Trump has made lawsuits against him part of his campaign

Nueva York y Washington. The accused Donald Trump has an appointment next week in a New York court, where he is scheduled to begin the first of the four criminal trials he faces, and which he is using politically for his presidential candidacy by projecting himself as a persecuted popular hero reaching the extreme of comparing himself with Nelson Mandela and even with Jesus Christ.

Never before in the history of the United States has a former president been accused of criminal acts, and with perhaps only one exception (the socialist Eugene Debs, in 1920, who obtained more than a million votes while in prison for his opposition to the First World War), a presidential candidate accused of 88 criminal charges has campaigned. Thus, in an unprecedented terrain, one of the two main candidates for the White House will be forced to sit in the dock in a court during the week, and go out to proselytizing events only on weekends. But the tycoon has managed to make his trials part of his campaign.

Trump has relentlessly attacked prosecutors, the judge and his family in the criminal trial in New York in which he is accused of falsifying the origin of payments to cover up a sex scandal with a pornographic film star. He accuses, as in the other cases, that the trial is part of a political witch hunt orchestrated by Democrats and even attacked the judge’s daughter, who works at a consulting firm that has done work for Democratic politicians, including the current president. The attacks led Judge Merchan to issue a ban on Trump continuing to make such personal statements, which the former president and his allies denounce as an illegal attempt to suppress his freedom of expression.

Trump has continued his attacks and this past weekend challenged Judge Juan Merchan to jail him for defying his order, writing that if the judge partisan he wants to put him in a cell “to tell… the truth, I will happily become a modern Nelson Mandela – it will be my great honor.” He added: we have to save our country of these political operatives disguised as prosecutors and judges, and I am willing to sacrifice my freedom for that noble cause. Shortly before, a message that someone sent him circulated indicating that it was the same Holy Week when Jesus Christ suffered the maximum consequences of the persecution of him that Trump was facing trials against him.

The incessant maneuvers of an army of Trump lawyers to try to stop or at least postpone his four criminal trials – other civil trials have already proceeded – until after the national election in early November, have worked, with the exception of his appointment in New York on April 15 for the start of his first trial. Yesterday, in a last attempt to stop the first criminal trial against a former president, Trump’s lawyers indicated that they will be asking an appeals court to suspend the trial and evaluate complaints from the accused against the judge in charge of the trial, Juan Merchan. But a few hours later, an appeals judge rejected his request.

However, Trump continues to use all of this to benefit his campaign. Yesterday he issued a message from his campaign declaring that his trial will be in one week. false will start and they want me in prison and solicited contributions stating, “remember, the only thing that stands between freedom and the total obliteration of our country is your support… for our patriotic movement.”

Although he may not achieve his goal of postponing this first criminal trial against him, he has been successful in the other three, which had been scheduled but which Trump and his allies have managed to postpone in various ways and are now in limbo. .

The federal trial over the then-president’s role in his supporters’ violent assault on the Capitol to derail the electoral process is now awaiting a Supreme Court decision on Trump’s arguments that he enjoyed immunity because he was president.

The other federal trial over his illegal handling of classified official documents, including some containing classified national security information, is now on hold, after several delaying tactics by both the defendant’s lawyers and the judge in charge of the case – who was appointed in his position by then-President Trump – and for now further delays are expected.

The state criminal trial in Georgia for election interference that was delayed while Trump sought to oust the prosecutor in charge of the case, something that was ultimately unsuccessful, is now awaiting an appeal of that decision.

So there are now doubts that these trials – all previously scheduled to begin this year – will proceed before the November election, exactly Trump’s goal. Furthermore, if he wins the election, it is expected that he could pardon himself in federal cases (he has no authority to do that in state cases) along with several potential witnesses.

The attacks against those who dare to accuse or prosecute Trump have been fueled by the presidential candidate. The Republican, since the start of his campaign at the end of 2022, has directly attacked judges or their families by name on social networks more than 130 times, reports the Washington Post. And these attacks, which sometimes include photos of judges and prosecutors and even their families, have triggered death threats and acts of intimidation against those who have dared to bring Trump to justice.

serious threats

For example, hours before the civil fraud trial closed earlier this year, someone called with a bomb threat at the home of the judge overseeing that case. The judge in charge of the criminal trial on electoral interference and the assault on the Capitol was the victim of a false call that led the police to her house, and before that, the federal prosecutor handling the process was also the victim of something similar. Since the end of 2020, when Trump intensified his criticism of the Judiciary, serious threats against federal judges have more than doubled to reach 457 in 2023, according to the Federal Marshals Service (the agency in charge of the security of federal judges), reported the Reuters agency. Since Trump’s first campaign in 2015, the average number of threats against judges, federal prosecutors, judicial staff and court buildings has nearly tripled.

This has been his tactic for years, and there are multiple cases, including the one in 2018, when he accused Judge Gonzalo Curiel in a civil case against Trump of being biased because of his Mexican origin and having a interest conflict for the defendant’s anti-immigrant policies. Curiel was born in Indiana.