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CBS faces backlash over 60 Minutes interview with Marjorie Taylor Greene
CBS came under fire after devoting an interview on its flagship current affairs show, 60 Minutes, to Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right pro-Trump congresswoman from Georgia who has espoused conspiracy theories and faced censure for threatening behaviour towards Democrats.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York progressive congresswoman among those threatened by Greene, told Semafor: “These kinds of extreme and really just unprecedented and dangerous notions are getting platforms, without much pushback or real kind of critical analysis.”Matthew Gertz, of the progressive watchdog Media Matters, told the same outlet: “Anyone who believes that the congresswoman from QAnon is serious about renouncing far-right radicalism and conspiracy theories should make me an offer on my Jewish space laser.”Greene memorably suggested California wildfires could be caused by solar technology connected to the Rothschild family, giving rise to the “Jewish space laser” meme.Gertz also pointed to Greene’s support of Donald Trump, who last week became the first former US president ever to be criminally indicted after a New York grand jury handed up charges against him.On Tuesday morning, Greene is set to address a protest in support of Trump outside the New York courthouse where the former president will be arraigned.Gertz said: “Less than 48 hours after CBS News gives her a mainstream platform to airbrush her image, Marjorie Taylor Greene will be rallying with Jack Posobiec of Pizzagate fame and the quasi-fascists of the New York Young Republican Club to defend Donald Trump from what she calls the ‘political persecution’ of a ‘Soros-backed’ district attorney.”Gertz also said Greene was “a rightwing extremist us[ing] a credulous mainstream press outlet”.Greene is part of a far-right group on which the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, relied to secure his position. In turn, McCarthy has restored Greene and other extremists to key committees.CBS titled its interview with Greene “From the far-right fringe to the Republican party’s front row”.“She’s gained her national celebrity,” it said, “some say notoriety, with a sharp tongue and some pretty radical views like her proposal for a national divorce where red and blue states would go their separate ways. But she has managed in just two years in Congress to accumulate real power, landing on important committees, and influencing the direction of Republican policies.”The interview took place before news of Trump’s indictment. Much criticism of CBS centered on a passage in which Lesley Stahl, the interviewer, asked why Greene called Democrats paedophiles.Stahl said: “The Democrats are a party of paedophiles?”Greene said: “I would definitely say so. They support grooming children.”“They are not paedophiles,” Stahl said. “Why would you say that?”Greene said: “Democrats support – even Joe Biden, the president himself, supports children being sexualised and having transgender surgeries. Sexualising children is what paedophiles do to children.”Stahl said: “Wow. OK. But my question really is, ‘Can’t you fight for what you believe in without all that name-calling and without the personal attacks?’”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionGreene said: “Well, I would ask the same question to the other side, because all they’ve done is call me names and insult me non-stop since I’ve been here, Lesley. They call me racist. They call me … antisemitic, which is not true. I’m not calling anyone names. I’m calling out the truth, basically.”Stahl said: “Paedophile?”Greene said: “Paedophi– call it what it is.”Greene also claimed not to have called the Parkland school shooting a “false flag” operation or to have threatened Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker.The CNN columnist Dean Obeidallah noted: “Stahl didn’t mention Greene spoke at a white nationalist event a year ago while a member of Congress or her extreme anti-Muslim views and her defense of January 6 rioters.”David Corn, DC bureau chief for Mother Jones, wrote: “It’s a failure on CBS and Stahl’s part to give [Greene] such an unimpeded platform to spread such garbage.”CBS did not comment.The network did receive support from public figures.The Parkland school shooting survivor and campaigner for gun reform David Hogg, who has been harassed by Greene, said he was “glad 60 minutes gave Marjorie Taylor Greene airtime. It’s important to interview one of the main leaders of the Republican party so the American people know everything and I mean everything they support. Including denying school shootings.”Asked how she thought the interview had gone, Greene told Semafor: “I thought it was pretty good.” More
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Prosecuting Donald Trump is right. But is it politically wise? | Simon Jenkins
The best reason for arraigning Donald Trump in New York this week is that he is guilty. It is possible that the jury might agree and he might go quietly to jail, thus being unable to return to the White House were he to be elected. That is a good reason, but it does not make it a wise one.American justice is not political but it can be highly politicised. We won’t know until Tuesday afternoon what exactly Trump has been indicted on, but many assume he will face charges of falsely concealing “hush money” paid to the former adult film actor Stormy Daniels. The case was brought by an elected Democratic district attorney, Alvin Bragg. It comes more than six years after the alleged offence occurred, and at the start of Trump’s campaign for the 2024 Republican nomination for president. At the very least, this does not look coincidental.Most observers had reached the view that Trump the politician was over the hill. His rallies were tired and his speeches meandering. New Republican hopefuls for 2024 were on the horizon, notably Florida’s Ron DeSantis and former vice-president Mike Pence, both of whom have publicly criticised Trump for refusing to concede the 2020 election. Continued reports of his many misdemeanours would surely lead Republicans to accept his days were over.Legal analysis of this week’s case against Trump suggests there are serious obstacles in the way of his ending up in prison. A law professor and former prosecutor, Jeffrey Bellin, has pointed out that falsifying accounts can have numerous mitigating factors. Any judge and jury, even in New York, will be aware of the political perils of jailing an ex-president, not least for crimes ostensibly less awful than those for which President Nixon was excused. Were Trump to be on trial for interfering in the Georgia poll or inciting a riotous assault on the Capitol, it might be different. But Republicans find it hard to disagree with Trump’s claim that the New York case is a witch-hunt that amounts to “political persecution and electoral interference”.Meanwhile, Trump’s team have treated the indictment as the best adrenaline boost a populist could ask for. It has given them a platform, an enemy and a cause. They even planned T-shirts with Trump’s mugshot on them. The Republican party’s belief in its hero might have waned, but now Pence and DeSantis have had to declare the trial “outrageous” and “un-American”, while the party’s leaders in Congress lined up to decry the “injustice”. This includes those who outspokenly opposed Trump’s challenge to his 2020 defeat.Public opinion has vindicated this second coming. YouGov reports 57% of Republicans are now for Trump, against just 31% for DeSantis. A Harvard CAPs/Harris poll has Trump four points ahead even of Biden. The roughly third of American voters who had remained loyal to him now agree with DeSantis: the Democratic party has “[weaponised] the legal system to advance a political agenda”. As one southern churchgoer said with a smile when asked if she would still support Trump after the Stormy Daniels revelations: “We are all sinners, aren’t we?”Trump’s political appeal has been built on promoting a boisterous self-confidence in defence of the huddled masses of “middle America” against the so-called liberal elites of New York and Washington. He contrasts “ordinary Americans” with the college-educated, media-driven, woke-obsessed lefties of the east coast and big government. He cries: “I am your warrior. I am your justice.” An ill-defined “they” are said to have stolen the 2020 presidential election and they mean to steal the next one. To Trump his trial is “straight out of the Stalinist Russian horror show”.Democrats must now hope they can damage him on the stage of a high-profile legal theatre as they have not done before the court of public opinion. The strategy must be to see him exploit the trial sufficiently to see off the potentially more electable DeSantis but not enough to win a second contest against Joe Biden. In other words, they are reckoning on 18 months of personalised political viciousness, while the outside world struggles with the twin horrors of global trade wars and an escalating conflict in Ukraine.The one salutary message to liberals of all stripes is that it is dangerous in any democracy to dismiss out of hand large numbers of those with whom they disagree. They will nurse their grievances unheard in provincial haunts far from the capital until, sooner or later, they find someone to sympathise with them, someone to listen.This applies in Europe as in the US. As the psephologist Matthew Goodwin has pointed out, if Britain’s Labour party is to hold on to its lead it must beware of capture by groups such as those Trump derides: the graduates, the government-employed, the capital city-oriented. They made it “even easier for Nigel Farage, the Brexiteers, and then Boris to speak loudly and clearly to their instinctive desire for a more communitarian, nation-first brand of politics”. This brand has not gone away and remains the biggest threat to Keir Starmer. He need not agree with them, but he must listen.A large number of Americans clearly like and trust Donald Trump. They appear to do so more than they trust a New York judge. This is alarming. It has presented not just the US, but the entire western political community with a potential crisis of leadership.
Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist More - in US Politics
Donald Trump vows to escalate attacks against Alvin Bragg – sources
Donald Trump has told advisers and associates in recent days that he is prepared to escalate attacks against the Manhattan prosecutor who resurrected the criminal prosecution into his hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016 now that a grand jury has indicted him.The former president has vowed to people close to him that he wants to go on the offensive and – in a private moment over the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida that demonstrates his gathering resolve – remarked using more colorful language that it was time to “rough ’em up”.Trump had already signaled that he would go after the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, weeks before the grand jury handed up an indictment against him on Thursday, saying in pugilistic posts on Truth Social that the prosecution was purely political and falsely accusing Bragg of being a psychopath.But the latest charged language reflects Trump’s determination to double down on those attacks as he returns to his time-tested playbook of going after prosecutors, especially when faced with legal trouble that he knows he cannot avoid, people close to him said.The episode at Mar-a-Lago came on the sidelines of strategy meetings Trump had with advisers and associates about how to respond to the indictment from a legal and political standpoint, sessions which were described by two sources close to the former president.The case centers on $130,000 that Trump paid to Daniels through his former lawyer Michael Cohen in the final days of the 2016 campaign. Trump later reimbursed Cohen with $35,000 checks, which were recorded as legal expenses. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal tax evasion and campaign-finance violation charges.With the indictment under seal until Trump’s scheduled arraignment on Tuesday, the exact charges remained unclear on Sunday, though they are expected to include the falsification of business records and additional charges that elevate what would otherwise be a misdemeanor to a felony.Trump was initially caught off-guard by the indictment and spent the following 24 hours absorbing the news that was relayed to him by several of his top advisers. Later, at one point, Trump repeated to himself almost incredulously that prosecutors had actually charged him.The shock had dissipated by the weekend, when Trump’s tone changed and he told his team that he wanted to attack the case and fight the prosecutors. He steadfastly contends he did nothing illegal and won’t accept a plea deal that would force him to admit culpability.The ex-president’s pugnacious tone has only accelerated in recent days with a series of critical posts about New York state supreme court justice Juan Merchan, to whom the case has apparently been allotted after he presided over a separate matter involving the Trump Organization last year.On his Truth Social platform, Trump said Merchan had “railroaded” Allen Weisselberg, the former chief executive of the Trump Organization, who on Sunday was in the middle of serving a 100-day sentence in the Rikers Island jail complex after pleading guilty to tax fraud charges in that case.Referencing Merchan, Trump said: “The Judge ‘assigned’ to my Witch Hunt Case, a ‘Case’ that has NEVER BEEN CHARGED BEFORE, HATES ME”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump has also since pivoted his focus to seeing how he can benefit politically from the indictment, the sources said, and he was encouraged that it had boosted his poll numbers over potential rivals for the Republican nomination who found themselves forced to come to his defense against Bragg, a Democrat.With a grim fixation on having a mug shot taken, Trump has asked whether his team could print it on T-shirts that could serve as a rallying motif for his supporters – an idea that his advisers have been particularly enthusiastic about.Trump also spent the weekend reviewing a Yahoo news poll that showed him leading Florida governor Ron DeSantis, whom he considers his closest rival for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, 57% to 31% in a hypothetical one-on-one contest. The poll also found Trump was attracting the majority of support, at 52%, when pitted against a wider, 10-candidate field.The polling illustrated the perilous dance for DeSantis and Trump’s other challengers, who have so far struggled to find a way to defend the ex-president strongly enough to ensure the support of his core base in the Republican party without undercutting their pitch as being worthy successors to him.Trump’s advisers observed over the weekend that DeSantis had struggled in that test when his only response to the indictment was to snap back in line behind the former president, calling the case “the weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda”. More
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Supreme court justices felt tricked by Trump at Kavanaugh swearing-in – book
Sitting justices of the US supreme court felt “tricked” and used by Donald Trump when the then president assured them a White House celebration of the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh would not be overtly political, then used the event to harangue those who questioned Kavanaugh’s fitness to sit on the court.“Most of the justices sat stone faced” as Trump spoke at the ceremonial swearing-in, the CNN correspondent Joan Biskupic writes in a new book, Nine Black Robes: Inside the Supreme Court’s Drive to the Right and Its Historic Consequences.“Some justices told me later that they were sorry they had gone.”Biskupic, senior supreme court analyst for CNN, adds: “To varying degrees, the justices felt tricked, made to participate in a political exercise at a time when they were trying to prove themselves impartial guardians of justice, rather than tools of Republican interests.”Nine Black Robes will be published in the US on Tuesday. The Guardian obtained a copy.Published excerpts have covered key issues on the court including the controversial treatment of staff for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the liberal justice who died in September 2020 and was swiftly replaced by Amy Coney Barrett, an arch-conservative; rulings on gay rights; and the 2022 Dobbs vs Jackson decision that removed the federal right to abortion.The appointment of Coney Barrett – jammed through before the election by the same Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, who previously held open a seat for a year and through an election in order to fill it with a conservative – tilted the court 6-3 to the right.Joe Biden has made the historic appointment of Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman on the court, but he has not altered that 6-3 balance.Kavanaugh was Trump’s second appointment, replacing the retiring Anthony Kennedy, a conservative for a conservative.Accused of drunken behaviour and sexual assault while a high school student, Kavanaugh, a former George W Bush administration aide, was narrowly confirmed in an atmosphere of deeply partisan rancour.On 8 October 2018, Trump staged his celebration.Saying “what happened to the Kavanaugh family violates every notion of fairness, decency and due process”, Trump falsely claimed Kavanaugh had been “proven innocent” of the claims against him.As Biskupic writes: “There had been no trial, not even much of an investigation of [Professor Christine Blasey] Ford’s accusations. But as with so many of Trump’s assertions, the truth did not matter to him or … his supporters.”Biskupic notes that among the “stone faced” justices at the White House, Clarence Thomas, the senior conservative, was “conspicuously enthusiastic, alone applaud[ing] heartily after Kavanaugh spoke”.She adds: “A Department of Justice spokeswoman, Kerri Kupec, later described Thomas as ‘the life of the party’ at the event.”Thomas is the subject of controversy centering on the activities of his wife, the far-right activist Ginni Thomas.Ginni Thomas has been shown to have lobbied state lawmakers as part of Trump’s attempt to overturn his 2020 defeat and to have attended an event in Washington on January 6, prior to the deadly attack on Congress by Trump supporters.In January 2022, Clarence Thomas was the only supreme court justice to say Trump should not have to give records to the House January 6 committee. Such records turned out to include texts between Ginni Thomas and Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff.In congressional testimony released last December, Ginni Thomas said she was “certain [she] never spoke with” her husband “about any of the challenges to the 2020 election”.She also claimed Clarence Thomas was “uninterested in politics”. More
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Asa Hutchinson announces candidacy for Republican presidential nomination
The former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson announced on Sunday that he plans to run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, saying the US needs “leaders that appeal to the best of America, and not simply appeal to our worst instincts” while also calling for Donald Trump to drop out the race.Meanwhile, on the other side of the political aisle, the centrist Democrat and West Virginia senator Joe Manchin evaded a question during an interview on CNN about a potential run challenging his party’s Oval Office incumbent, Joe Biden, fueling speculation about his own ambitions.“This is one of the most unpredictable political environments that I have seen in my lifetime,” Hutchinson said on ABC, adding that he traveled the US for six months and listened to repeated demands for new leadership before declaring himself as a candidate.Hutchinson’s announcement follows an eclectic career including stints as a prosecutor, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration and a member of Congress. He joins the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley as the only members of the Republican mainstream to challenge Trump, Biden’s presidential predecessor, for the party’s 2024 White House nomination. Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, has been Trump’s only serious rival in polling.Hutchinson spoke of his recent visit to Iowa, which has historically been the first state to vote in presidential primaries and holds a crucial spot in White House election cycles.The former governor of Arkansas had hinted at this candidacy for almost a year and said in May that a possible Trump campaign wouldn’t deter him from running.He said he doesn’t “align” with a lot of Trump’s politics and that the country needed to go in a “different direction”.In Sunday’s interview, he said that Trump is better off focusing on his criminal indictment in the Stormy Daniels hush money case, as well as other legal concerns, instead of taking another shot at the presidency.“If we’re looking at the presidency and the future of our country, then we don’t need that distraction,” said Hutchinson, who added that he would formally kick off his presidential campaign later this month.Meanwhile, on Sunday morning, CNN’s Dana Bash spoke with Manchin and informed him of Hutchinson’s announcement. The host then asked Manchin about his own plans for 2024 after the senator skirted a question about whether he would support re-electing Biden in 2024.“I’m worn out,” Manchin said. “The people are tired, sick and tired of the fighting and division that we have.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhen Bash asked Manchin again about his plans for 2024, Manchin replied evasively, saying: “We have a movement. There’s a movement. There’s a movement going on that people want to bring the extremes back to the sensible and reasonable, responsible middle.”He then went on to say he would like to be at least “a part of trying to get a dialogue” that would bring people “to the middle”.“It’s about our country,” Manchin said. “Everyone’s worried about their own political future. I’m worried about the country.”A millionaire coal-trading company founder, Manchin at times has undermined the agendas of Biden and other Democrats, occasionally voting against the party’s interest in the Senate, where the party and the independents who caucus with it currently hold just a two-seat advantage. Notably, last year, Manchin torpedoed sweeping climate legislation staunchly opposed by Republicans before later helping ratify a less ambitious bill.The self-help author Marianne Williamson has so far been the only Democrat to announce an intent to challenge Biden for the party’s presidential nomination in 2024. Biden is widely expected to announce another White House run but as of Sunday had not officially done so. More
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‘Like lighting a match’: Trump ramps up rhetoric as legal walls close in
Donald Trump understands the camera. He is particular about angles, lighting and his inimitable orange hair. But come this Tuesday, in a New York courthouse, the camera will become his tormentor as Trump, once the most powerful man in the world, is told to provide a mug shot like a common criminal.The first reality TV star to be elected US president, and the first US president to be twice impeached and attempt the overthrow of an election, is now the first US president to be charged with a crime. The 76-year-old faces the humiliation of being photographed, fingerprinted and entering a plea to charges involving a 2016 hush money payment to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels.The impact of that is already being felt. There are signs that the legal perils now engulfing Trump are pushing him to new extremes. Trump has never been a conventional politician, but his divisive brand of populist-nationalism is growing ever more intense and extreme.His 2024 campaign for the White House is embracing a violent rhetoric that could inflame tensions and put America on a path to conflagration. Barricades have gone up around the courthouse in New York. Daniels canceled a Friday television interview out of “security concerns”. Trump’s language on the campaign trail and social media, haranguing his enemies, is laced with race-baiting and antisemitic conspiratorial tropes.“There’s nothing traditional about Donald Trump and there never has been, but we’ve never been in this situation before and what’s different now is how polarised we are,” said Frank Luntz, a pollster who has worked on numerous Republican election campaigns. “This is like lighting a match in the middle of a bonfire that’s been doused with gasoline. I’m afraid that we’re lighting a match and we’re going to see on Tuesday what happens.”For a moment, it had seemed that this time might be different. Trump launched his 2024 election campaign last November at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida with an uncharacteristic low energy, steering clear of his stolen election lies and insisting: “We’re going to keep it very elegant.”He then went unusually quiet before embarking on small-scale campaign events, issuing policy proposals and hiring staff in early voting states. Unlike his ramshackle 2016 effort, his campaign team appeared disciplined. The Hill website observed: “Former President Trump is doing something shocking – he’s running a campaign that is starting to look quite conventional.”But just as hopes that Trump would grow into the presidency were constantly dashed, so this newly orthodox candidate was never going to last. The trigger came two days after he became the first contender to hit the 2024 election campaign trail, delivering unremarkable speeches in the early primary states of New Hampshire and South Carolina.In a surprise move, Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, revived what had seemed be a cold case, an investigation into an alleged $130,000 payment to Daniels in the waning days of the 2016 campaign. Daniels has said she received money in exchange for keeping silent about a sexual encounter she had with Trump in 2006, when he was married to Melania Trump.As witnesses testified to a grand jury and the walls closed in, Trump used the threat to raise money and rally supporters as he seeks his party’s nomination to challenge Joe Biden next year. He abandoned all pretence of moderation and reverted to the old demagoguery.At the Conservative Political Action Conference at the National Harbor in Maryland, he spoke in apocalyptic terms of a “final battle” and vowed to supporters: “I am your retribution.” On his Truth Social media platform, he inaccurately predicted his own arrest and called for protests, echoing his charged rhetoric ahead of the January 6 2021 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters.Luntz commented: “He knows the power of that word ‘protest’. He knows what happened the last time he used that word. This is a deliberate effort to engage people in his situation and I am concerned about the consequences of him using that word.”Trump went on to warn of potential “death & destruction” if he were charged and described Bragg as an “animal” who was “doing the work of Anarchists and the Devil, who want our Country to fail”. He accused Bragg, who is Black, of racial bias and even shared an image – later removed – of himself holding a baseball bat next to a picture of the district attorney. Bragg’s office has been the target of bomb threats in recent weeks.Then, last weekend, Trump held his first campaign rally in Waco, Texas, exactly 30 years after a 51-day standoff and deadly siege there, and began by standing with hand on heart during the playing of a song that features a choir of men imprisoned for their role in the January 6 insurrection singing the national anthem, as footage from the riot was shown on big screens.The ex-president proceeded to describe the “weaponisation of law enforcement” as the biggest threat to America today and vow: “The thugs and criminals who are corrupting our justice system will be defeated, discredited and totally disgraced.”When on Thursday the grand jury had voted to indict, Trump responded in similar fashion and, significantly, Republicans rallied to his defence. Such is his grip on that party that even potential 2024 rivals felt compelled to defend his claim of a witch-hunt. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, called the move “un-American”, while former vice-president Mike Pence told CNN the charges were “outrageous”.Both will have been aware that Trump’s campaign of rage in recent weeks has put him back in the headlines and expanded his lead in opinion polls. DeSantis, promoting a new book, has found himself going backwards. It is little surprise that Trump feels emboldened.Luntz said: “His numbers have gone up five points since this whole thing came about and I’m afraid that it will galvanise and solidify the support that had been leaving him. Donald Trump is the best politician in my lifetime at playing the victim card. There’s no one who comes close to him.”Trump alleges that there are political motivations behind all four criminal investigations he is known to face – including into his retention of classified documents and attempts to overturn his election defeat, and a separate Georgia investigation into his efforts to overturn his loss in that state. One line of attack is reframing January 6 as a heroic defence of democracy.Tara Setmayer, a senior adviser to the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, said: “It’s clear that January 6 is a badge of valour for him, given that he’s continued to escalate the violent rhetoric similar to that which he used prior to January 6. He seems to get off on the idea of people engaging in violence on behalf of him.”She added: “He’s like a political vampire with a taste. He got a taste of what that violence can do on his behalf and now he wants more because he feels powerful.”The shift to the right goes beyond posturing. Trump has unleashed a barrage of policy proposals that include punishing doctors who provide gender-affirming care, measures that would make it harder to vote and imposing the death penalty on drug dealers. He appears to be taking the Republican party with him.Staunch allies such as Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia have risen to prominence in Congress. Republican state legislatures across the country have passed extreme legislation curtailing abortion and LGBTQ and voting rights. DeSantis, seen as Trump’s principal rival for the nomination, has adopted many of the same positions or tried to move even further right.Kurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist, said: “I don’t think he’s dragging them anywhere. They’re going willingly and voluntarily. They’re not putting up any kind of struggle. It just tells me intuitively that this is what they want, this is the kind of party that they want to be a part of because they’re doing absolutely nothing to divorce themselves from the extremism that Donald Trump regurgitates every single day.”Police are likely to close streets around the Manhattan courthouse ahead of Tuesday’s expected appearance. In a sign of the increasingly febrile atmosphere, Trump loyalist Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator for South Carolina, mocked Bragg’s sense of priorities by writing on Twitter: “How can President Trump avoid prosecution in New York? On the way to the DA’s office on Tuesday, Trump should smash some windows, rob a few shops and punch a cop. He would be released IMMEDIATELY!”A potential trial is still at least more than a year away, meaning it could occur during or after the presidential campaign. While it is unclear what specific charges Trump will face, some legal experts have said Bragg might have to rely on untested legal theories to argue that Trump falsified business records to cover up crimes such as violating federal campaign finance law.Luntz, the pollster, warned: “If you go to kill the king and the king lives, you die. If you prosecute Donald Trump and he is found innocent, there will be no stopping him. If he is found guilty, there’ll be no calming down of his most fervent supporters. Either way, it’s bad for the American democracy.” More
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The Observer view: Donald Trump deserves to face the full force of justice | Observer editorial
In the tumultuous, multifaceted case of Donald J Trump versus the people of the United States, the biggest question is why this former president, political con artist and serial offender is not already in jail. Trump will be charged this week in Manhattan over alleged “hush money” payments to a former porn star. This action, both welcome and overdue, makes him the first US president to be criminally indicted. Yet twice-impeached Trump stands accused of a string of infinitely more serious, well-documented crimes, including a violent attempt to overthrow the government. The continuing mystery is why justice is so long in coming.The full Trump charge sheet reads like a horror novel in which democracy is murdered. In the weeks following his clear-cut defeat by Joe Biden in November 2020, Trump did everything he could to subvert the result, legally and illegally, by making baseless accusations of fraud. This is not in dispute. Not disputed, either, is a taped telephone conversation on 2 January 2021 between Trump and Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, in which the then president pressed the latter “to find 11,780 votes” – sufficient to cancel Biden’s victory in the key swing state.Why has Trump not been criminally charged in what appears to be an open-and-shut case of shameless election interference? A special grand jury in Atlanta has recommended the prosecution of all involved in the illegal lobbying of Raffensperger. Perhaps the courage shown by Manhattan’s district attorney, Alvin Bragg, in indicting Trump will inspire his Fulton County counterpart, Fani Willis – and other state and federal prosecutors – to follow suit without further delays. If this case had been conducted in a timely manner, Trump might be behind bars now.It is more than two years since Trump incited his supporters to attack the Capitol in order to halt Congress’s ratification of Biden’s victory. The ensuing riot on 6 January 2021 led to deaths and injuries. Yet Trump did nothing to call off the mob until it was far too late. He has since hailed the rioters as heroes. Again, much of this is on the record. Congress has conducted exhaustive investigations. Why has Merrick Garland, the US attorney general, failed to act against the chief instigator as well as the perpetrators of the coup attempt? Only in November did Garland finally appoint a special counsel – which amounts, in effect, to another delay.It is hard to avoid the conclusion that reluctance to energetically pursue these and other crimes, such as Trump’s apparent theft of secret documents found at his Florida home, stems from political timidity at the top. As he showed again last week, Trump is ready and able to use his mafia-like grip on the Republican party and rightwing media to intimidate the entire US body politic. He plays the victim, turns the tables and claims Biden and the Democrats are the lawbreakers. Trump says political enemies have singled him out. Yet the only special treatment he has received is to have been allowed to avoid prosecution for so long.Diffidence over confronting Trump full-on stems in part from an understandable desire to avoid feeding national divisions. The entire Trump saga, akin to tawdry, never-ending reality TV show, is a distraction from pressing issues such as post-pandemic economic revival, the climate emergency and war in Europe. The US should focus on these challenges rather than endlessly indulge the antic ravings of a narcissistic, foul-mouthed, misogynistic crook.Biden would surely wish it so. At the start of his term, he plainly hoped that, by ignoring him, Trump would eventually go away. Yet sadly, here he is again, hogging the limelight. Trump will have his day in court amid blanket media coverage and feared street violence. He will repeat his usual inflammatory lies and slanders, proceedings will be adjourned, probably for months, and meanwhile, this arch-enemy of democracy, decency and justice will try to exploit his “victimhood” to secure the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. In a sense, Trump-ism is eternal. It cares for nothing and no one but itself.The Trump case poses potentially historic challenges for an American republic founded on the rule of law. The idea, peddled by Republicans, that a current or former president enjoys de facto immunity from prosecution is at odds with modern-day concepts of justice. The fact that it appears such a person may stand again for the White House while under criminal investigation, or even following a criminal conviction, points to dangerous flaws in America’s constitutional arrangements. No person, however famous, big-headed or threatening, should be above the law.The aggressive reaction to the indictment of many leading Republicans, and especially Ron DeSantis, Trump’s closest competitor, is dismaying. By parroting Trump’s line about “weaponisation” of the courts, the Florida governor shows himself to be no better or wiser than his egotistic rival. The party as a whole continues to place its interests ahead of the principles for which America stands. Democrats, meanwhile, should avoid talk that exacerbates national polarisation. “Lock him up!” is a tempting slogan, given how Trump used it against Hillary Clinton. But calm, restraint and patience are required. If there’s any justice, Trump’s time in court will ultimately be followed by time served.The manner in which this unprecedented legal drama is handled, and its outcome, could decide America’s immediate political future. It may also have a significant, lasting impact on US influence and moral authority in the global struggle to uphold a democratic, law-based international order. The world is watching – and that, regrettably, is what Trump likes.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk More
