Serious misconduct

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has been criticised by both Democrats and Republicans for arresting former US President Donald Trump and charging him with 34 felony counts of falsifying his business records during the 2016 presidential campaign to purchase an adult-film star’s silence over an alleged extramarital affair.

Prosecutor Chris Conroy argued Trump sought to “conceal an illegal conspiracy to undermine the integrity of the 2016 presidential election and [commit] other violations of election laws.”

A sum of $130,000 was paid to the woman by Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen who was reimbursed in stages for legal services by the Trump organisation which not only, as they say, “cooked the books,” but also violated US law which bars corporations’ contributions to a candidate or campaign. This case was not a one-off for Trump who routinely relied on a US media firm to “catch and kill” with payments adverse publicity.

Brag has come under fire from Democrats for reinvigorating the weakest among four cases proceeding glacially against Trump. The anti-Trump camp insists this case besmirches the other serious cases he faces and could boost his standing with Republicans who are not members of his “base” and with independents who believe his misbehaviour is being trivialised.

According to an opinion poll commissioned by CNN, 60 per cent of US respondents approve of the indictment of Trump and three-quarters said that politics is involved. Among independents 62 per cent approves, 38 per cent disapproves; among Democrats 94 per cent approves; among Republicans 71 per cent disapproves. An overall majority approves.

Republicans agree with Trump that he is the victim of a political “witch hunt” and is the only president in US history to have been treated so badly. The fact that the trial is set to take place during the 2024 election campaign will remind Trump’s base and Republicans at large that he is under attack by the New York and Washington establishments. This could act in his favour with some Republicans but cause others to pause when voting in party primaries which begin in the new year.

The most serious federal case is his alleged incitment of his supporters to attack the Capitol on Jan.6, 2021, as Congress was about to confirm the election of Democrat Joe Biden. Also, on the federal level, when Trump left the White House, he illegally took to his home in Florida 1,000 documents, 100 of which were marked confidential and top secret. There most of the documents were stored in a locked cupboard in a storeroom while some were found in the drawers of his desk in his office. He repeatedly denied having any official documents but the Federal Bureau of Information (FBI) searched his home on two occasions and found boxes of documents, including some concerned US relations with foreign governments and are considered sensitive.

On the state level, as votes were being counted in 2020 in Georgia, Trump telephoned the state’s senior election official and tried to persuade or bully the man to give him one more vote than Biden. Trump could be charged with tampering with the election which he has claimed he won.

While these other three cases are far more important and potentially ominous for Trump, Bragg is right when he insists on pursuing the case which has led to Trump’s arrest and sour-faced appearance in court even though the case will almost certainly not be tried for many months, perhaps even a year. Trump remains in the lead among Republicans seeking to run for the presidency.

Why pursue the cases? If the Rule of Law is to be respected and enforced, Trump must be charged with crimes he allegedly committed and tried. Prosecutors cannot pick which cases to choose as the Rule of Law applies to all suspected crimes whether misdemeanours, felonies, or other more serious violations of state and federal laws. Since the US claims to be a country which respects the Rule of Law, the country’s chief executives and  legislators can be expected to abide by the Rule of Law and face accountability if and when they break laws.

Unfortunately, Trump has made a career of doing whatever he desires whenever he wants without being called to account. A great many of his core followers admire him for such behaviour and would like to follow his example. To make matters worse, evangelical protestants and Catholics who like and back Trump are not worried about his bad behaviour in the first case. This means he did not need to break laws by making covert illegal payments.

Conservatives and white supremists back Trump willy-nilly because he is against all the things they op- pose: gun control, immigration, climate change regulations, protecting voting rights, recognising that Black Lives Matter and dealing with covid.

Trump’s policies on these issues make him a very dangerous second-time presidential candidate on the US domestic front. US men, women and children are being shot daily because semi-automatic rifles and handguns are freely available. Tens of thousands of potential US arrivals are stranded in horrid conditions in camps in Mexico because the US does not want them. His relaxation of limits on greenhouse emissions and refusal to invest in sustainable sources of energy have set back the global battle against climate change. His denial of voting rights to people of colour skews the results of elections and undermines the country’s already flawed democracy. His dismissal of the grievances of citizens of African heritage deepens resentment and could produce violent backlash. Trump’s denial of the seriousness of the Covid 19 pandemic and refusal to take swift action and mandate lockdowns and masking helped to make the US, the developed country which suffered the highest number of cases. There were more than one million deaths from 106 million infections.

On the foreign front, Trump stirred up trouble wherever and whenever he meddled: China, North Korea, Iran, Palestine/Israel, and Europe. He weakened NATO and the World Trade Organisation and withdrew from the Paris climate change accord, the World Health Organisation, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the UN Human Rights Council, and the UN Educational, Social, and Cultural Organisation.

During his four years in office, Trump adopted a record number of destructive policies on both fronts altough he was a “minority president.” Democrat challenger Hillary Clinton won nearly three million more votes than Trump but he secured the majority of votes in the obsolete but immovable electoral college.

Photo: TNS