Before the votes are counted in the electoral college in November 2024 to determine the winner of the presidential marathon that has now begun, and thus the next occupant of the White House, the two successive ruling political clans, Democrats and Republicans, will try to weaken, if not knock out of the race leaders, Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
The choice of weapons has been made. They are lawsuits, investigative actions, and accusatory speeches by lavishly paid prosecutors and defense attorneys.
It is worth recalling that the first and preemptive move was made by the bonzes of the Democratic Party, having issued four lawsuits at once to the revenge-hungry Donald Trump. According to the decision of the federal judge of the District of Columbia Tanya Chutkan, on March 4, hearings should open in the case of the probable (!) involvement of the 45th president of the United States, who lost the election, in the raid of angry citizens on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
In addition, Trump will be charged with «attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election» at the March 25 hearing in New York. Then on May 20, he will have to fend off charges in a Florida court in the case of «improper storage of classified documents».
Nevertheless, it is the verdict on the key charge — aiding and abetting the raid on the Capitol by his supporters — that will determine the fate of the Republican favorite. Proven in court, even indirect complicity in the attempted attack on the immunity of the highest legislative body in the country will delegitimize Trump and partially erode his «nuclear» electorate.
Voters who supported Trump in 2020 felt they had been cheated by vote-by-mail fraud, which culminated in the storming of the U.S. Congress building. So far, all the circumstances of the loud actions of the crowd have not been analyzed. It is known that among the exalted men and women there were radicals. Among them stood out activists of the QAnon movement, convinced that the power over the world has been seized by a secret lodge engaged in the sexual exploitation of minors. White supremacists from the Proud Boys, the Boogaloo Boys and the Nationalist Social Club were also present.
All of these extremists did not need to borrow anyone’s fighting spirit, but they constituted only one part of the invading crowd. Moreover, by comparison, their dissident enthusiasm was not converted into the kind of mass looting, arson and violence that marked the summer of 2020 by Black Lives Matter (BLM) militants, clearly sponsored by Democrats to provoke arrests and detentions in order to blame the police, and thus the Trump administration, for racism.
Apparently, Republicans have information about how Democrats manipulated a real, rather than virtual, BLM-labeled riot in that ill-fated election year for Trump. Apparently assuming that the Democrat-grown «deep state» acted as the behind-the-scenes director of the January 6, 2021 invasion of the holy of holies by an inflamed but moderately aggressive public, the Trump team went on the counteroffensive.
Todd Blanche and John Lauro, lawyers in Trump’s service, voiced a legal demand in the twenties of November for «all documents relating to informants, enablers, covert agents … or anyone acting in a similar capacity» who were in the U.S. Congressional building «or within five miles of the Capitol on January 6, 2021».
A strong move. It was preceded by an event in July of this year when now former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy provided the popular but also now former Fox News columnist Tucker Carlson with some 44,000 hours of surveillance footage of the Capitol building. That footage was kept secret for more than two years. The video evidence of pro-Trump «militants» simply walking through the hallways of Congress without destroying anything allowed Tucker Carlson to claim that the Democrats and their controlled press were simply lying about the events of January 6.
In his program, accompanied by a video snippet, Tucker Carlson stated, «We know there were a number of undercover federal agents in the crowd outside the Capitol. Officials have since acknowledged that under oath. But what exactly were they doing there? The January 6 Committee (created by Democrats) went to great lengths to hide the answer to that question».
And now Trump’s lawyers have formalized a legal request demanding that the Biden administration disclose any undercover agents or informants «involved in assisting, planning, or encouraging any actions related to the protest, disturbance, or unlawful entry into the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021».
A piquant detail: among the demands is to report any payments or «valuable gifts» received by informants or undercover agents who were on and around Capitol Hill that day. Which makes sense, given the post-facto scandals over rewards received by BLM militant leaders.
It is possible that the Democrats actually involved in the run-up to and during the raid on the Capitol their agents of influence in the power structures, and those already in the capacity of «agents provocateurs» incited and provoke the crowd of already excited citizens.
Not so long ago, the newsmaker of the first plan, technologically-advanced entrepreneur-wunderkind Elon Musk, who more and more often allows himself to comment on purely political topics, either jokingly or seriously said that “almost all conspiracy theories turned out to be true”. That all prosecutors are digging into the dirty laundry of White House contenders may unexpectedly confirm Musk’s hunch.
If in this case, while awaiting trial in the federal district of Columbia, Trump’s team chose offense as the best form of defense, especially since there is something to cling to, then in the case of Trump’s possession of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, the lawyers resorted to delaying the process. The lawyers from both sides put forward conditions for reviewing the documents: to provide in the center of Miami two rooms with a higher degree of protection, and the most sensitive materials will have to be couriered to the lawyers by members of the intelligence community.
The tactic worked. Florida Judge Aileen Cannon announced a revision of the pretrial schedule because of the large number of documents requested by the defense.
Trump’s defense lawyers have two arguments up their sleeve. First, the lawsuits filed against him have all the hallmarks of «selective prosecution» aimed at helping his rival Joe Biden become re-elected president.
Second, at the time of his alleged wrongdoing, he was still a head of state, and U.S. presidents are covered by «executive immunity». To find out whether Trump has immunity or not, the lawyers have every right to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will consider such a sensitive case for several months.
Dragging out the investigative process and delaying court hearings is in Donald Trump’s favor as the fateful November 2024 approaches inexorably. If he ascends to power again, the 45th president will become the 47th president of the United States and will use his power to appoint a loyal attorney general without any hesitation. Moreover, as the informed publication Politico admits, «Trump might even be able to pardon himself» (As president he could appoint an attorney general willing to fire the special counsel and drop the charges).
Nevertheless, the outcome of the litigation is not yet a foregone conclusion. It is just as likely that Trump will not be able to fend off all attacks.
What’s the prognosis in this case? Any conviction of a billionaire who owns a private jet with a gold toilet bowl will embolden rivals within the composite clan, such as former South Carolina Governor and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, to seek the Republican nomination in the election.
In the states of New Hampshire and South Carolina, polls show Nikki Haley ahead of Ron Desantis, giving her campaign office reason to say she is second only to Trump. «Nikki Haley is the best opponent to challenge Donald Trump and Joe Biden», says her spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas.
For his part, the equally ambitious Ron DeSantis is positioning himself as the anti-Trump. «Trump is a high-risk proposition as a candidate. I think the chance of his election is slim, but that’s small consolation. He’ll be a ‘lame duck’ on the first day», Desantis argues on the grounds that few people will want to be on his team. The Orange State governor brags that he is younger, and therefore more suited to the role of leading the nation. The position of commander-in-chief is «not fit for an 80-year-old», and reminds us that Biden just turned 81 and Trump will be 78 next year.
Democrats will try to play on the heated brawl among Republicans seeking the nomination to replace Trump. They expect, not without reason, that neither Haley nor DeSantis will be able to consolidate the Trump electorate around them and therefore will not make a real competition to Biden.
…Judicial and near-judicial passions are implanted in the very core of the American way of life. One expert called Americans the most litigious nation, because on average, according to statistics, each of them is sued at least once a year. It is a mistake to think that Americans have the most popular and used three-word phrase — «I love you». No! Much more often they say the magic formula «See you in court».
And who knows, maybe the next president of the United States will be chosen not by ordinary Americans, who do not have universal, equal, direct suffrage by secret ballot, and not even by a narrow circle of the electoral college (which opens the possibility of pressure, intimidation and bribery), but by a judge of the federal District of Columbia.