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      Donald Trump’s prosecution is a triumph | Osita Nwanevu

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      Trump’s prosecution is a triumph. Not a shame. Not a tragedy. A triumph ⁠— one of the great events in American presidential history. The public and the pundits might disagree by the end of Trump’s trial in Manhattan ⁠— perhaps the first of a few ⁠— but the significance of what district attorney Alvin Bragg has managed to do will be wholly unsullied, in substance, by the outcome of his case.One of the major questions in American political and legal thought has been whether presidents may be allowed to commit crimes. As it stands, the position of the Justice Department is that they may ⁠— for half a century, it has held that a president cannot face criminal prosecution while in office. And while there’s not even a theoretical bar to prosecuting a president once they leave office, no one had ever tried it, leaving the question of whether criminal laws functionally apply to presidents at all, as a practical matter, a matter of speculation.Here Alvin Bragg has bravely taken a stand: a person may, in fact, be indicted for a crime even if they were once president— just as though they were an ordinary person to whom laws applied. This is tremendous news. No rifts have opened in the time-space continuum. Frogs, locusts, and lice have yet to descend upon Manhattan. For the time being, it appears that a prosecutor really may attempt to hold a president ⁠— or at least a former president ⁠— accountable for a suspected crime without reality collapsing in on itself. What’s more, Bragg’s indictment amounts to an insistence that a former president may be indicted even for a relatively low-level crime like falsifying documents ⁠— just like any other white collar criminal.To be sure, as many observers have already written, Bragg may have his work cut out for him. His case against Trump is a multi-part argument ⁠that hinges on the idea that Trump concealed hush money payments to abet violations of election law. It has troubled many that Bragg may lose this case. And this is true. Sometimes prosecutors lose cases.But it would be wrong to suppose on that basis, as some have, that prosecutors who believe presidents have committed crimes have a responsibility to behave like political strategists: to bear public opinion and the expectations of the press in mind by only bringing forth the simplest, most straightforward cases and pursuing only the largest, most eye-popping crimes while letting other offenses slide.They’ve no obligation to calibrate the content and timing of their cases to maximize the possibility of success in other wholly unrelated cases in other jurisdictions; the feelings of a defendant’s fans and supporters should be of no account whatsoever. This is what it means, to use a phrase Trump himself has long been fond of, to be a nation of laws. It is especially ridiculous, on the latter point, to suppose that there’s a prosecutorial approach Bragg or anyone else might have taken that would have quelled the rage of a political constituency that is now fully beyond reason and respect for the law. Predictably, Bragg has drawn both explicit threats and implicit comparisons to Pontius Pilate this holy week; Trump, per Marjorie Taylor Greene, now sits next to Christ himself among historical figures “persecuted by radical, corrupt governments.”On Thursday, Trump’s chief rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Florida governor Ron DeSantis ⁠— St Peter? ⁠— reiterated that he would refuse to cooperate with an extradition request from New York in the event that Trump refused to surrender on his own. Things didn’t come to that, but the pundits aren’t wrong to predict that a lot of chaos and drama will come our way in the coming months. And that’s especially frightful to all those who’ve come to believe political polarization and the heightening of partisan tensions are the central problems of our time ⁠— a notion that’s spurred commentary suggesting America might be too divided to bear Trump’s prosecution. To wit, a report from The New York Times Thursday speculated that this and Trump’s other potential indictments might “shake the timbers of the republic” or “tear the country apart.”But what would it mean, actually, to “tear the country apart?” We’ve seen and survived civil war. We’ve seen cities razed and presidents killed. Social unrest, economic collapse ⁠— these are cornerstones of the American experience. A public health crisis has taken the lives of more than one million people in this country over the last three years. The reactions to Trump’s prosecution will remain loud and ludicrous. They may well turn violent ⁠— we can put nothing safely beyond a party that rallies easily to the defense of a man who attempted a coup and roused a mob into an attack on the Capitol.But there is something rather pathetic about the idea that a president’s trial might be among the greatest trials our nation has faced. Nothing that’s coming will break us. Our republic, for all its many faults, is made of stronger stuff than that. We will be tested, yes. But let’s take a moment, too, to recognize that Bragg has already passed a critical test on our behalf.
      Osita Nwanevu is a Guardian US columnist More

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      ‘US going to hell’: Donald Trump attacks hush money case in grievance-filled Mar-a-Lago speech

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      Simmering with anger and defiance, Donald Trump returned to the safe space of Mar-a-Lago and his loyal supporters on Tuesday night, seeking to turn his status as an accused criminal into a political war cry.The former president ignored a plea from the judge in the case to refrain from inflammatory rhetoric, even launching a broadside at the judge’s daughter over her political connections.Trump flew back to Florida from New York, where prosecutors had accused him of orchestrating hush-money payments to cover up claims of affairs before the 2016 election. Sitting in a Manhattan court, Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.But on the evening of a sombre day for America and its judicial system, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination walked into the opulent ballroom at the Mar-a-Lago estate to the familiar strains of Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA, a staple of his campaign rallies.Supporters wore “Make America Great Again” and “Trump 2024” caps and snapped pictures of the president turned defendant. The audience included Trump’s son Eric and his wife, Lara, Florida congressman Matt Gaetz and pillow maker and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell.Wearing a blue suit, white shirt and red tie, and standing behind a lectern that said “Text Trump to 88022” amid an array of US flags, he portrayed himself as a political martyr.“I never thought anything like this could happen in America,” Trump said. “I never thought it could happen. The only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it.”The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, alleges that Trump – the first former president to face criminal charges – falsified business records to conceal a violation of election laws.Payments were made to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels and the former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Another was made to a former Trump Tower doorman, $30,000 to buy the rights to an untrue story about a child fathered out of wedlock.Trump appeared subdued as he pleaded “not guilty” but at Mar-a-Lago felt liberated to protest his innocence and lash out with typical invective, saying “our country is going to hell”.He described Bragg, an elected Democrat, as “a local failed district attorney charging a former president of the United States for the first time in history on a basis that every single pundit and legal analyst said there is no case.“There’s no case. They kept saying there’s no case. Virtually everyone. But it’s far worse than that because he knew there was no case.”Some experts have said Bragg might have to rely on untested legal theories but few have said he has no case at all.Trump added: “The criminal is the district attorney because he illegally leaked massive amounts of grand jury information for which he should be prosecuted or, at a minimum, he should resign.”In court, prosecutors requested protective orders for discovery materials, including Trump’s incendiary posts on his Truth Social platform, including a warning of “death and destruction” if he should be indicted. The judge, Juan Merchan, advised Trump: “Please refrain from making statements that are likely to incite violence or civil unrest.”But in his prime-time address, there was no sign Trump was prepared to modify his rhetoric. He assailed Merchan, claiming: “I have a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris.”In fact Merchan’s daughter, Loren, is a partner at a digital campaign strategy agency that has worked for many prominent Democrats, including Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 election.Trump addressed multiple other cases against him, including an investigation into his attempt to interfere in the election in Georgia.“In the wings they’ve got a local racist Democrat district attorney in Atlanta who is doing everything in her power to indict me over an absolutely perfect phone call,” he claimed, referring to a call in which he was recorded asking state Republicans to overturn the result.Trump also went into a lengthy denunciation of the investigation of his mishandling of classified materials at Mar-a-Lago. “They’re looking at me through the Espionage Act of 1917, where the penalty is death,” he said.He described the special counsel, Jack Smith, as a “lunatic” and complained: “Our justice system has become lawless. They’re using it now – in addition to everything else – to win elections.”Trump could not resist reverting to his usual campaign stump speech, railing against Democrats’ handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, urban crime, the threat of a third world war, a military “gone woke” and high inflation.He listed baseless grievances including “impeachment hoax number one”, “impeachment hoax number two”, “millions of votes illegally stuffed into ballot boxes” and Hunter Biden’s laptop which, he claimed, “exposes the Biden family as criminals”.There is no evidence to support that assertion.The indictment has led to a surge of support for Trump in Republican polls and a surge in cash donations. But many commentators are sceptical about whether Trump could prevail in a general election.The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, said in a statement: “Tonight at Mar-a-Lago we saw a paranoid and delusional speech cheered on by fanatical cult members who do not care about democracy and American values. Trump got the circus he wanted. The rest of the GOP has fallen in line.”Bill Burton, a former White House deputy press secretary under Barack Obama, was also unimpressed.“This is the worst I’ve ever seen Trump,” he tweeted. “I watch all of his speeches – saw him ramble in Waco, watched him ramble in his ‘announcement’ to run again – this is the very worst of it. Puffy face, bloodshot eyes, his precious hair a mess. And his cadence just plain sad.” More

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      Trump addresses indictment in brief – as it happened

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      This blog is now closed. You can read our full story on Trump’s arraignment – and the aftermath – here.We’ll be closing this blog shortly. Here is a summary of today’s events so far:
      Donald Trump was charged on Tuesday with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a historic case over allegations he orchestrated hush-money payments to two women before the 2016 US election to suppress publication of their alleged sexual encounters with him. Prosecutors in Manhattan accused Trump, the first sitting or former US president to face criminal charges, of trying to conceal a violation of election laws during his successful 2016 campaign. The two women in the case are adult film actor Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
      Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges. The frontrunner in the race for the Republican nomination in 2024, Trump was subdued, responding briefly when the judge asked him if he understood his rights. At one point, the judge put his hand to his ear as if to prompt an answer. Trump made no comment when he left court just under an hour later.
      Trump flew home to Florida where he addressed family, friends and supporters at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, delivering a litany of grievances against investigators, prosecutors and rival politicians. He falsely described the New York prosecution as election interference.
      Prosecutor Chris Conroy said: “The defendant Donald J Trump falsified New York business records in order to conceal an illegal conspiracy to undermine the integrity of the 2016 presidential election and other violations of election laws.” While falsifying business records in New York on its own is a misdemeanour punishable by no more than one year in prison, it is elevated to a felony punishable by up to four years when done to advance or conceal another crime, such as election law violations.
      Attorney general Alvin Bragg defended the charges in a press conference after the arraignment. “We today uphold our solemn responsibility to ensure that everyone stands equal before the law. No amount of money and no amount of power changes that enduring American principle,” Bragg said.
      “We’re going to fight it hard,” Todd Blanche, a lawyer for Trump, told reporters after the arraignment. He said that while Trump was frustrated, upset and angry about the charges, “ … he’s motivated. And it’s not going to stop him. And it’s not going to slow him down. And it’s exactly what he expected.”
      Justice Juan Merchan, the judge assigned to Trump’s case, did not impose a gag order but warned Trump to avoid making comments that were inflammatory or could cause civil unrest. Prosecutors said Trump made a series of social media posts, including one threatening “death and destruction” if he was charged. If convicted of any one of the 34 felony charges, Trump could face a maximum of four years in prison.
      The judge set the next hearing for 4 December. Legal experts said a trial may not even get under way for a year. An indictment or conviction will not legally prevent Trump from running for president.
      Trump’s mugshot was not taken, according to two law enforcement officials, though the Trump camp did create their own one to put on a T-shirt as part of a fundraising effort.
      In an opinion piece for the Guardian, Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, argues that every indictment will make Trump stronger:
      The indictment of Donald J Trump has not driven a wooden stake through his heart. He has risen, omnipresent and ominous again, overwhelming his rivals, their voices joined into his choir, like the singing January 6 prisoners, proclaiming the wickedness of his prosecution. As he enters the criminal courthouse to pose for his mugshot and to give his fingerprints, evangelicals venerate him as the adulterous King David or the martyred Christ.
      Trump does not have to raise his hand to signal to the House Republicans to echo his cry of “WITCH-HUNT”. He owns the House like he owns a hotel.
      …
      From the report of every new indictment to its reality, Republican radicalization will accelerate. Every concrete count will confirm every conspiracy theory. Every prosecution and trial, staggered over months and into the election year, from New York to Georgia to Washington, will be a shock driving Republicans further to Trump. Every Republican candidate running for every office will be compelled to declare as a matter of faith that Trump is being unjustly persecuted or be themselves branded traitors.
      Politico has painted a picture of the atmosphere at Mar-a-Lago, with a telling comment from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.Allies, aides, club members and the press were packed into the gilded ballroom of Mar-a-Lago, waiting for former President Donald Trump to arrive… In the ballroom at the Florida estate, there was no sense of sobriety in the air. It felt, instead, like a Maga movie set.
      The room was lit up with bright spotlights for the cameras. And as the assembled guests waited for the man of the hour to arrive, the setting took on the feel of a catwalk for Trump world’s upper crust. Family, staff and top surrogates walked in smiling and waving.
      …
      Tuesday, in a way, was like a campaign relaunch, still grievance-filled but with Trump world feeling that they are in a better position. The polling that just months ago was used as evidence of his failure to rally the base has dramatically shifted, now showing the former president with leads upward of 20 percentage points over DeSantis. It underscored the central paradox of Trump’s political career: His standing benefits from the crises he endures.“We’re back to all Trump all the time,” said former House Speaker and past presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. “Nothing makes him happier.”Here’s a video report on Trump’s speech in Florida earlier, during which he delivered a litany of grievances against investigators, prosecutors and rival politicians. He falsely described the New York prosecution as election interference:I’m just cutting away from the indictment for a moment to the results in Wisconsin, where a Democratic-backed Milwaukee judge has won the high stakes supreme court Race, ensuring liberals will take over majority control of the court for the first time in 15 years with the fate of the state’s abortion ban pending.Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Janet Protasiewicz defeated former Justice Dan Kelly, who previously worked for Republicans and had support from the state’s leading anti-abortion groups.The new court controlled 4-3 by liberals is expected to decide a pending lawsuit challenging the state’s 1849 law banning abortion. Protasiewicz made the issue a focus of her campaign and won the support of Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights groups.Four of the past six presidential elections in Wisconsin have been decided by less than a percentage point. Trump turned to the courts in 2020 in his unsuccessful push to overturn his roughly 21,000-vote loss in the state.Protasiewicz, a Milwaukee County judge, largely focused her campaign around abortion, saying she supports abortion rights but stopping short of saying how she would rule on a pending lawsuit challenging Wisconsin’s 174-year-old ban that was enacted a year after statehood.With that, let’s take a look at the day’s newspaper front pages with my colleague Jonathan Yerushalmy.The Guardian says, “Trump pleads not guilty to 34 charges in hush-money case”, with the paper highlighting the judge’s order that the former president refrain from rhetoric that could cause civil unrest.Time magazine gained a reputation for producing iconic covers throughout the Trump presidency, and they hit the mark again on Wednesday, with the simple headline: “Unprecedented”.The Times splashes with, “Trump in the dock”. The paper’s US correspondents describe how a “stony-faced Trump was released from custody after an hour-long arraignment hearing ahead of a trial likely to take place next year”.“Trump in the eye of the Stormy”, is the Mirror’s headline. The paper goes on to say that, “Finally… ex-President charged over ‘hush-money’ payments to porn star”.You can read the full roundup here:So, how was Trump’s arraignment covered in the US media – and have any lessons been learned since 2016? The AP’s David Bauder has taken a look:“It’s hard to over-dramatize what this means for Donald Trump,” MSNBC’s Chris Jansing said today.
      Oh, but many tried.
      Hour after hour today, the story occupied the full attention of broadcast and cable news networks. They waited for glimpses of Trump’s face to interpret his expression, followed his motorcade’s movements from the air, speculated on how it must feel to be arrested.
      On Monday, Trump’s travels from Florida to New York led cable news networks to revisit the worst of earlier excesses. Throughout the day, aerial camera shots followed Trump’s plane as it took off from Florida and landed in New York, and as his motorcade traveled to Trump Tower in Manhattan – the backdrop to hours of speculation about the case.
      At one point, Trump’s son Eric posted on social media a picture of a television set inside the plane showing a Fox News Channel picture of the plane waiting on a Florida tarmac. “Watching the plane … from the plane,” he said.
      New York state supreme court Judge Juan Merchan declined media requests for video coverage of the hearing where Trump heard the charges against him and pleaded not guilty. That led to constant, mostly empty talk about what might happen.
      Will Trump’s motorcade to the court take Fifth Avenue or the FDR Drive? (The latter.) Will a mug shot of Trump be taken and released? (No.) Would the former president speak to the media before he goes into the court? (No.) After the hearing is done? (Also no.)
      His walk out the door was judged “five seconds of history” by ABC’s David Muir. Those views of Trump, along with still pictures of him during the arraignment, turned political and legal commentators into facial-expression and body-language experts.Mitt Romney, the former presidential nominee, who as a Utah senator was the only Republican to vote to convict Trump in both his impeachment trials, has criticised the Manhattan district attorney’s office for its handling of the hush money case in which the former president pleaded not guilty on Tuesday.“I believe President Trump’s character and conduct make him unfit for office,” Romney said in a statement, as Trump was arraigned.“Even so, I believe the New York prosecutor has stretched to reach felony criminal charges in order to fit a political agenda.”“No one is above the law, not even former presidents, but everyone is entitled to equal treatment under the law. The prosecutor’s overreach sets a dangerous precedent for criminalizing political opponents and damages the public’s faith in our justice system.”There are thorny legal issues raised by Trump’s indictment.“The bottom line is that it’s murky,” Richard Hasen, an expert in election law and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles law school told the Associated Press. “And the district attorney did not offer a detailed legal analysis as to how they can do this, how they can get around these potential hurdles. And it could potentially tie up the case for a long time.”“There are an awful lot of dots here which it takes a bit of imagination to connect,” said Richard Klein, a Touro Law Center criminal law professor. Bragg said the indictment doesn’t specify the potential underlying crimes because the law doesn’t require it. But given the likelihood of Trump’s lawyers challenging it, “you’d think they’d want to be on much firmer ground than some of this stuff,” said Klein, a former New York City public defender.Hasen said it’s not clear whether candidates for federal office can be prosecuted in cases involving state election laws. The defense may also argue the case can’t be brought in state court if it involves a federal election law.While the prosecution’s theory is certainly unusual, it’s not unwinnable, some experts said.Bragg is “going to bring in witnesses, he’s going to show a lot of documentary evidence to attempt to demonstrate that all these payments were in furtherance of the presidential campaign,” said Jerry H.​ Goldfeder, a veteran election lawyer in New York and the director of Fordham Law School’s Voting Rights and Democracy Project.“It remains to be seen if he can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt,” Goldfeder said. But, he added, “Do not underestimate District Attorney Alvin Bragg and do not overestimate Mr. Trump.”On Fox, Laura Ingraham is running a segment on the decision by MSNBC to not broadcast Trump’s remarks in Florida.They’re embarrassed by the “flimsy” indictment and knew Trump would “use his comments to tell the truth,” she says.Hi, my name is Helen Sullivan and I’m taking over our live coverage of this historic day from my formidable colleague Maanvi Singh.If you have questions, comments, or would like to get in touch you can find me on Twitter.After Donald Trump surrendered to authorities and New York and pleaded not guilty to 34 charges of falsifying business records, he delivered a brief, grievance-laden speech from his his Florida residence.
      Trump became the first American president to face criminal charges. Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg said the ex-president faces 34 felony counts of falsifying documents “with intent to defraud and intent to conceal another crime” adding that “these are felony crimes in New York state, no matter who you are”.
      Trump’s court appearance, during which he was finger-printed, but not cuffed, came five days after a New York grand jury voted to indict him, based on a years-long investigation.
      The charges are focused on payments Trump made to hide an affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels, as well as hush money deals with Playboy model Karen McDougal and a former Trump Tower doorman. The district attorney’s office has accused Trump of having “orchestrated a scheme” with the intent “to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the defendant’s electoral prospects”.
      Separately, Trump faces a criminal investigation into his role during the January 6 insurrection and his retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after leaving office. He is also facing an investigation into efforts to overturn the elections in Georgia. The New York state attorney general has sued Trump, his family, and the Trump Organization over financial wrong doing. He is also facing a defamation suit arising from allegations of rape.
      In a rambling speech, Trump collapsed long-held grievances with complaints about the several investigations he is facing, focused especially on the classified documents case. He repeated falsehoods about the nature of the accusations he is facing, and personally attacked the prosecutors and investigators leading the cases.
      The president only spoke for about 25 minutes – which was much shorter than his standard. But otherwise, the remarks had many elements of his standard rally stump speech.I’m signing off, but my colleagues in Australia will continue to bring you updates and analysis.
      – Maanvi SinghFact check: Judge in hush money caseTrump called justice Juan Merchan a “Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris”.Merchan’s daughter is president of Authentic, an agency that has worked with the campaigns of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris , Cory Booker and other Democrats. But that is not a conflict of interest for the justice, or grounds for a recusal by judicial ethics standards.Fact check: Classified documentsDuring the speech, Trump also claimed that the Presidential Records Act involves a negotiation with the National Archives and Records Administration over documents, which is false. In fact, Nara gets custody of presidential documents the moment he leaves office.Trump was joined tonight by his children Don Jr, Eric and Tiffany, as well as supporters including Roger Stone, Mike Lindell, far-right representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz, and former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.Missing tonight were Trump’s eldest daughter Ivanka Trump, who has distanced herself from her father after working for his administration, and Melania Trump.CNN cut away from its live coverage of Trump’s speech as the former president continued to rail against the charges against him.Meanwhile, MSNBC opted not to broadcast Trump’s remarks at all. Instead, host Rachel Maddow said the outlet would monitor his remarks for any news rather than cover them in full.“This is basically a campaign speech in which he is repeating his same lies and allegations against his perceived enemies,” Maddow said. “He’s just giving his normal list of grievances. We don’t consider that necessarily newsworthy and there is a cost to us as a news organization of knowingly broadcasting untrue things.”NPR also did not air Trump’s speech live.Donald Trump has repeatedly misconstrued the investigation into his possession of classified documents, comparing what he did to what his predecessors did.Trump took classified documents to Mar-a-Lago, whereas former president Barack Obama turned over documents, according to the National Archives and Records Administration itself. In the cases of other former presidents, the Nara moved documents out of DC to other facilities. More

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      ‘In the eye of the Stormy’: how papers across the world reacted to Trump’s charges

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      Donald Trump’s historic appearance before a New York court on Tuesday has dominated global media, with the former president’s not guilty plea receiving wall-to-wall coverage across TV, newspapers and online.The Guardian says, “Trump pleads not guilty to 34 charges in hush-money case”, with the paper highlighting the judge’s order that the former president refrain from rhetoric that could cause civil unrest.Time magazine gained a reputation for producing iconic covers throughout the Trump presidency, and they hit the mark again on Wednesday, with the simple headline: “Unprecedented”.The Washington Post leads with, “Trump pleads not guilty to 34 counts”.The outlet reports on comments from Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, who accused the former president of participating in a “catch-and-kill” scheme to buy and suppress negative information.The Times splashes with, “Trump in the dock”. The paper’s US correspondents describe how a “stony-faced Trump was released from custody after an hour-long arraignment hearing ahead of a trial likely to take place next year”.German daily Tagesspiegel carries the headlined, “Nothing but the truth?”, over the top of a picture of Trump entering the court in New York.Under the headline, “Trump charged with 34 felonies”, the New York Times examines what was revealed in today’s court filings with the banner: “D.A. cites payoffs to a porn star, a playboy model and a doorman”.“Trump in the eye of the Stormy”, is the Mirror’s headline. The paper goes on to say that, “Finally… ex-President charged over ‘hush-money’ payments to porn star”.Spain’s El País says “Trump accused of 34 crimes”, and illustrates its story with a huge image of the former president inside the New York court, flanked by his lawyers.The New York Daily News devotes its entire front page to an image of the former president, with the headline: “Under arrest”.Finally, “Trump’s longest day”, is the assessment of Italy’s l’Opinione. The paper devotes most of its front page to a picture of Trump. More

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      Donald Trump has been charged. The swamp is finally being drained | Moustafa Bayoumi

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      Tuesday marks the day that Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, finally begins to fulfill one of his major campaign promises of 2016. By surrendering himself to authorities in New York City, Trump is finally draining the swamp.Of course, Trump isn’t the one opening the drain. That would be Alvin Bragg, New York county’s district attorney. And since “draining the swamp” is understood as rooting out political corruption, then, according to the criminal charges in the indictment, Trump is the alleged swamp monster potentially being drained. Still, job well done, Donald. Thank you. It’s about time.With the unsealing of the indictment, we now see the outline of how Trump’s alleged hush money payments to two different women have been viewed by prosecutors and how they rise to the level of felony charges. To be charged as felonies, the hush money payments must show that Trump’s “intent to defraud” included an attempt to commit or conceal a second crime and the case against Trump alleges the former president falsified New York business records “to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters both before and after the 2016 election”, as Bragg wrote in a separate statement.The indictment lists a $30,000 payment by American Media, Inc to a former Trump Tower doorman regarding a story about a child Trump had out of wedlock, a $150,000 payment made to a woman who alleges a sexual relationship with Trump, presumably Karen McDougal, and another $130,000 payment to a different woman, presumably Stormy Daniels, also about suppressing a story about a sexual relationship. “Participants in the scheme took steps that mischaracterized, for tax purposes, the true nature of the reimbursements,” Bragg further explained. All the charges Trump is facing are falsifying business records in the first degree and are felonies.Due process must now take its course, even if pundits in Trump’s corner repeatedly crow that the former president is being persecuted for his politics and not prosecuted for his actions. Such voices seem to skip conveniently over the fact that, since district attorney Bragg assumed his elected position in 2022, Bragg’s office has filed 117 felony counts of falsifying business records against 29 individuals and companies. The real Trump exception, let’s be clear, would be not filing charges.Still, this is no ordinary arraignment. Everything about Trump is oversized (except, allegedly, his hands), and his arraignment is no different, from the media covering every inch of his journey from Florida to New York to Trump’s lackluster election campaign for the 2024 presidency claiming to have raised $7m since the indictment was announced. Keeping Trump’s penchant for embellishment in mind, we would be wise to wait for proof from official campaign filings before accepting the accuracy of that number.Predictably, media coverage has run non-stop Trump coverage for the last few days, and Trump supporters have been hyperbolic to the point of delusion in defense of dear leader. Far-right, Q-Anon-supporting representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican congresswoman from Georgia, said, “Trump is joining some of the most incredible people in history being arrested today. Nelson Mandela was arrested, served time in prison. Jesus! Jesus was arrested and murdered.” Greene, who is reported to be angling for the vice-president position on a Trump ticket, stated that she “will always support” Trump.But surely the real story here is not Trump’s infamously bad behavior but how Trump has been unable to rally much other overt support to his defense. Pundits may point to rising poll numbers among a crowded field of mostly yet undeclared Republican candidates for the presidency, but it’s still early in election season and the nomination is not the general election. Rather, what’s evident is that Trump is unable to find a significant number of people who are willing to put their bodies on the line in his name, as he repeatedly has boasted. He has recently been accused again of inflating the number of attendees at his recent rally in Waco, Texas. Trump suggested a crowd of up to 60,000. One reporter at the scene put the number at hundreds.Then, on his way to New York on Monday, Trump posted a picture of his supporters as his motorcade passed by a West Palm Beach shopping center that’s become a gathering site for Trump devotees. Cable news channels repeatedly showed helicopter footage of the assembly, but the group was only around 100 people. And if the images from TV coverage are to be believed, today’s crowds in New York City are mostly populated not by angry men in masks and fur but primarily by uniformed police officers and journalists with cameras.Trump’s arrest provoked no January 6, and why would it be? Understanding Trump and his fading allure is about comprehending that what was once a movement is now mostly just an angry shrinking mob. It’s “easy to mistake the mob for the people”, the philosopher Hannah Arendt once wrote, warning that “the mob always will shout for the ‘strong man,’ the ‘great leader,’ for the mob hates society from which it is excluded”. That’s what we’re dealing with. We’re repeatedly told that Trump can mobilize the masses, but the best he can seem to muster is a few men in Maga hats with Marjorie Taylor Greene and George Santos coming along for the ride.Will this prosecution turn the tide in Trump’s favor and bring him the support he needs to regain not just the Republican nomination but the American presidency? I don’t know, and neither do you. And Trumpism without Trump could be the greater political danger facing us today.But what I do know is that after all the damage that Donald Trump has done to the rule of law in this country, after his open embrace of white nationalism and neo-Nazis, after his lies and attempts to overturn the 2020 election, after his Muslim ban, his refugee ban, his migrant bans, his hatred of Mexicans and other immigrants of color, after all his venal sexism, overt racism and antisemitism, thuggish masculinity and after his own tribalism and his own weaponizing of all forms of hate – after all of that, he has always ended up floating above it all.Trump’s arraignment marks the day not only when he began to drain the swamp but also the moment he began to be held criminally accountable. And that must be a good thing. It’s good for the rule of law. It’s good for the country. And it’s good for democracy. Truth be told, it also fills me with a kind of karmic joy. Regardless of what happens tomorrow, no one can take that joy away from me today.
      Moustafa Bayoumi is the author of the award-winning books How Does It Feel To Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America and This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror. He is a professor of English at Brooklyn College, City University of New York More

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      Donald Trump pleads not guilty to 34 felony charges in hush money case

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      Donald Trump on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges of falsifying business records and conspiracy related to his role in hush money payments to cover up an alleged extramarital affair in the final days of the 2016 presidential election, an unprecedented development that marks the first time in American history a former president has been charged with a crime.Trump, the 45th commander in chief and the leading contender for the Republican nomination in 2024, was stone-faced as he entered the courtroom in lower Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon, after surrendering to authorities in the city where he was born, built his career and launched his bid for the presidency.Trump described the moment as “SURREAL,” as his 11-vehicle motorcade made the journey from his penthouse on Fifth Ave to the district attorney’s office downtown. Upon his arrival, Trump, escorted by a phalanx of US Secret Service agents, waved to the crush of supporters, reporters and onlookers gathered near the criminal courts building.While he was in custody, Trump, like any other criminal defendant, was fingerprinted. But given the extraordinary nature of the proceedings, he was also afforded special accommodations: he was not handcuffed and was not subject to a mug shot.In his appearance before New York supreme court justice Juan Merchan, Trump himself entered the plea of not guilty, part of an effort to project an air of defiance, people close to him said. But seated between his lawyers at the defense table, Trump appeared affected by the gravity of the moment, which amounted to a legal reckoning for the reality TV star-turned-president after nearly half a century of avoiding criminal charges.According to the charging document, unsealed on Tuesday, prosecutors accused the former president of paying $130,000 to buy the silence of adult film star Stormy Daniels, who said she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. The payment was made by his then lawyer Michael Cohen, who said he was acting at the direction of Trump. Trump later reimbursed Cohen while serving as president of the United States.New York prosecutors allege that Trump violated state records law because it was falsely recorded as legal expenses, which also meant Trump avoided paying tax on the money.The prosecutors doubled down on the timing of Trump’s actions, which they said could have undermined his campaign during the 2016 election. And they asked for protective orders for discovery materials, including Trump’s escalatory posts on his platform Truth Social, such as when he vowed “death and destruction” in the event he was indicted.The arraignment marks a politically and legally perilous moment for Trump, and also for the country, which has never before been confronted with the extraordinary situation of a twice-impeached, criminally charged former president now running for re-election to the White House.The intense public interest in the case was underscored on Tuesday by dueling but peaceful demonstrations swelled on separate sides of a park near the courthouse. Metal barricades divided Trump’s supporters from his opponents, a stark visual of a nation still deeply divided over his presidency and his political future. While a conviction is far from certain, it would not preclude Trump from running or winning the presidency in 2024.The New York case is just one of an array of legal threats confronting the former president, who faces criminal investigations over the January 6 Capitol attack, his retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, as well as civil inquiries into his business and a defamation suit arising from allegations of rape.Trump and his campaign sees political opportunity in his legal jeopardy, as his supporters rallied to his defense, with signs and Maga-wear, in a show of fealty to a man many believe is the victim of a political witch hunt. It is a narrative Trump and his campaign have advanced in the days since he was indicted, using claims of a “witch hunt” to drive fundraising and pressure his likely Republican rivals to defend him. Prosecutors have said politics played no role in the decision to pursue this case.President Joe Biden, who has yet to formally announce that he’s seeking re-election next year, has declined to comment on the case. “This is not his focus for today,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Tuesday. More

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      ‘Going against the grain’: is bipartisanship really possible in America?

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      On election night 2016, Van Jones, the criminal justice advocate and former Obama administration official turned CNN anchor, processed his shock on live television. “This was a whitelash against a changing country,” he said. “It was a whitelash against a Black president, in part. And that’s the part where the pain comes.” The clip, in which Jones appeared near tears and essentially called Donald Trump a “bully” and a “bigot”, went viral. For many, it was shorthand for shock and dismay, an articulation of unspeakable anger, and a rare example of a pundit calling it like it was.So it was confusing that over the next few years, Jones, a Black man from western Tennessee, was seen at the Trump White House, conducted the first (and uncomfortably chummy) TV interview with Trump’s son-in-law/adviser Jared Kushner, and touted his communication with the administration and congressional Republicans in the name of bipartisan criminal justice reform. In spring 2019, Jones appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference – the Maga hat-filled, far-right convention known as CPAC – as an avowed Democrat willing, for better and for worse and with a considerable amount of controversy, to engage with the opposition. He appeared on stage with the chairman of the American Conservative Union, prompting the question, from myself, from the panel’s moderator and surely from audience members: “Why are you here?”The answer – the distance between 2016 and 2019, and the messy, at times contradictory journey in between – forms the backbone of the The First Step, a new, wide-ranging and thoughtful documentary on his fraught activism and the bipartisan criminal justice legislation he championed. Created by the brothers team of director Brandon Kramer and producer Lance Kramer, The First Step opens with that CPAC appearance and takes it name from the First Step Act, the bill heralded by Jones and his criminal justice organization, #cut50, that was signed into law by President Trump in 2018. The measure barred punitive practices such as shackling pregnant prisoners, placed inmates in facilities closer to their families, cut down some federal sentences by anywhere from weeks to years and allowed those convicted of pre-2010 crack cocaine offenses to apply for resentencing to a shorter term.During the initial Trump years, Jones “felt like somebody needed to be engaging and reaching across the aisle and trying to see if there was any sliver of room to get something accomplished on some of the issues where there is some bipartisan support”, said Brandon Kramer. The First Step Act was thus a hodgepodge of reforms and concessions, with a wide range of supporters (people as ideologically opposed as Kamala Harris and Ted Cruz) and skeptics. Some Republicans interested in decreasing mass incarceration backed it; other hardliners, such as the then attorney general, Jeff Sessions, opposed it. Many progressives viewed the measure as too little, too patchwork, one whose passage would allow Republicans to claim criminal justice reform without meaningfully addressing mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Jones’s bipartisan approach – as in, courting Republicans, Jared Kushner and Democrats – drew plenty of critics; the bill was initially opposed by liberal groups including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the ACLU.It also makes for a fascinating, thorny watch, one which, Jones’s occasional foot-in-mouth moments or glad-handing aside, tangles with evergreen questions of political work: incremental change versus radical reform, resoluteness versus compromise, how and when to build a coalition. The Kramers, who worked with Jones on a 2016 web series called The Messy Truth, in which Jones spoke to people across the political spectrum, were interested in someone “going against the grain and doing something really tough and controversial and being able to tell those stories in a really complex way,” said Brandon. “It felt like no matter what would come out of that, it would be a really important document and story for the American public to have.” The First Step began production during the Women’s March in January 2017 and filmed into 2020, as the bill was worked and nearly killed, reworked and nearly killed and then passed, and beyond. “People talk about bridge-building, but it’s very rare that you get to see bridge-building in action,” said Brandon.The film proceeds along three intertwined tracks: first, the work to pass the bill itself, trying to nail down support from Democrats and attract Republicans with a Trump endorsement, as well as Trump’s Oval Office, on the day of signing. (Jones addresses Trump personally and gratefully.) Second, on Jones’s personal journey to activism, from shy, bookish kid to Yale Law School to fighting to shut down prisons in San Francisco in the 1990s, which convinced him that “you cannot help people en masse with one party or with one race. The only way you’re gonna help is you get everybody together.”Jones, whose style encompasses hard-won insights (“you can’t fight an opponent you don’t understand,” he says of researching the right), whiffs and bromides in one impassioned mix, is often a besieged island of one; “He who walks in the middle of the road gets hit on both sides,” says the bishop TD Jakes in a phone call with a fatigued Jones. We meet his small #cut50 team as well as some of his prominent liberal critics, from his friend Senator Cory Booker to progressive criminal justice advocates. The First Step Act is “not the law that we need right now”, says the Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors in the film. “This bill is going to jeopardize the work that we’ve done for the last couple decades.”And third, the film sits in on meetings facilitated by Jones between two grassroots groups grappling with addiction and incarceration: an organization of Black and Hispanic residents from South Central LA besieged by the crack epidemic and the “war on drugs”, and some predominantly white, Trump-voting citizens of McDowell county, West Virginia, reeling from the opioid crisis and cyclical arrests. Each group visits the other; most find common ground in shared trauma and frustration over a system that punishes rather than rehabilitates, if not in justifying the others’ vote in 2016. In one of the film’s most riveting scenes, Jones tries to convince the LA group members to visit Trump’s White House to tell their stories, because the people who shouldn’t be in power will make the trip, and “the right people won’t go” to make an impact. Some do make an uncomfortable visit, greeted by Kellyanne Conway; others view engagement as a bridge too far, certain that Trump and Conway “will find a way to misuse it”.The tension between engagement and non-engagement, incremental work versus comprehensive reform, course throughout the film with, of course, no definitive resolution. “There are very legitimate and important reasons why to engage, and there’s legitimate and important reasons why some people don’t engage or why they’re fighting for a more comprehensive reform,” said Brandon. “The hope is that you see people who represent your view, but you’re also given a window into a different strategy or opinion or view.”“It’s valuable for the human experience but also the political process to be able to engage with these kind of narratives but also just paradoxes in this space,” said Lance Kramer of the multitude of experiences and approaches professed in the film. “I think it’s a healing space, when you have that opportunity.”If anything, the US political environment has only grown more polarized, and the Republican party more untethered from reality, in the years since The First Step was filmed; it can feel weird to watch the film, and its depiction of bipartisan efforts, in a post-January 6 context. But, as Jones and the film-makers point out, there is still a point to political bridge-building. The First Step Act did get passed, allowing thousands of federal prisoners to go home early. The film ends with immediately eye-watering clips of former inmates reunited with their families, months or years ahead of time. “There’s virtues in still trying to get things done and not just throwing up our hands and giving up,” said Lance. “At the end of the day, it’s people’s lives that depend on it.”
      The First Step is now available digitally in the US More