Like he does with regard to the three other criminal trials that he faces, Donald Trump is trying to characterize the case in which he is suspected of paying hush money to a porn star as an illegal attack on a political opponent.
It is communism at its worst and election interference at its best, the likely Republican presidential nominee wrote on social media in reference to the trial, which is set to start in New York next week.
This has never before happened in our country. On Monday, I am going to be forced to sit, gagged, before an infinitely conflicted and corrupt judge, whose disdain for me has no bounds.
In this instance, Trump is right about one thing at least: no US president has ever faced criminal charges.
First things first: Monday marks the start of jury selection for a trial that will examine allegations that Trump planned to hide extramarital relationship allegations in order to protect his 2016 presidential campaign. This trial will determine significant issues regarding American history and the current administration.
“It is historic and exceptional and that’s for a reason,” says Mary McCord, executive director of Georgetown University’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection.
At least not in the recent past, no president has ever engaged in the types of actions and criminal activity that Mr. Trump has.
Before this, McCord spent more than 20 years as an assistant U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., and served as an acting deputy attorney general for national security for the Justice Department from 2016 to 2017.
She says, “Therefore, this is genuinely unprecedented.” Citing 19th-century case law that maintains that no man is above the law, the Supreme Court declared, “I feel that this is our method of adhering to the rule of law.
The 34-count criminal indictment claims that Trump fabricated financial documents to hide payments of $130,000 that he made to Michael Cohen, his former fixer, attorney, and confidant. Cohen was requested to pay back Trump for helping to settle a porn star’s lawsuit, alleging years earlier that she had an affair with him.
Think of it as “election meddling lite,” a side dish to the main course of separate indictments from the Justice Department and the district attorney for Fulton County, Georgia, alleging Trump attempted to influence the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Despite all the ink 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, Monday’s jury selection will permanently stain the idea of American exceptionalism.
It will also be the first to see if the legal system breaks down in the run-up to a pivotal election that could change American democracy, or if it can withstand the strain of trying a former president.
According to Norm Eisen, a former senior counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, the principles of the American legal system are being put to the test like never before during Trump’s first impeachment hearing.
The case represents the court system’s answers to some of the most serious charges of misconduct ever leveled against an American who held the esteemed position of president.
According to him, Donald Trump “makes hikers out of Watergate and Richard Nixon.” Therefore, the event’s historical significance demonstrates both the deep break that Donald Trump represents with the customs of obeying the Constitution and American laws.
