There is no one who I know who is waiting with baited breath for former President Donald Trump to announce that he is going to seek a second term. There are hard-core supporters who will go into a swoon when he announces, but the Republican political world would rather watch a watermelon rot than have to deal with Donald. Like it or not, he will be announcing and the party will have to deal with a wounded warrior who will be an obstacle for the new group that is waiting in the wings to succeed him.
Mr. Trump will spend the next two weeks taking credit for all of the party’s victories, many of which he had nothing to do with. The real problem for the party is how do you deal with a candidate who may be under indictment and facing a host of other civil claims? It is a pretty safe bet that sometime around Dec. 1, Attorney General Merrick Garland will be holding a press conference to state that President Trump will be charged with various federal crimes dealing with his retention of highly classified documents at the Mara Lago estate property.
It is one thing to be impeached by the House twice, but it is just as serious to be charged with violations of the Espionage Act. The partisans will call the indictment further evidence of a “witch hunt,” but the mishandling of sensitive documents has gotten a number of prominent politicians in legal trouble and there is no way that the former president will be given a free pass. A few months ago, Mr. Trump could have claimed that his retention of the documents was an oversight and begged for compassion. But since August, Mr. Trump has admitted to keeping the various papers and has even claimed that they belong to him.
The Justice Department action is enough of a headache, but on top of that there are two ongoing cases that could further soil the Trump image. The grand jury in Fulton County, Ga., is expected to take some formal action against a whole group of Trump attorneys as well as a group of Georgia politicians who swore that they were electors for Trump. There may be other people in trouble and all have direct ties to Trump.
Not to be forgotten is the criminal tax fraud case currently on trial in New York involving the Trump organization. While President Trump is not named personally, his name comes up at every trial session and some of the evidence is embarrassing. The Trump Organization lawyers claim that Mr. Trump never knew anything about checks paid to his employees and their families, except that all of the checks are signed by ”Donald J. Trump.” If the tax fraud case results in a conviction, it could have serious consequences for the organization that one man built. It is also possible that the Trump children will get a major black eye from any verdict and have a hard time getting bank financing.
And last and by far not the least is the Jan 6 grand jury sitting in Washington, D.C., which could decide that Mr. Trump had a direct role in planning the attempt to overthrow the U.S. government and keep Trump in power. Any criminal charges stemming from that case could include sedition, which is punishable by 20 years in prison. There haven’t been any criminal convictions for sedition in over 100 years so a new one against Trump supporters or Donald Trump would not sit well with the voters.
Knowing Donald Trump as well as I do, I have no doubt that nothing will stop him from declaring his candidacy very soon and all of those charges will be ignored as he moves forward pursuing his dream to get back into the Lincoln bedroom. There is a possibility that people such as Sen. Ted Cruz, Gov. RonDe Santis, Sen. Rick Scott, Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo will step forward and call for President Trump to give up his crusade to save the party. Since Mr. Trump thinks he is the party, it will be a useless effort.
