The new abnormal: ‘Unprecedented’ spectacle of Trump charges could become routine by 2024
READ MORE
Donald Trump federal indictment
Former president Donald Trump is set to appear Tuesday at the Miami federal courthouse for an initial hearing on criminal charges related to his keeping of classified documents.
Expand All
Donald Trump’s arraignment next week in a Miami courthouse will mark an unprecedented moment in American history, in which a former president will campaign for his old job while simultaneously facing federal charges that could ultimately send him to prison.
It’s a dizzying political dynamic that, somehow, might soon feel routine on this year’s campaign trail.
As the 2024 Republican presidential primary kicks into a higher gear this summer, Trump and the rest of the GOP field are bracing for the possibility that the former president — already facing state and federal felony criminal charges — could face two more rounds of indictments before voters even start casting ballots next year.
Trump is currently under federal indictment related to his handling of classified documents, and charged in New York with falsifying business records to conceal extramarital affairs in the months before the 2016 election. But he faces additional charges at both the state and federal level related to investigations into his conduct during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and the 2020 election in Georgia.
Political experts struggle to find a comparable moment in the country’s history.
“We haven’t had anything like this in modern American political campaigns,” said Danny Hayes, a professor of political science at George Washington University. “This is completely unprecedented in political campaigns.”
And yet, Trump’s opponents, including Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, are already falling into a routine when the former president faces a new set of criminal charges — a paradigm that would have been unthinkable before Trump’s first felony indictment last March.
His opponents have largely defended him against the latest charges, much as they did earlier in the year after a grand jury in Manhattan indicted the former president. In the aftermath of news of the indictment, most of them have said they think the Justice Department investigation was politically motivated, echoing Trump’s own defense.
“The DeSantis administration will bring accountability to the DOJ, excise political bias and end weaponization once and for all,” the Florida governor tweeted.
DeSantis and Trump’s other rivals in the GOP field argue they can carry on Trump’s “Make America Great Again” policies without the baggage and drama that burden its architect. But the expanding saga of Trump’s legal woes will put their political theory to the ultimate test.
After Trump was first indicted by a district attorney in New York, support for the former president surged among likely Republican voters – and few of Trump’s opponents have criticized any of the behavior that has made him the subject of multiple criminal probes.
Longtime political operators said they expected Trump would receive the same boost in support from Republicans this week.
“What makes this indictment any different?” said Fernand Amandi, a Democratic strategist and pollster based in Miami.
“I expect the same falling in line behind Trump for the simple reason that the Republican Party of today is Donald Trump’s party,” he added.
‘RALLY AROUND HIM’
In anticipation of the federal indictment, and with the experience of his earlier indictment in New York under his belt, Trump and his team coordinated over the last two weeks with Republican leaders on Capitol Hill to prepare a response – all but forcing members of the GOP field, some of whom might otherwise have been inclined to use this moment as an opening to attack him, to fall in line behind his defense.
Nancy Mace, a Republican lawmaker from South Carolina who has yet to endorse a candidate in the GOP primary, told CNN on Friday that the new set of charges would likely help him.
“I’m still keeping my powder dry and watching the Republican primary process,” Mace said. “But I do believe Joe Biden handed the nomination to Donald Trump last night. You’re seeing the different presidential candidates rally around him. You’re seeing folks across the country rally around him.”
The former president’s 2024 campaign was also ready, blasting out a fundraising email shortly after Trump announced he had been indicted.
“The Deep State thought they had destroyed our campaign when a Soros-backed prosecutor indicted and even ARRESTED me earlier this year,” the campaign wrote. ‘But then, we SHOCKED them as our campaign grew even stronger.”
Christian Ziegler, chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, said since news of the indictment broke he’s heard even from DeSantis supporters about their unhappiness with the DOJ’s actions. It’s part of a broad response, he added, from Republicans rallying to defend the president even at the start of a primary race in which voters might support a broad array of candidates.
“I think everyone on the Republican side, I don’t care who you support for president, all agree with that feeling,” said Ziegler, who is staying neutral in the 2024 GOP primary.
The continued series of allegations against Trump could theoretically affect GOP voters’ opinions of him, draining him of support in the party’s primary. Thus far, however, that hasn’t happened: After the first indictment, Trump actually gained support with GOP voters, polls showed.
When April began, the former president was averaging just under 48% support among Republican voters in national polls, according to an average of surveys compiled by FiveThirtyEight.com. The polling average now shows him with nearly 54% support, while his chief rival, DeSantis, from about 28% to 21% support in the same timeframe.
After his first indictment, Trump politically benefited from most of his GOP rivals defending him, with many calling them unfair and politically motivated. The same pattern appeared to take hold this week, with Republican candidates like U.S. Sen. Tim Scott and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy saying the former president was being unfairly targeted.
On Friday morning, former Vice President Mike Pence told conservative radio show host Hugh Hewitt that he would “clean house” at the Justice Department if elected president. But he said he was “deeply troubled” by the indictment, he said.
“But let me be very clear: No one is above the law,” said Pence, who says that Trump asked him to violate the U.S. Constitution when he pushed him to thwart the certification of the 2020 presidential election results on Jan. 6.
THE CASES
The federal indictment, unsealed on Friday, includes 31 counts charging Trump with willfully retaining national defense material in violation of the Espionage Act, as well as additional charges of making false statements and conspiring to obstruct justice.
The FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in August of last year to reclaim government documents after a monthslong negotiation with the former president’s team over the return of boxes of classified material. Some of the documents were among the most sensitive in the U.S. government, containing highly classified national security secrets, federal prosecutors said in their search warrant.
“The classified documents Trump stored in the boxes included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the U.S. and foreign countries, U.S. nuclear programs, potential vulnerabilities of the U.S. and its allies to military attack,” the indictment reads.
Trump faces other legal challenges, as well.
In April, the former president was charged in New York with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, accused by the Manhattan district attorney of attempting to bury allegations of extramarital affairs using hush money payments while running for the presidency in 2016.
He also faces potential federal and state-level charges stemming from his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The same special counsel’s office that indicted Trump on Thursday, run by Jack Smith, is still investigating his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. And Georgia prosecutors are weighing whether to charge Trump with criminally interfering in the administration of the state’s 2020 election.
At a minimum, future charges against Trump — and the procedural hurdles involved in all of the legal processes he faces — could distract him from the campaign trail this fall and winter, when candidates traditionally are laser-focused on campaigning in the primary’s early state contests.
Political experts say how voters react to potential future charges against Trump could depend on how his Republican opponents choose to respond to them.
“Trump is not invulnerable to criticism from within his own party, and when Republicans collectively criticize him, it does hurt him in the polls,” Hayes said. “So whether or not this indictment or future indictments or any other legal jeopardy actually poses a risk to Trump will depend very much on how other candidates and how other GOP leaders decide to handle it.”
This story was originally published June 10, 2023 at 5:30 AM.
