view of the ballot of 2024 could rekindle the opposition against the populist — the same one that cost him the White House in 2020 by mobilizing Democratic voters.
“Republicans really want to win in 2022, and many of them realize that resuming the 2020 campaign with Trump’s daily conspiratorial rants spells sure defeat,” said Republican strategist and former Republican Dick Wadhams. president of the Republican Party of Colorado, quoted by the New York Times.
Worse, by revealing his intentions too quickly, Donald Trump also risks compromising the financing of his official campaign by, among other things, limiting his access to major donors by 2024 and having to deal with the cap on donations intended for his campaign for the primaries. republicans.
Like his presidency, however, the announcement of Donald Trump’s candidacy remains as uncertain as it is unpredictable, according to his entourage, who expects a sudden statement on his social network, Truth, reported the New York daily. .
To date, in the history of the United States, only one president has succeeded in winning two non-consecutive terms as Donald Trump dreams of doing: the Democrat Grover Cleveland, between 1887 and 1897. However, unlike the populist, Cleveland has won the popular vote in every poll, including the one that gave victory to Benjamin Harrison. What Trump, in 2016 and 2020, never managed to do.