By Atilio A. Boron on April 5, 2023
photo: IANS
Donald Trump appeared in Lower Manhattan Criminal Court to face charges, allegedly more than thirty, for having bought the silence of porn film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump paid $130,000 for her not to reveal that, years earlier, she had had a sexual encounter with the tycoon. It is striking that with many other charges against the former president, including his responsibility for the very serious riots of January 6, 2021 on Capitol Hill, that this is the case that has reached the criminal courts.
What is the road ahead for Trump? The process that awaits him can be summarized as follows. First there was a concrete accusation against him by a Grand Jury, which despite the solemnity of its name is nothing more than a group of 23 Manhattan neighbors who decided by a simple majority that there was enough evidence for Trump to be indicted before a judge. After the formalities of the case (mugshot, fingerprinting, use of handcuffs or not, none of which seems to have happened in the case at hand) the accused must appear before a public court to hear the charges against him.
Trump responded that he is innocent, after which the judge will determine whether there are grounds to arrest him, or it will be sufficient for him to post bail or be subject to some other restriction until the trial begins. Before the trial begins, which will take several months, there will be a series of preliminary hearings in which Trump’s lawyers will have the right to examine the evidence in the case, assess the relevance of witnesses and dismiss some or all of the charges. After that, the judge will have to decide if there are sufficient elements to initiate a trial.
If so, the trial would begin after several months and last for many weeks. Assuming the trial takes place and Trump is found guilty, that sentence can be appealed by the defendant, initiating another long court battle. If his appeal is unsuccessful and the jury convicts him, the judge will issue the appropriate sentence, which can also be appealed by the defendant. In any case, what is crucial in this whole process is that even with a conviction against him, Trump will still be able to run for president in the November elections next year. That is why there are those who consider this judicial process as the launching of the New York magnate’s presidential campaign. As the Italians would say, se non è vero è ben trovato (if it is not true, it is well found).
Two final considerations: to what extent will the background of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal of 1998, revealing that the president demanded and obtained sexual favors from his intern, corroborated by traces of the president’s semen found in a dress of Monica Lewinsky, play in this case. Clinton’s ended up on a lesser charge: “perjury” and obstruction of justice and was exonerated of all charges. Next to this, Trump’s is a petty picadillo, as the Romans used to say. There is no semen in sight but dollars, but let’s wait and see how the US justice system acts. It is worth remembering that a few days after Clinton testified about the scandal, Washington launched “Operation Infinite Reach” during which it launched several missiles against alleged Al Qaeda bases in Afghanistan and against a medicine factory in Sudan, in retaliation for the terrorist attacks on the US embassies in 1998. The wrong-headed say that this was a maneuver to distract the attention of the American public. Who knows!
Second and last: April 4th is a day loaded with symbolism for American society. In 1968, Martin Luther King, the great leader of the struggle for the civil rights of African-Americans, was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. On the same day, but in 2023, Donald Trump defiantly enters the Lower Manhattan courthouse in New York City with his fist raised in the air. Could one ask for a more fortunate coincidence to launch a presidential campaign?
Source Pagina 12, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – US