It was Donald Trump who appeared in a criminal court in Manhattan on Tuesday, but on the Fox News channel, an hour before the arrival of the former American president in court, it was another person who was on the bench. accused: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
“No one is safe in New York since Alvin Bragg became a district attorney,” the show’s host says Outnumbered, Harris Faulkner. The streets of the American megalopolis are scary, she added, saying that Mr. Bragg, the first black elected to this post, lightens the charges “against the killers” while “aggravating” those brought against Donald Trump.
“It’s the Bolshevik left that has taken control of justice in New York,” added seconds later Andy McCarthy, a former assistant district attorney in upstate New York, guest on the same show to comment. the events of the day.
“Yes, it reminds us of Stalin’s regime. You know who you want to put in jail and you make up charges to do it, ”added Mollie Hemingway, editor of the conservative magazine The Federalist.
A trial of intent from the prosecutor in due form.
These repeated attacks were all made even before Donald Trump became the first former American president to be formally charged in criminal court. Before he pleaded not guilty to 34 counts. Before we learn what he is accused of, which is “fraudulently and repeatedly falsifying New York business documents in order to conceal criminal behavior to hide harmful information from voters during the 2016 presidential election” , reads the statement of facts that accompanies the indictment1.
In the same statement, the Office of the Prosecutor alleges that Donald Trump, the presidential candidate, would have disguised payments which would have been used to buy the silence of the former doorman of the Trump Tower, the porn actress Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal so that scandalous information about her will not overshadow her campaign for the Oval Office. And all of this, planned in advance with the lawyer Michael Cohen and the boss of a media company. A conspiracy, what!
This information emanating from a long investigation, the faithful of Donald Trump hardly mention it. In their world, fed by Fox News and other even more conservative and conspiratorial media, Donald Trump is the victim. The hunt. The persecuted. The hero we’re trying to take down.
On Tuesday, Republican MP Marjorie Taylor Greene went so far as to compare Donald Trump’s misfortunes with justice to the arrest and imprisonment of Nelson Mandela by South Africa’s apartheid regime as well as to the execution of Jesus by “the Roman government”! Nothing less.
“In the past, extraordinary beings have been arrested by corrupt and radical governments. It’s happening today in New York! she said most seriously in a television interview with the right-wing Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN). The journalist nodded.
These surreal statements emanating from the Trump camp are nothing new or exceptional, do you think while reading these lines. You’re right, but what was fascinating on Tuesday was to see how the DA’s office tried to adapt to this parallel world.
When Donald Trump went to court in the afternoon, he was not subjected to handcuffs or the forensic photo – the famous mug shot – of use. He was not sent to a cell either pending his appearance. The process, commented on second by second by journalists from the major American channels, was more than restrained.
These exceptions to the rule show that even if this judicial process tries to demonstrate that no one is above the law, all citizens are not equal before this same law.
That said, we understand the Manhattan prosecutor’s office for not wanting to make Donald Trump a chained martyr to strut in front of the cameras.
Since the start of the proceedings against him, Donald Trump has not missed an opportunity to turn into gold what, in principle, should harm him. Millions have been piling up in his campaign coffers since he predicted his own arrest last month. His popularity rating with Republican voters has since jumped by leaps and bounds.
Alvin Bragg and his team, who are embarking on an unprecedented legal battle, know that all ground is undermined when a man accused of corruption has, in the eyes of 30% of the country’s voters, the status of a haloed saint. .