ANALYSIS – Former President Donald Trump announced on his Truth Social media Saturday that he was going to be arrested on Tuesday, March 21.
He also urged his supporters to protest.
So far no other news media has confirmed his claim and Trump remains untouched.
It appears that this announcement citing illegal leaks in the Manhattan DA’s office was Trump’s successful attempt to get ahead of the story.
In part, he wanted to mobilize the GOP.
Still, if or when, this does happen, an arrest of a former president, and current candidate, would be an unprecedented event in U.S. history.
It would look like third-world criminalization of politics, and can only further alienate many of the 70 million Americans who voted for Trump in 2020.
Most Republicans will see it as a politicized witch hunt. It would also only deepens the belief that there continues to be a years-long conspiracy to bring down Trump.
It will seem that the Russia collusion hoax, the ‘resistance’ inside and outside of government, lawsuits, and two highly partisan, manufactured, and failed, impeachments against Trump by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn’t suffice.
Provoking a reaction from potential GOP primary opponents was also a Trump goal.
And Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has not announced he is running for president, had a few things to say about the issue, even while claiming he wasn’t “going to be involved.”
DeSantis called the whole prosecution a ‘manufactured circus.’
The conservative governor focused on how the George Soros-backed New York City prosecutor Alvin L. Bragg, has seen major crime skyrocket in Manhattan while focusing on a relatively petty alleged crime to go after the former president.
The petty prosecution is over alleged hush money payments to adult performer Stormy Daniels to, as DeSantis said dismissively, “secure silence over some type of alleged affair.”
But it’s not even about the alleged payments made on his behalf by his then-attorney Michael Cohen (which wouldn’t be too different from the numerous illicit ways Bill Clinton tried to hide his many affairs while in office from the public.
This case is expected to actually focus on Trump’s role in recording the reimbursements he made to Cohen in the internal records of his company, the Trump Organization, which were entered as “legal expenses.”
That’s even pettier. The DA calls it “fraud.” Others might call it “sloppy bookkeeping.”
According to the Epoch Times (ET), DeSantis said:
We are not involved in this. We won’t be involved in this. I have no interest in getting involved in some kind of manufactured circus by a Soros-funded DA. He’s trying to do a political spectacle. He’s trying to virtue signal for his base.
He added: “I can’t spend my time worrying about things of that nature. So, we’re not going to be involved in it in any way.”
Well, DeSantis is correct, even if he is getting somewhat “involved.”
And DeSantis does know a thing or two about ideologically motivated, Soros-backed prosecutors.
As ET reports:
DeSantis removed Hillsborough County District Attorney Andrew Warren from office last year for stating he wouldn’t prosecute certain crimes. DeSantis’s action has so far survived a review by a federal judge.
DeSantis added: “He [Bragg] is a Soros-funded prosecutor and, like other Soros-funded prosecutors, they weaponize their office to impose a political agenda on society at the expense of the rule of law and public safety.”
The governor continued: “He has downgraded over 50 percent of felonies to misdemeanors. He says he doesn’t want to even have jail time for the vast majority of crimes. And what we’ve seen in Manhattan is, we’ve seen the crime rate go up and we’ve seen citizens become less safe,” DeSantis said.
But it’s not just DeSantis who sees this as a politically motivated vendetta that could cause far more harm to the American system than good. The New York Times reported that some Democrats and legal experts have their own doubts as well:
Charging former President Donald J. Trump in connection with a hush-money payment to a porn star would catapult Mr. Bragg onto the national stage. Already he faces second-guessing, even from putative allies, about the strength of the case and the wisdom of bringing it.
The Times continued:
…Bragg has been in a difficult situation. Rebecca Roiphe, a professor at New York Law School and a former prosecutor in Manhattan, said that even though investigators do not target individuals for political reasons, politics does come into play in that “there is always a question of whether it is [in] the public interest to bring a certain charge or not.”
If he does not bring a case even though there is clear evidence to prove it, Ms. Roiphe suggested, he could violate the longstanding principle that no person is above the law. But if he does indict Mr. Trump, who has begun a third presidential campaign, the choice could also be “incredibly destabilizing and harmful,” Ms. Roiphe said.
Meanwhile, many Republicans will be getting very “involved” in this potential outrage. Speaker of the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy has already accused Bragg of “abusing his office to target President Trump.”
He also is threatening to defund Bragg and is investigating whether federal funds were used by Bragg to pursue Trump.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
