Trump found a way out of trial
and back onto the campaign trail
I spent yesterday afternoon watching legal podcasts on Day Two of Donald Trump’s hush money to a porn star case (I will be doing a post of the Political Left’s framing of this as an election interference case later today). Then I went to the movies with my friends, Denise and David. We saw “Wicked Little Letters” (great movie…a funny legal thriller).
On Day Two, what happened?
In addition to sifting through the voir dire process, there were accusations of juror intimidation made against Donald Trump. That’s on top of a request by the Manhattan DA to find Donald Trump in contempt of court for witness intimidation.
The question is not “Is Donald Trump trying to get thrown in jail”; it’s a deliberate effort to be thrown out of court instead on his part. Judge Juan Merchan has hinted that there’s is a very real possibility of trying Donald Trump in absentia, if tries to disrupt the trial in or outside of court. And Trump eagerly is taking the bait.
Being tried in absentia would allow Donald Trump to campaign for president, rail against the legal system, and quite frankly, continue to threaten witnesses from afar.
A brilliant plan unless Judge Merchan revokes Donald’s bail or forces Trump to sit in the courthouse jail.
All this drama pales in comparison to Donald Trump’s Dunning-Kruger blindness to just how serious this case will be to his political future.
According to a Yahoo News/YouGov poll,1 57% of Americans think this case is serious. Seventy-three percent think “conspiring to overturn the results of a presidential election” is serious (the Georgia case), 69% think the “taking highly classified documents from the White House and obstructing efforts to retrieve them” is a serious crime (the Mar-a-Lago case in Florida), and 69% also believe “attempting to obstruct the certification of a presidential election” (the January 6th case) is serious.
Buried deep in that polling is this: 51% of Americans believe Donald Trump should not be able to serve as President, if he is convicted in the Manhattan DA’s case. That figure includes 16% of Republicans.
Some quick math: if Donald Trump is actually polling accurately at 48%; the cost of 16% of GOP voters and GOP leaning Independents voting for someone not named Donald Trump means that Donald Trump could end up with about 41-42% polling going the Republican National Convention in July.2
https://www.yahoo.com/news/yahoo-newsyougov-poll-57-of-americans--a-new-high--say-trumps-alleged-crimes-are-serious-as-hush-money-trial-begins-191300785.html?.tsrc=%2619908-1202929-20240417-0&segment_id&bt_user_id=XbmMkzofBsiiKS5wKd8TwzbJV0m6R1bBNbkbGnioXRMbGS5wB8g4CdIz8g9nO0JM&bt_ts=1713352528939
16% of 48% is 7.6.