Former President Donald Trump with his attorneys at his civil fraud trial at the State Supreme Court building in Manhattan. Photo / Jefferson Siegel, The New York Times
The former president is making the case to his supporters that he is being wrongfully targeted. And it might bring him more support.
Former President Donald Trump detoured from the campaign trail on Monday (Tuesday NZ time) to attend the opening of the civil trial in the New York attorney general’s fraud case against him, as his political team seeks to turn the spectacle into a rallying cry for supporters.
The decision to show up voluntarily in court by Trump, who has already been compelled to courthouses in four different criminal arraignments this year, underscores how personally aggrieved Trump feels by the accusations of fraud, as well as his own self-confidence that showing up will help his legal cause.
The move also reveals how inverted the norms of politics have become in the Trump-era Republican Party: Being accused of wrongdoing could be politically beneficial despite the very real legal jeopardy.
“This is a continuation of the single greatest witch hunt of all time,” Trump said after his arrival at the courthouse, in remarks that were carried live on Fox News.
Trump, whose son Eric was also at the courthouse, was joined by several of his political aides, including Walt Nauta, his co-defendant in the federal case accusing him of mishandling classified documents, in a sign of how his legal and political fortunes are increasingly blurred.
In a political age in which candidates are defined as much by their critics and opponents as by their stances, some of Trump’s advisers see an opportunity in a case first brought by the Democratic attorney general in New York, Letitia James, even if the accusations cut to the heart of his identity.
In some ways, the Trump campaign, which has seen his supporters galvanized by the criminal charges he’s faced, is trying to turn the civil case into something akin to a fifth indictment — a moment to motivate his base.
“Trump seems to be approaching his legal troubles like a hand of hearts — one or two indictments hurt you politically, but if you collect them all, you might shoot the moon,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican operative. “The sheer volume and variety obscures the individual cases and their fact patterns, and plays into Trump’s argument that his opponents are trying to take him down by whatever means they can.”
For Trump, his attendance at the trial is far more personal than political, according to a person familiar with his thinking. The former president is enraged by the fraud charges and furious with both the judge and the attorney general — and it showed in his courthouse commentary and demeanour. He spoke to the press both before and after opening statements, attacking the judge overseeing the case in caustic terms.
“He’s a disgrace to people that call themselves judges,” Trump said, repeating that the case was “ridiculous.”
Another reason for his attendance: Trump believes that trials have gone poorly for him when he hasn’t been present, and he hopes to affect the outcome this time, according to the person familiar with his thinking.
Earlier this year, the former president publicly toyed with the idea of attending a civil trial in which writer E. Jean Carroll accused him of raping her in the 1990s, but he never attended. Trump was found liable for sexually abusing Carroll and defaming her.
Trump announced his decision to attend the opening of his fraud trial on Truth Social on Sunday evening, saying he would fight for his “name and reputation” in court.
Over the weekend, Trump’s campaign openly sought to take advantage of the attention, sending fundraising solicitations that teased his possible attendance and accusing Democrats of “trying to keep me off the campaign trail.”
“After four sham arrests, indictments, and even a mug shot failed to break me, a Democrat judge is now trying to destroy my Family Business,” Trump wrote in a fundraising message Saturday.
The push to highlight the trial comes at a critical juncture for Trump’s primary challengers, who face a narrowing window to show signs of life in a race that Trump has threatened to run away with.
The specifics of the case can seem almost beside the point. A New York trial judge, Arthur Engoron, issued a surprise pretrial ruling last week that found Trump liable for overvaluing his properties. The ruling left his assets, including Trump Tower itself, vulnerable to seizure. The point of the trial is to determine the scope of damages that Trump and his company must pay — as much as US$250 million. Trump and his lawyers have argued that the ruling is illegitimate and doesn’t follow the facts of the case.
Years ago, a decision like the one that Engoron issued would have been a source of embarrassment for a candidate and might have been considered by that candidate’s supporters as a reason to back someone else.
But this is the new post-shame period of politics, in which candidates have observed over time that the mistake is allowing oneself to be thrown out of the ring. That sentiment affects both parties, to a degree: A Democratic senator, Bob Menendez of New Jersey, was indicted on corruption charges, and gold bars were found in his house. He has pleaded not guilty and vowed to stay in the Senate.
However, many of his colleagues have called for him to resign, in stark contrast to how the vast majority of Republican officials have gingerly handled — and continued to support — Trump, echoing his repeated claim that he’s a victim of political persecution.
Trump’s single previous highest day of fundraising, according to the campaign, came after his mug shot was released in his Georgia indictment, which accused him of being part of a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.
Corry Bliss, a veteran Republican political strategist, said all the previous indictments and legal cases had blended together for most Republican primary voters into a single picture of a former president wrongly under attack.
“If anything, it’s reinforced a belief among the large segment of the base that Trump is treated unfairly and the Democrats dislike him so much that they’re willing to do whatever it takes to defeat him — whether that’s electorally or in the judicial system,” Bliss said. “The legal facts that most Republicans are interested in are the Hunter Biden facts. Period. End of discussion.”
Any attention on the Trump case is also likely to rob Trump’s rivals of the political oxygen they need to close the substantial advantage that the former president holds in the polls. None of his opponents, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, have yet to figure out a way to turn Trump’s multitude of legal troubles against him, or to cut through the extensive media coverage.
“It starves them,” said Raheem Kassam, editor-in-chief of The National Pulse, a conservative news site, who interviewed Trump last week. “It starves them.”
For Trump, Kassam said, “every step of the way it drags on, it only empowers him” in part because “notoriety at this point” is an advantage itself. And that trend, he noted, is not exclusive to Trump, citing Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, a Trump ally, who faced an investigation related to sex-trafficking that was eventually dropped.
“If you look at what happened to Gaetz, his star rose because of it,” Kassam said.
Trump’s family has explicitly tried to frame the coming trial as an example of political persecution, deploying the same language as they have in his criminal cases. Trump has called Engoron “deranged,” the same term he has sought to apply to the Justice Department’s special counsel, Jack Smith.
“I’ve never even seen anything like it,” Donald Trump Jr. said in an interview last week on The Charlie Kirk Show. “This is sort of like the start of the Bolshevik Revolution — we don’t like you, so we’re going to confiscate property.”
He added, “Hey, our last name is Trump, so we have to be punished.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman
Photographs by: Jefferson Siegel
©2023 THE NEW YORK TIMES
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