NEW YORK — For 40 years, former President Donald Trump endured countless judicial investigations without facing criminal charges. This record could soon be coming to an end.
Trump could be indicted by a Manhattan jury as early as this week, possibly on charges of allegedly falsifying business documents related to silent money payments during his 2016 campaign to women who accused him of sex.
It’s one of many investigations that have intensified as Trump mounts his third presidential race. He has denied any allegations of wrongdoing and accuses prosecutors of engaging in a politically motivated “witch hunt” to harm his campaign.
An indictment in New York would mark an extraordinary turning point in American history, making Trump the first former president to face a criminal charge. And that would carry enormous weight for Trump himself, threatening his long-established ability to avoid consequences despite his entanglement in a dizzying number of cases.
The impeachment, says biographer Michael D’Antonio, would be a “shocking event, both because a former president is impeached for the first time, and because one of the most slippery people at the highest level of the ‘company, whose dedication to abusing the system is so well established that it is ensnared’.
“Throughout his life he did things for which he could have been investigated and potentially prosecuted, and he learned from those experiences that he could act with impunity,” he said. he declared.
Trump first faced legal scrutiny in the 1970s when the Justice Department brought a racial profiling case against his family’s real estate business.
Trump and his father fought hard against the lawsuit, which accused them of refusing to rent apartments to black tenants in predominantly white buildings. Testimonies showed that applications submitted by potential black tenants were marked with a “C” for “colored”. Trump countersued for $100 million, accusing the government of defamation.
The case ended with a settlement that paved the way for some black tenants, but did not force the Trumps to explicitly acknowledge that they had “failed and neglected” compliance with the Fair Housing Act.
Since then, Trump and his companies have been the subject of thousands of civil lawsuits and numerous investigations. There have been investigations into his casino and real estate dealings, allegations of bribery and abusive lobbying, allegations of fraud against the now-defunct Trump University and Trump Charitable Foundation, and an investigation by the District Attorney of Manhattan on condominium hotel sales. Lower Manhattan.
In fact, according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a government watchdog group for the CREW shorts, as of November 2022 Trump had been charged with committing at least 56 criminal offenses since launching his campaign in 2015, not counting transaction allegations. fraudulent advertisements. But he was never formally charged.
Trump is a master of delay tactics, “finding ways to endlessly delay in the hope that the investigation and litigation will die down. And it’s been a remarkable success,” said CREW President Noah Bookbinder, a former federal anti-corruption prosecutor.
“That makes accountability absolutely essential because we can’t have people in a functioning democracy in positions of power with impunity where they can commit crimes and never face consequences,” he said. declared.
Trump’s response to such strong talk: He’s not committing any crime, so the consequences would be unfair.
As president, Trump continued to face legal scrutiny. For two years, the Justice Department investigated its 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia. While Special Counsel Robert Mueller never found direct evidence of collusion, his final report presented evidence of obstruction. He noted that due to a department advisory that prohibits indicting a sitting president, he could not recommend that Trump be criminally charged, even secretly.
Since Trump left office, the investigations have come ever closer.
In January, his namesake company was fined $1.6 million for tax offenses including conspiracy and falsifying business records. The company’s longtime executive, Allen Weisselberg, is currently serving a prison sentence as punishment for employee benefits tax evasion.
Other cases are still under investigation. In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis investigated whether Trump and his allies illegally interfered in the 2020 election. The foreman of a special grand jury, which heard from dozens of witnesses, said last month that the panel had recommended that many people be charged and hinted that Trump might be among them. Ultimately, it’s up to Willis to decide whether to move forward.
In Washington, Trump is under the scrutiny of Special Counsel Jack Smith for his handling — the indictments say a mishandling — of classified documents after leaving office, as well as his high-profile efforts to stay in power despite his defeat in the 2020 election. Justice Department lawyers investigating the documents said they amassed evidence of possible wrongdoing related to Trump’s withholding of national defense information, as well as possible efforts to interfere with his work.
Some legal experts have questioned the wisdom of the Manhattan case being the first brought against Trump, with more serious charges looming. Trump should be charged with falsifying business documents, a misdemeanor unless prosecutors can prove it was done to cover up another crime. And the case goes back years.
“Obviously, this is not the cleanest criminal case that could be filed of any that currently exist,” said Michael Weinstein, a lawyer and former Justice Department prosecutor, who said Trump would use probably its potential weaknesses for political purposes.
“As this is the first instance, it gives him the opportunity to attack and attack, which for him is the only way he knows,” Weinstein said.
Still, he said the potential charges seemed like the natural culmination of the “incredible array of investigations” the former president “has lived through and fought over the past 40 years.”
“There’s a history and a tendency to say and do things without consequences,” Weinstein said. “After 40 years, do criminal chickens go home to sleep? He has been fighting for a long time, and in the next 12 months he may face two or three criminal cases that will earn him serious criminal liability.
The New York case involves payments made by former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, who served his sentence after pleading guilty in 2018 to federal charges, to porn actress Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal. Cohen was reimbursed by Trump, whose company recorded the reimbursements as “legal fees.”
Politically, Trump’s allies believe the deal will actually benefit the former president in the short term by energizing his base in a competitive Republican primary, and give him another boost later if he ultimately fails to secure a conviction.
“The New York DA did more to help elect Donald Trump,” says Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, echoing other GOP officials, who have also argued the inquiry will help probably Trump in the short term, although it could prove detrimental in a general election.
Impeachment would not prevent Trump from continuing his campaign. There is no ban on running in the face of criminal charges, or even after a conviction. In fact, convicted felons have run for president before, even behind bars.
“It’s mind-boggling to think that we have a former president on the eve of impeachment who is still the frontrunner of the Republican Party in 2024,” says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. “I would have thought that (potentially) being arrested would have been a disqualifying factor in presidential politics. But Trump constantly shocks people with devious and inappropriate behavior that turns into a victim of a witch hunt.”