Hang on tight here we go again in the clutches of Donald J.
Trump – the biggest and slickest con man ever in American history. His new-old
story is here from the AP with this headline:
“Trump’s response to criminal charges revives election lies”
NEW YORK (AP) — Legally, the
most important words Trump said after he was charged with 34 felonies by
the Manhattan District Attorney last week were “not guilty.” Politically, the
most significant words may be “election interference.”
Trump’s repetition of those words, which have been taken up
by other top Republicans, show how he is trying to turn his historic position
as the first former president charged with crimes to his advantage. It’s
another example of what’s been a consistent refrain throughout his political
career — claiming without evidence that an election is being rigged against
him.
After his initial
court appearance in the New York case, the first of several in which he is
in legal jeopardy, Trump spoke at Mar-a-Lago and he ticked through the varied investigations
he was facing and branded them as “massive attempts to interfere with the 2024
election,” adding: “Our justice system has become lawless. They’re using it
now, in addition to everything else, to win elections.”
He made some version of those claims in at least 20
social media posts since March 3, the bulk of which occurred in the last two
weeks, accelerating when a Manhattan grand jury appeared to be wrapping up its
work and preparing to indict him.
Trump declared his latest bid for the White House shortly
after the November midterms, in what some in his orbit saw as an effort to head
off the various probes swirling around him.
The history of his
wackiness while alleging an election is being stolen from him is a routine
Trump tactic, despite no evidence to back up his assertions – this list is
long:
1. When
competing for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, Trump claimed
his loss in the Iowa caucuses was due to fraud.
2. When
he won the White House that November but lost the popular vote, Trump claimed
the only reason for falling short in the latter category was because
undocumented immigrants voted. A task force he formed to find voter fraud
disbanded without
finding any evidence to back up his claim.
3. In
2020, Trump began arguing the election would be fraudulent months before voting
started. He attacked efforts to loosen restrictions on mail voting during the
coronavirus pandemic, and expanded those allegations after losing the election
to claim he’d actually won it. Those lies led to the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.
4. Federal
and state election officials and Trump’s own attorney general have said there
is no credible evidence the 2020 election was tainted. The former president’s
allegations of fraud were also roundly rejected by courts, including by judges
Trump appointed.
Steven Levitsky, a Harvard political scientist said: “Trump
is behaving like a politician in the legal crosshairs. He’s certainly not the
first politician to be prosecuted — sometimes fairly, sometimes not — to play
the political victim card.”
Levitsky, who co-wrote the
book “How Democracies Die,” said that
several former presidents of other countries, when prosecuted, have claimed it
was a plot to foil their future elections.
Most recently, that was the complaint of Brazil’s former president Lula Da Silva, after he was jailed before the 2018 election. He was freed by his country’s supreme court and won back the presidency in October.
What’s notable in Trump’s case, however, is that his own
party is echoing the stolen election claims ahead of the next campaign, for
example:
1. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) last
month said he was directing his party’s committee chairs to: “Investigate
if federal funds are being used to subvert our democracy by interfering in
elections with politically motivated prosecutions.”
2. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) one of the president’s
most vocal backers in the House said: “I think you’ll see his poll numbers
go up. He’s never been in a stronger position after we saw unprecedented
election interference.”
Levitsky further said: “That
a whole party (the GOP) is carrying this line is somewhat unusual.”
Last week’s Trump’s indictment stemmed from his reimbursements
to his lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, of hush money paid in the waning days
of the 2016 presidential election to porn actress Stormy Daniels, who alleged
they had an affair. Even some critics of Trump have seen the charges as a
stretch of New York laws.
The heart of the Manhattan case is prosecutors’ claim that
Trump falsified business records at his company to make the payoff in order to
keep a potentially damaging story quiet while he was campaigning — an illegal
attempt by Trump, they argued, to try to influence the election.
The former president also faces legal jeopardy from other
investigations, two of which are related to his attempts to try to interfere
with the 2020 election. For example:
1. Prosecutors
in Fulton County, GA are probing Trump’s January 2021 call to the state’s top
elections officer asking him to “find 11,780 votes enough to declare him the
winner.”
2. Since
then the DOJ also has launched a federal special counsel (Jack Smith) probe
into Trump’s attempts to try to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential
election, and of Trump’s handling of hundred highly classified documents found
at his Mar-a-Lago Florida estate.
Joanna Lydgate, chief
executive officer of States United Action, which tracks politicians who embrace
Trump’s election lies, said in a statement as some other critics warn that
Trump is, once again, sowing suspicions of fraud that could damage democracy:
“We’ve seen this film before. We know this is dangerous because we all saw what
happened on January 6th.”
Trump routinely waves off such warnings. He has seamlessly integrated his current legal jeopardy into the false allegations he’s made for three years about Democratic Party wrongdoing leading to his ouster.
In his 2024 campaign
rally, in Waco, TX days before is indictment, Trump railed against all the
investigations and said: “My opponents were using the probes because it’s
harder for them to stuff the ballot boxes, of which they stuffed plenty. The
new weapon being used by out-of-control unhinged Democrats to cheat on election
is criminally investigating a candidate.”
Trump and other
Republicans have sometimes contradicted themselves, decrying the investigations
as an attempt to tarnish Trump while also predicting they will aid his bid for
the White House.
Aaron Scherb, senior
director of legislative affairs for Common Cause, which has long been critical
of Trump’s allegations of election rigging, noted that all the investigations
of the former president began well before he started running for president
again concluding said: “Nobody is above the law, including former
presidents, and running for president cannot and must not serve as a shield for
wrongful conduct.”
Related article from The Guardian on the same general topic.
My 2 Cents: Here we go again with the lies and deception from Trump but heading into 2024, a lot of GOPers are siding with Trump.
Stay tuned.
Thanks for stopping by.
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