Republican Crocodile Tears on Trump Indictment Ring Hollow - Horowitz

Tuesday, April 04, 2023

Rob Horowitz, MINDSETTER™

 

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Former President Donald Trump PHOTO: GoLocal

Today is the day we will all learn the actual details of the charges against Donald Trump as the indictment will be unveiled in a Manhattan courtroom during the former president’s arraignment. This absence of knowledge has not stopped the manufactured and it appears in many cases nearly obligatory outrage of Donald Trump’s political allies, led by the House Republican MAGA wing and the usual right-wing media Trump amen chorus as they bloviate, launching baseless attacks on Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA and repeating threadbare and misleading talking points about the weakness of a case they have yet to see. With fulsome apologies to the Bard, it calls to mind the famous line from Hamlet, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

 

Not surprisingly, Tucker Carlson made one of the most incendiary and over-the-top comments, saying the indictment meant it was “probably not the best time to give up your AR-15.” As part of the same overheated falsehood-filled monologue, he also said that this indictment--the specifics of which, of course, he does not know-- was worse than January 6:  “If you believe in our system and you want it to continue, you have to raise your hand and say stop, “the top-rated Fox prime time host exclaimed, “because this is too great an assault on our system, much greater than anything we saw on January 6th, that’s for certain,” Mr. Carlson is apparently still working overtime to stay in the good graces of Trump supporters in the wake of text messages that recently surfaced as an outgrowth of the Dominion case against his employer in which he was highly critical of the former president. These include texting that “I hate him passionately” and that he is a “demonic force.”

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But Mr. Carlson was far from alone. Jesse Watters, a co-host of The Five as well as the host of the 7:00 PM hour on Fox, commented that if Donald Trump is put in prison, it somehow means that his 74 million supporters are also being jailed. This echoes a Trump talking point and is obviously nonsensical. By this logic, when Mr. Watters attacks President Biden, which he does on a nightly basis, it means that he is attacking the more than 80 million people that voted for him.

 

This rhetorical overreach was matched by the governmental overreach of Trump allies in the House.   Before it was even definite that Trump was going to be indicted, Representatives Jim Jordan, Bryan Steil and James Comer, chairs of the House Judiciary, Administration, and Oversight committees, respectively, fired off a letter to Alvin Bragg, demanding that he “testify about what plainly appears to be a politically motivated decision” as well as insisting that he produce documents relating to the investigation.  The slender reed the chairmen hung their hat on was that New York DA’s office received some federal funding. 

 

This triggered an escalating back and forth between the DA’s office and the 3 congressmen that Mr. Bragg won going away. As Mr. Bragg’s general counsel, Leslie Dubeck accurately pointed out in her initial response on behalf of the office, “The lawmakers seek nonpublic information about a criminal investigation that’s pending, which is “confidential under state law.” She added, “These confidentiality provisions exist to protect the interests of the various participants in the criminal process-the defendant, the witnesses, and members of the grand jury-as well as the integrity of the grand jury proceeding itself.”  

 

Ms. Dubeck was more pointed in her next response. In a letter sent Friday obtained by the AP, the general counsel wrote, “We urge you to refrain from these inflammatory accusations, withdraw your demand for information, and let the criminal justice process proceed without unlawful political interference,” And in the same letter, she demolished the federal money pretext, explaining that no federal grant money was used in the Trump investigation and that only $5,000 of federal forfeiture funds were used.  The general counsel noted that this is money that the DA’s office helps the federal government secure of which the DA’s office only gets a small portion. Over the past 15 years, the DA’s office has helped bring in more than $1 billion, the lion’s share of which has fattened the federal treasury.

 


Today’s indictment, reportedly 34 counts, which appears to center around Mr. Trump disguising a $130,000 hush money payment as a business legal expense is only the opening pitch of what is likely to be a full baseball season of indictments of the former president.  Charges are likely to be unveiled in Georgia, in the Mar-A-Lago documents case, and for his actions leading up to and on January 6 over the next few months.  Republican elected officials and conservative television hosts and commentators--especially the more prudent ones who have yet to comment or have been more measured in their responses--will need to decide whether they really want to go along for what promises to be a very rocky ride, one that is all but guaranteed to further convince most of the nation and key swing voters of the former president’s unfitness for office and if past is prologue, one he is bound to make worse by his unhinged reckless responses which even in these early days have already at least flirted with inciting violence.

 

Even before he learned the Manhattan grand jury had indicted him, the former president posted on his Truth Social platform that Alvin Bragg, the first African American to serve as Manhattan DA, was a “Soros-backed animal.”   He also posted that if he was indicted, it could mean “death and destruction” and implied that it was unreasonable to expect people to be non-violent.

 

Before once again uncritically embracing Mr. Trump, Republicans should consider the famous statement usually attributed to Albert Einstein: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Donald Trump’s reckless disregard for truth, racially tinged appeals, and constant lawlessness has led the Republican party over an electoral cliff in the past 3 elections.  It is the definition of political insanity to believe that adding a series of indictments centering around January 6 and plotting to overturn the results of a presidential election, obstructing the recovery of classified government documents, and yes, even paying hush money to a porn star and falsifying records to hide the payments are going to somehow make Mr. Trump a stronger general election candidate, reversing his consistent record since capturing the presidency in 2016 of losing elections for his party and himself.

 

If the Republican party is ever going to turn the page, and put Mr. Trump in the rearview mirror, the time is now.  It is not only the right thing to do for the nation; it will significantly improve their electoral fortunes.

Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits, businesses, and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.


 

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