He is the Houdini of political shenanigans, the David Copperfield of American justice, the Alain Choquette of desperate causes. Donald Trump continues to find a way to escape what would put anyone else on the street and shatter even the most respectable political careers.
The United States Supreme Court agreed this week to examine Donald Trump’s claims to have complete immunity for all the actions he took during his presidency.
At the heart of this approach, the desire to escape the strongest criminal charges brought against him, those of having sought to reverse the result of the 2020 presidential election, and of having abjured his solemn oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
CITIZEN TRUMP
At the beginning of February, the Federal Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia, in a decision spanning fifty-seven pages and praised for its rigor, rejected the former president’s grievances. If, it was specified, a sitting president is temporarily immune from prosecution, “former President Trump has become citizen Trump.”
The highest US court, in deciding to hear the appeal by Trump’s lawyers, set oral arguments for April 22, which would likely lead to the filing of a decision near the end of the court’s term at the end of June .
One delay begets another, the judge in the case – Tanya Chutkan – seriously could not start a trial before the end of September, that is to say only five weeks before the presidential election.
Easy, at that moment, for Trump and his supporters to cry political interference, while the Republican candidate would be forced to spend the last five weeks of the electoral campaign in a courthouse rather than on the roads of the country .
Judge Chutkan would have no other option than to delay the trial until after the election, which would mean that if Trump emerged victorious, the trial would never take place.
A USED AND ABUSED LEGAL SYSTEM
Throughout his public life – as a businessman and politician – Donald Trump has pushed American justice to its limits.
Whether following lawsuits from tenants in his properties or commercial disasters such as he has experienced so many times – the bankruptcy of his casinos, the failure of the “Trump Shuttle”, his airline, the “Trump University”, the “Trump Vodka” or “Trump Mortgage” – the real estate developer recycled as a presidential candidate distinguished himself by delays, calls and postponing deals until the other side exhausted himself.
He also managed to exhaust Americans who – after hearing him make disgraceful remarks about women in a video of Access Hollywoodafter learning of allegations of an adulterous relationship with a porn actress while his wife was pregnant, or accusations of sexual misconduct on the part of twenty-six women – are now raising their shoulders upon learning that he must pay tens of millions of dollars to a woman he continues to insult after being convicted of sexual assault.
The presidential election will only be held in eight months. If, however, the vote were to take place today, Trump would win over Biden and return to the White House through the front door. It would be quite a magic trick!