The first indictment by a former White House occupant sends US politics into uncharted territory. It contributes to radicalize North American society and opens the door to expedite the procedures to concretize other accusations against the former president. The reason, the investigation opened by the prosecutor Alvin Braggof Democratic affiliation, in the case of the porn actress Stormy Daniels, who received $130,000 in 2016 to silence a alleged sexual relationship with Trump ten years before. Not even the Watergate scandal and the resignation of Richard Nixon, almost half a century ago, came to have criminal consequences for the president, nor did it test the system in the way that the various factions of the Republican Party have aligned themselves in support of Trump.
The case may seem blown out of proportion, and the former president seems to be able to convince his supporters of it. But it is only the beginning. The truth is that the case opened in New York and the forced appearance of Trump in court for him to communicate the statement of objections is not the biggest of the judicial problems that he must face. The pressure exerted by Trump on Georgia in the 2020 presidential election so that he might be given victor, the secret documentation seized in Mar-a-Lago by the FBI, the investigation into his involvement in the assault on congress in January 2021 and the more than 30 cases for business fraud opened in New York carry penalties much higher than that of the Daniels case. And the step taken by the grand jury may speed up the course of such proceedings.
All this brings together the necessary ingredients to further strain the political atmosphere and mobilize Trump supporters in the long electoral campaign opened by the former president since he announced his candidacy, with unpredictable results given the background of what has happened when Trump has called his faithful to take to the streets. With the added risk of a proliferation of accusations against Democratic and Republican politicians, urged by the so-called local prosecutors, such as Alvin Bragg, attached to one or the other party.
The fact that the former president has long talked about witch hunts, his decision not to negotiate with the prosecution to avoid an implicit admission of guilt, and his desire to present himself in court in the most conspicuous way possible is precisely intended to fuel that radical division. of society on two irreconcilable fronts. The former president’s advisers continue to think that he is the best tactic to beat Joe Biden and return to the White House because the impeachment does not prevent Trump from being a candidate. The first firm accusation against him opens up too many unknowns to know if it can benefit him in the long run exploit the victim image of a justice used by his political adversaries, after having broken an unwritten golden rule, the immunity of presidents when their term expires. A minutiae, however, compared to all those that Trump broke when he wanted to subvert the result of an election. Being held accountable by the judicial system is only partly reassuring, when so many millions of people would be willing to let him get away with it.