BREAKING NEWS: According to Trump, his first trial is a turning point for America.
Donald Trump is attempting to portray a case in which he is suspected of paying hush money to a porn star as “an illegal attack on a political opponent,” much like he does with regard to the three other criminal trials that lie ahead of him.
In a social media post regarding the trial, which is scheduled to begin in New York next week, the probable Republican presidential nominee stated, “It is Communism at its worst, and Election Interference at its Best.” “This has never occurred in our nation before. I am going to be made to sit, gagged, in front of an incredibly conflicted and corrupt judge on Monday, whose contempt for me has no limits.
Here, Trump is correct on at least one point: no past president of the United States has ever been prosecuted in a criminal court.
First things first: jury selection for a trial considering claims that Trump plotted to conceal allegations of extramarital relationships that jeopardized his 2016 White House campaign will begin on Monday, signaling a turning point in American history and the administration.
According to Mary McCord, executive director of Georgetown University’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, “it is historic and unusual and that’s for a reason.” “We have not had a president participate in the kinds of behaviors and criminal conduct that Mr. Trump has engaged in, at least not in modern history.”
Prior to this, McCord worked for the Justice Department as an acting deputy attorney general for national security from 2016 to 2017 and for over 20 years as an assistant U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C.
“Therefore, this is truly unprecedented,” she states. “I believe that this is our way of adhering to the rule of law,” the Supreme Court said, citing precedent from the 1800s that holds that no man is above the law.
According to the 34-count felony indictment, Trump allegedly falsified business records to conceal payments made to Michael Cohen, his former fixer, lawyer, and confidant, totaling $130,000. Cohen was asked to repay Trump for his assistance in compensating a porn actress who claimed to have had an extramarital affair with him years prior.
Call it “election meddling lite,” a side dish to the main meal of separate indictments from Georgia’s Fulton County district attorney and the Justice Department accusing Trump of trying to rig the 2020 presidential election outcomes.
Monday’s jury selection will permanently stain the idea of American exceptionalism, despite all the ink spilled and oxygen expended debating whether Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg should pursue or postpone the case given the seemingly larger implications of the two other election interference cases and Trump’s fourth criminal indictment for mishandling classified material after leaving the White House. It will also be the first to see if the legal system can bear the strain of prosecuting a former president or if it crumbles in the lead-up to a crucial election that could alter American democracy.
“During Trump’s first impeachment trial, the values of the American system of law are being tested like never before,” remarks Norm Eisen, a former special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee. “The [case] symbolizes responses from the legal system to some of the most grave accusations of wrongdoing by an American who had the honor of holding the presidency that we have ever seen.”
He claims that Donald Trump “makes Watergate and Richard Nixon look like hikers.” As a result, “the historical significance of the event reflects both the profound rupture that Donald Trump symbolizes with the traditions of upholding the laws of the United States and the Constitution.”
