Date: 2024-04-28 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00019810
The Trump Saga
Frenetic Campaigning for Reelection
The last weekend
Peter Burgess
In September 2019, Donald Trump’s lawyers debuted a bold new legal argument. Attempting to quash a subpoena from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, which had requested eight years of tax returns to determine if the Trump Organization has falsified business records relating to payouts made to a porn star and a Playboy model, the president’s attorneys insisted that such a request was unconstitutional because the founding fathers believed sitting presidents should not be subject to the criminal process, which would “distract the president” from his duties. Pressed by a judge on this argument, and the hypothetical Trump busted out during the 2016 election—that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and not “lose any voters”—attorney William Consovoy insisted that yes, that kind of thing would fall under this concept of “presidential immunity,” i.e. Trump could put a bullet in a random pedestrian and avoid prosecution until moving out of the White House.
Unsurprisingly, actual legal experts weren’t convinced of this argument and neither was the Supreme Court, which ruled last July, in the words of Reuters, “that there are limits to the powers of the presidency and stoutly reaffirmed the principle that not even the president is above the law.” Still, Trump’s lackeys, which include the Attorney General of the United States, have done their part to shield him from situations wherein he could be convicted of a variety of crimes, getting him through almost an entire term without an embarrassing situation wherein a sitting president is, say, found guilty of falsifying business records regarding a hush money payment he made to an adult-film star.
Unfortunately for Trump, if he loses the 2020 election, he’ll no longer be able to use the staff of the Justice Department as his personal lawyers. That’s a worrisome thing for a guy who’s potentially committed numerous crimes, and we know this because Trump is reportedly soiling himself in fear over what he might be prosecuted for, and maybe go to jail over, after he leaves office. Per the New York Times:
Seldom far from Mr. Trump’s thoughts, however, is the possibility of defeat—and the potential consequences of being ejected from the White House. In unguarded moments, Mr. Trump has for weeks told advisers that he expects to face intensifying scrutiny from prosecutors if he loses. He is concerned not only about existing investigations in New York, but the potential for new federal probes as well, according to people who have spoken with him.
As The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer wrote in an article published over the weekend, the world awaiting Trump when and if he loses the election is a dark one, and not just because he’ll no longer have a taxpayer-funded staff at his disposal to lie for him:
Given that more than a dozen investigations and civil suits involving Trump are currently under way, he could be looking at an endgame even more perilous than the one confronted by Nixon. The Presidential historian Michael Beschloss said of Trump, “If he loses, you have a situation that’s not dissimilar to that of Nixon when he resigned. Nixon spoke of the cell door clanging shut.” Trump has famously survived one impeachment, two divorces, six bankruptcies, twenty-six accusations of sexual misconduct, and an estimated four thousand lawsuits. Few people have evaded consequences more cunningly. That run of good luck may well end, perhaps brutally, if he loses to Joe Biden. Even if Trump wins, grave legal and financial threats will loom over his second term.
Two of the investigations into Trump are being led by powerful state and city law-enforcement officials in New York. Cyrus Vance, Jr., the Manhattan District Attorney, and Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, are independently pursuing potential criminal charges related to Trump’s business practices before he became President. Because their jurisdictions lie outside the federal realm, any indictments or convictions resulting from their actions would be beyond the reach of a Presidential pardon. Trump’s legal expenses alone are likely to be daunting. (By the time Bill Clinton left the White House, he’d racked up more than ten million dollars in legal fees.) And Trump’s finances are already under growing strain. During the next four years, according to a stunning recent Times report, Trump—whether reëlected or not—must meet payment deadlines for more than three hundred million dollars in loans that he has personally guaranteed; much of this debt is owed to such foreign creditors as Deutsche Bank. Unless he can refinance with the lenders, he will be on the hook.
“One of the reasons he’s so crazily intent on winning is all the speculation that prosecutors will go after him,” author Barbara Res told Mayer. “It would be a very scary spectre.”
Of course, when he’s not worrying about losing to Biden (“Man, it’s going to be embarrassing if I lose to this guy,” he has reportedly told advisers, according to the Times) and maybe going to prison, Trump tells himself he’s going to win, as do his sycophantic advisers who keep him in a protective bubble wherein he’ll be reelected in a landslide and also be named People’s Sexiest Man Alive 2020. Per the Times:
The president, his associates say, has drawn encouragement from his larger audiences and from a stream of relatively upbeat polling information that advisers have curated for him, typically filtering out the bleakest numbers. On a trip to Florida last week, several aides told the president that winning the Electoral College was a certainty, a prognosis not supported by Republican or Democratic polling, according to people familiar with the conversation. And Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, has responded with chipper enthusiasm when Mr. Trump has raised the idea of making a late bid for solidly Democratic states like New Mexico, an option other aides have told the president is flatly unrealistic.
Most people in the president’s inner circle share his optimism about the outcome of the race, even as they fight exhaustion and the president’s whipsawing moods, interviews with more than a dozen aides and allies showed. But some advisers acknowledge that it would require several factors to fall into place. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations.
Republican lawmakers have offered less rosy assessments of his prospects, and in private some Trump advisers do not argue the point. One high-ranking Republican member of Congress vented to Mr. Meadows last month that if Mr. Trump “is trying to lose the election I can’t think of anything I’d tell him to do differently,” the lawmaker recalled, noting that the aide only nodded his head in acknowledgment. “They just think they can’t do anything about it.”
Meanwhile, Trump hinted last month about his plans should voters elect his opponent. “Could you imagine if I lose?… I’m not going to feel so good. Maybe I’ll have to leave the country—I don’t know.”
Judge rules Republicans can’t just throw out 127,000 Texas ballots
Nice try, though!
U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen on Monday threw out a suit challenging the legality of some 127,000 votes cast at drive-through voting sites in the Houston area. He ruled the plaintiffs don’t have legal standing to sue. Harris County, Texas’ most populous county and majority-Democratic, erected 10 tents to expedite the early voting process as a way of allowing people to cast ballots safely during the coronavirus pandemic. They were also in place this summer before the state’s primary. Noting that point, Hanen, a George W. Bush appointee, asked plaintiffs, “Why am I just getting this case?” He later said that the suit was not timely and that “this has been going on all summer.”
Next time y’all try to suppress the vote, try to be a little more timely about it! On Sunday, the Texas Supreme Court dismissed a similar case, also decided by Republican appointees, which will make it slightly more difficult, but not impossible, for Trump to bitch and moan about tonight.
“Vote for me and I promise to get rid of one of the few people here who knows what he’s doing!”
Donald Trump, 11/03/20: “How crooked is Hillary, she deleted 33,000 emails, what’s happening with that? But we won, we won like nobody’s ever won.“ MOST POPULAR Image may contain: Tie, Accessories, Accessory, Clothing, Apparel, Sean Connery, Human, Person, Suit, Coat, and Overcoat Scottish Officials Call Out Trump for Lying About Sean Connery BY CHRISTOPHER ROSEN Image may contain: Tie, Accessories, Accessory, Suit, Coat, Clothing, Overcoat, Apparel, Human, Person, and Donald Trump 2020 Election Live Polls & Results BY THE HIVE Image may contain: John Mulaney, Tie, Accessories, Accessory, Clothing, Suit, Coat, Overcoat, Apparel, Human, and Person John Mulaney Still Can't Believe Colin Jost Asked Out Scarlett Johansson BY EMILY KIRKPATRICK ADVERTISEMENT Once again, the president appears not to know what year it is or who he’s running against: Elsewhere! Barr Preps Prison Guards to Head to D.C. for Election Unrest (The Daily Beast) Trump’s push in Georgia shows concern about Biden rise (Washington Post) Biden camp quietly raises money for postelection court brawl (Politico) Trump allies, largely unconstrained by Facebook’s rules against repeated falsehoods, cement preelection dominance (Washington Post) Taxes, Heroin, and Statehood: A Glimpse Into This Year’s Ballot Measures (New York Times) How Trump and Barr’s October Surprise Went Bust (Intelligencer) Thriving New York Times, Fox News Ponder a Post-Trump Scenario (Bloomberg) Supreme Court, With Justice Barrett, to hear major LGBT rights case day after election (CNBC) Donald Trump Jr. told Texas supporters to give Kamala Harris a “Trump Train welcome” days before cars displaying MAGA flags swarmed a Biden campaign bus on a highway (Business Insider) Dressing up for Election Day? These items can get you turned away at the polls (NYP) Vladimir Marugov murder: Russian “Sausage King” killed in sauna with a crossbow (BBC) More Great Stories From Vanity Fair — Progressives Are Going Rogue to Flip Pennsylvania for Biden — Cover Story: AOC’s Next Four Years — Why Anti–Trump Attack Ads Might Actually Be Helping Him — Tax Mess Aside, Can Trump Pay Off His $1 Billion in Debt? — News Media Begins to Contemplate a Post–Trump White House — The Kimberly Guilfoyle Sexual Harassment Allegations Get Even Darker — As Trump Falters, Democrats See an Expanding 2020 Senate Map — From the Archive: Inside Trump’s Twisted, Epic Battle for Mar-a-Lago — Not a subscriber? Join Vanity Fair to receive full access to VF.com and the complete online archive now. Bess Levin is a politics correspondent at Vanity Fair. GET THE HIVE NEWSLETTER The freshest-and most essential-updates from Washington, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley. Enter your e-mail address WATCH Chelsea Handler Teaches You New Jersey Slang More Vanity Fair Videos MOST POPULAR Image may contain: Tie, Accessories, Accessory, Clothing, Apparel, Sean Connery, Human, Person, Suit, Coat, and Overcoat Scottish Officials Call Out Trump for Lying About Sean Connery BY CHRISTOPHER ROSEN Image may contain: Tie, Accessories, Accessory, Suit, Coat, Clothing, Overcoat, Apparel, Human, Person, and Donald Trump 2020 Election Live Polls & Results BY THE HIVE Image may contain: John Mulaney, Tie, Accessories, Accessory, Clothing, Suit, Coat, Overcoat, Apparel, Human, and Person John Mulaney Still Can't Believe Colin Jost Asked Out Scarlett Johansson BY EMILY KIRKPATRICK ADVERTISEMENT MOST POPULAR Image may contain: Tie, Accessories, Accessory, Clothing, Apparel, Sean Connery, Human, Person, Suit, Coat, and Overcoat Scottish Officials Call Out Trump for Lying About Sean Connery BY CHRISTOPHER ROSEN Image may contain: Tie, Accessories, Accessory, Suit, Coat, Clothing, Overcoat, Apparel, Human, Person, and Donald Trump 2020 Election Live Polls & Results BY THE HIVE Image may contain: John Mulaney, Tie, Accessories, Accessory, Clothing, Suit, Coat, Overcoat, Apparel, Human, and Person John Mulaney Still Can't Believe Colin Jost Asked Out Scarlett Johansson BY EMILY KIRKPATRICK ADVERTISEMENT