American court cases are decided by juries. Per US media reports, picking 12 jurors for Trump’s trial will take a week.The trial itself should start next week, and, per the judge, Juan Merchan, finish in six to eight weeks. Details of the case may read like tabloid journalism’s fever dream. But the strategy of the prosecutor – Manhattan district attorney – has provoked heavy-duty legal debates. So, why will a man who may again be America’s president sit in a courtroom four days a week for the next month or so? And how may it all pan out? Here’s a quick lowdown.
Judge Juan and Merchan Michael Cohen
Judge Juan Merchan and Michael Cohen
The story behind the case
‘Twas a clear and Stormy day, at a golf course. Trump met adult movie actress Stormy Daniels during a celebrity golf tournament in 2006. Per Daniels’s later disclosures, they had sex. That likely would have been that.
But 10 years later, Trump was the Republican presidential nominee in 2016 elections, hitting headlines every hour for saying stuff nobody’s said before. He was also bang in the middle of a scandal created by the release of a tape in which Trump could be heard bragging about grabbing women by their genitals.
Had Stormy gone public – Trump had sex with her while married to Melania, his third wife – at that time, would it have been a perfect storm of sex scandals, too much for Trump to handle, as prosecutors now argue? As it happened, she didn’t go public. Her silence was bought. All of the above are now established facts. The man who fixed the problem, Micheal Cohen, a lawyer/fixer for Trump at one time, was convicted earlier. The court case is about something else – falsifying business records to cover up hush-money payments in 2016. Prosecutors are charging Trump with 34 counts of felony.
This is where legal experts have weighed in. The whole thing is sleazy, no doubt, but are prosecutors overstating their case? Or is Trump fairly charged with “lying his way to office”, as a New Yorker report put it?
The prosecution case
Under New York law, paying hush-money is a misdemeanour. Prosecutors will argue that the misdemeanour turns into multiple felony counts because Trump was “conceal(ing) damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election.” So, the prosecution case is that by buying Daniels’s silence, and then, allegedly cooking the books to hide the payment, Trump did damage to America’s “election democracy”, as some legal experts have put it. That’s the “underlying crime” prosecutors are hoping to prove. Some legal heavyweights agree with the prosecution. They reckon Trump could get convicted by the jury. Not everyone agrees, though.
Questions on prosecution case:
There are a few
- Conservative commentators are asking why a “simple” case of paying hush-money is getting bumped up to serious criminal charges against the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, that too, just months before the November election. They have also said getting Trump to sit in court four days a week for six or eight weeks robs him of precious campaign time. Most rightwing pundits in America are sniffing a “conspiracy”.
- For some legal eagles, the prosecution’s case seems a “stretch”. It has invoked a federal law, on election conduct, for charges framed under New York state law – an unusual strategy.
- Ultimately, the prosecution’s argument rests on proving, to the jury’s unanimous satisfaction, that buying off the Daniels story was a potent subversion of the 2016 presidential election. Some commentators have questioned whether this can really be demonstrated.
What’s Trump saying?
Mostly Trump-like things. His accusation that Judge Merchan is biased (the judge’s daughter has worked with Democrats) at least has the appearance of a legal argument. His defence team’s motions asking the judge to recuse himself have been denied – by the judge.
The former president has called the trial “political persecution” and “an assault on America”. But Trump has also
- described judicial officials as “racist,” and “deranged”
- used adjectives like “slob” and “radical-left lunatic”
- called Alvin Bragg, the lead prosecutor, who’s a Black American, an “animal” who “doesn’t care about right or wrong.”
- described Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen as “two sleaze bags who have, with their lies and misrepresentations, cost our Country dearly!”
A good summary of how Team Trump is going to play this came in an email sent by the Trump campaign on Monday.
The “fact sheet” had this point: “President Trump did nothing wrong. These charges are entirely fabricated in order to interfere in the election and distract from the failed presidency of Crooked Joe Biden”.
Trump is widely expected to carry on in this vein. But he will have to reckon with a gag order imposed by Judge Merchan that forbids him from speaking out about the trial during hearings.
What’ll happen if Trump is convicted?
Under American law, it won’t stop him from either contesting elections or, if he wins, becoming president. Plus,
- Trump will appeal, likely take the case right up to
US Supreme Court , if the appellate court also finds him guilty. During this process, he can be out on bail if the judge hearing the case decides he’s not a flight risk. In white collar crimes in the US, those convicted by lower courts often get bail while appealing the sentence. - Judge Merchan may even decide, per some US legal experts, not to impose a jail sentence on Trump after conviction, since he will be a ‘first-time’ offender in such a crime.
It’s likely, therefore, Trump will be free to campaign. And if he loses the case and wins the election, while the appeal process is on, he will be America’s first president who’s a convicted felon.
Meanwhile…Trump’s wealth is taking a hit. Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, which runs Truth Social, an online platform, tanked 15% on Monday. Since March 26, when the company went public, shares have fallen almost 60%. Peak share price was $70.90. Now, it’s $27.56. Trump is surely hoping jurors will be kinder to him than markets are.
Text: Saubhik Chakrabarti