Political victory will help Donald Trump overcome his court battles – The Irish Times

For all those former presidents Donald Trump‘s election to a second term was a remarkable political comeback, it was also the culmination of a bold and stunningly successful legal strategy that could allow him to avoid responsibility for the series of charges against him.

The series of accusations leveled during the two years of Trump’s candidacy, seemingly enough to end the career of virtually any politician, became in his hands a fundraiser and a rallying cry, a deep pool of fuel for his anger and a call for retribution to demand. . The intensity of his campaign fueled the recognition that his personal freedom could be at stake.

He was indicted not once but twice for plotting to overturn the 2020 election. He was charged with mishandling national security secrets and obstruction. He was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation, and for inflating his net worth. And he was found guilty of criminal charges stemming from a pay hush money to a porn actor.

But through it all, starting with his first indictment in the hush-money case, legal proceedings designed to hold him accountable only seemed to strengthen his support. His political position grew stronger, he was ruthless in fending off some charges, delaying trial of others and relying on the elections themselves to decide what he could not win in court.

The upshot is that voters’ decision this week to send Trump back to the White House could result in all or much of the proceedings against him being delayed or derailed altogether.

By pitting political power against the rule of law, Trump flipped the script he was handed and made the courts’ efforts to hold him accountable a core element of his campaign message.

And as the election results suggest, he managed to convince some of his supporters that the cases brought against him were not attempts at justice, but rather an attempt by Democrats to harm him and, by extension, them .

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“He built a legal strategy around his political reality, and that meant he did things that no regular defendant could do, or might do — and had incredible success in the cases against him,” said James Burnham, a Republican attorney who worked on the Trump case. administration.

Having taken his gamble, Trump is now getting his reward.

Jack Smith, the special counsel, has begun discussions on how to conclude the two federal cases he brought against Trump, in accordance with the US Department of Justice’s long-standing policy barring the prosecution of sitting presidents, a spokesman said. person familiar with the discussions Wednesday. .

That policy effectively quashes the Washington indictment accusing Trump of subverting the 2020 election. And it will likely lead prosecutors under his command to drop Smith’s efforts to reinstate charges in the classified documents case , which were dismissed this summer in an unexpected decision by a federal judge in Florida.

As for his two state criminal cases, Trump and his lawyers are sure to go after them by arguing that they should not survive Justice Department guidelines that ban the prosecution of sitting presidents.

If that tactic is successful, it could pause or end the case Trump faces in Fulton County, Georgia, where he is accused of conspiring to overturn his election loss four years ago.

In New York, where he will be sentenced in state court this month in the hush-money case, he has already indicated he plans to seek a stay, forcing the court to rule on the wisdom and constitutionality of imposing prison or probation to the man about to become commander in chief.

Less clear is the effect of his election on the civil cases he faces.

A state court in New York has fined Trump more than $450 million (€416 million) for exaggerating the value of his business assets. And a federal jury in New York City’s Manhattan borough ordered him to pay $83.3 million for defaming E. Jean Carroll, a New York writer whose story of being sexually assaulted by Trump decades ago the court was upheld. He fights against both judgments.

Trump also faces a constellation of lawsuits from US Capitol Police officers and members of Congress accusing him of inciting the violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Historically, the U.S. Supreme Court has protected presidents from civil lawsuits based on their official actions, and a court is working to decide which category to place its role in the Jan. 6 lawsuit. However, the court has allowed lawsuits to be filed against a sitting president for private actions, such as alleged sexual misconduct.

Trump’s success in using his campaign as a protective shield has no parallel in legal or political history, highlighting the many ways in which politics and justice have become intimately, if uncomfortably, intertwined since he took office about a decade ago. became president for the first time.

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“We’ve never seen criminal cases play out more on the political stage than in the courtroom,” said Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor who is now in private practice. “Rather than focus solely on the legal issues, Trump’s defense has adopted a high-stakes legal gamble that has turned these criminal charges into political opportunities and essentially bet on the outcome of the election.”

The story of how efforts to hold Trump accountable ultimately added fuel to his candidacy involves many steps — some taken by him and some by others.

It stemmed from his willingness to abandon traditional political thinking and tolerate legal risks that few other public figures would accept. And it relied on reversing the charges brought against him, reframing them as evidence that powerful partisan forces were out to get him.

But the narrative was also aided by a sympathetic majority on the Supreme Court that he helped create. That majority first effectively pushed Trump’s federal election lawsuit until after Election Day, when it considered a seemingly long-winded argument that former presidents enjoy a significant degree of immunity from criminal prosecution, then handed him a historic legal victory.

Trump’s success in avoiding responsibility was also largely based on luck.

In the classified documents case, he was fortunate to appoint one of his own appointees as a judge: Aileen Cannon, an inexperienced lawyer who had previously stepped in to help him with the investigation. Ultimately, she dismissed the charges — against decades of precedent — on the surprising grounds that the special prosecutor, Smith, had been unlawfully appointed to his position.

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And in the Georgia case, the prosecutor who filed the charges, Fani Willis, sabotaged herself and her charges by having a romantic relationship with one of her top agents. That decision was an unforced error that resulted in the defense’s claims that it should be disqualified from the case, a move that left the case in limbo even before Trump’s election victory.

– This article originally appeared in The New York Times.