Decryption | Donald Trump’s annus horribilis

How can 2022 be considered theannus horribilis of Donald Trump, whose last year in the White House began with a global pandemic and ended with an electoral defeat? Because he was not in the White House, precisely, and he could foresee the end of his political power, as well as that of his judicial immunity. It remains to be seen how these visions of dread will translate into 2023.

The political decline

The press conference was scheduled to take place on January 6, 2022 at Mar-a-Lago, one year to the day after the storming of the United States Capitol. However, at the last minute, Donald Trump had canceled it, surrendering to the arguments of his advisers who wanted to fix the public’s attention on the unpopularity of Joe Biden.

If only the former president had continued to listen to them over the following months. If only he had stopped his whining about the 2020 presidential election and the January 6 Commission. Perhaps he would have avoided ending the year as an outcast even in the eyes of some Republicans.

He certainly won battles during the year. In May, he was particularly able to congratulate himself on the victories won by two of his best-known recruits, Herschel Walker and Mehmet Oz, during the Republican primaries held for the senatorial elections in Georgia and Pennsylvania. In mid-August, he may have felt even greater joy when Republican Rep. Wyoming Liz Cheney, his fiercest critic within his party, lost a primary to his favorite candidate, Harriet Hageman.

But Cheney and the other members of the January 6 Commission had already dealt him a crushing blow on December 19. At their last public hearing, they unanimously recommended that criminal charges be brought against him, charging him with four crimes: calling for insurrection; conspiracy against the United States government; obstructing official congressional proceedings; false statements.

The Department of Justice is under no obligation to heed this recommendation. But it adds to revelations that have already convinced many Americans that the 45^e President represents a threat to American democracy.

“At the heart of our republic is the guarantee of a peaceful transfer of power. Every president in our history has defended this orderly transfer of authority except one, Liz Cheney said Dec. 19. No man who behaves in this way can ever again occupy a position of authority. He is unfit for any function. »

Never mind, Donald Trump declared his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election during a speech in a muted voice at Mar-a-Lago on November 15, between disappointing mid-term election results -mandate and those of the second round of the senatorial election of Georgia, where Walker was defeated, as Oz had been in Pennsylvania.

Never had a presidential candidacy announcement been made by such an amorphous-looking man or woman.

Donald Trump could have stuck with that for a while to lick his wounds privately. But he made his situation worse on November 22 by receiving at Mar-a-Lago two notorious anti-Semites, Kanye West and Nick Fuentes, the latter being a Holocaust denier. On the same day, the Supreme Court inflicted yet another setback on him by allowing the transfer of his six-year tax returns to Congress.

Statements that were made public on the penultimate day of the year and whose highlights are as follows: in 2016 and 2017, Donald Trump paid only $750 to the US tax authorities, and not a penny in 2020; for some unexplained reason, his tax returns were not audited during his first two years in the White House, contrary to the rule; and his promise to hand over his president’s salary — $400,000 a year — was broken in his final year as president.

Politically, Donald Trump may survive his annus horribilis. But, on the eve of 2023, he has never seemed more isolated, weaker.

The judicial vice

With hindsight, August 8, 2022 may weigh more heavily than December 6, 2022 on the judicial future of Donald Trump. But this second date marked a turning point.

That day, a New York jury designated the former president’s company as criminal. His verdict came after a trial where the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, acknowledged his role in creating a “culture of fraud and deception”.

Donald Trump was not personally targeted by this trial. But he will have to live forever with this verdict tarnishing the reputation of his company, unless he wins an appeal.

And the former president will have to continue to worry about the progress of at least four other criminal investigations that have seen major twists in 2022.

The search conducted by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago on August 8 is the most resounding of these developments. That day, federal agents seized 11,000 documents, including 100 classified, which should have been turned over by Donald Trump to the National Archives and other federal agencies at the end of his presidency.

This breach could result in him being charged with withholding classified documents, obstructing a federal investigation or concealing government records.

For three months, Donald Trump succeeded in curbing this investigation led by the Department of Justice, by convincing a federal judge in Florida to appoint an independent supervisor. The latter had to determine whether some of the documents seized should be returned to the former president. However, the 1^er December, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11^e circuit cut short the work of the supervisor, rebuffing the judge who had appointed him.

The Justice Department is also investigating Donald Trump’s role in the effort to invalidate the results of the 2020 presidential election.

This investigation, like the other, is the responsibility of a special prosecutor, Jack Smith, appointed to this position by the United States Attorney General, Merrick Garland, on November 18.

On Dec. 13, in a disturbing twist for Donald Trump, Smith subpoenaed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to appear before a federal grand jury. Raffensperger is this electoral official whom the former president had asked him to “find 11,780 votes” during a recorded telephone call on January 2, 2021. Joe Biden won the Peach State by 11,779 votes.

The Jan. 2, 2021, phone call is also at the heart of another criminal investigation targeting Donald Trump, this one led by Fulton County, Georgia, prosecutor Fani Willis. On November 22, Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham was the latest in a series of close allies of the former president to testify before a grand jury convened by the prosecutor.

And then there is an old scandal that resurfaces. On Dec. 5, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg told former Justice Department official Matthew Colangelo to relaunch a criminal investigation into the former president’s affairs, including paying $130,000 to pornographic actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

In short, the noose has tightened more than ever around Donald Trump in 2022. And the year 2023 could be the year where the law of averages will start to play against him on the judicial level.