“ELECTION INTERFERENCE!!!” Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social account on Monday, shortly before boarding his jet to fly from Florida to New York, where he will appear at the Manhattan District Court to face charges.
“The corrupt prosecutor has no case,” he argued for the first-ever prosecution of a former US president. In this case, a politician who is now reclaiming the White House.
“What exists is a place where it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to have a Fair Trial (must change!), and a Trump-hating judge handpicked by the Soros-backed DA (must change!),” he claimed Trump. “Also, the Ministry of Justice is working in the prosecutor’s office – unprecedented!” All eyes are now on the reactions of his supporters.
He himself has called them to mass protests, evoking “dark” memories of the storming of the Capitol in January 2021, in the wake of his election defeat.
Threats have been made on social media against the lives of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and members of the grand jury that decided to prosecute.
Trump allies, even Republican officials, are peddling conspiracy theories.
“How many Fed employees/assets have been enlisted to turn the protest against President Trump’s political arrest into violence?” tweeted far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia, one of the former’s staunchest allies. and would-be new president of the USA.
But the really big battle that the Trump “clique” is preparing in the Republican party seems to be in the already party-divided American Congress.
Unprecedented attempts at political interference in the judiciary are already being attempted. And especially in clearly small-party terms.
The Republican counterattack
Before Trump’s indictment was even confirmed, three Republican congressmen, current House committee chairmen, demanded that the Manhattan district attorney turn over “communications, documents and testimony” related to the grand jury investigation, leaving open the possibility of even a congressional subpoena.
“Your actions will erode confidence in the impartial administration of justice and will irrevocably interfere with the course of the 2024 presidential election,” Judiciary Committee Chairs Jim Jordan, Oversight Committee James Comer, and House Administration Committee Chairmen said in their letter. House of Representatives Brian Steele.
They even talk about “unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial power”, ignoring the fact that the decision to bring charges is made by the special jury.
“The demands in the letter constitute an unlawful interference with the powers of the State of New York,” the Manhattan district attorney’s office responded.
Submitting them constitutes “a usurpation of executive authority,” he commented, and complying with them “would impede law enforcement” and “violate New York’s sovereignty” as a state.
But it is reasonable and expected that District Attorney Bragg or his subordinates would not consent to testifying for an ongoing criminal investigation.
The big question now is how far Republicans are willing to pull the strings, with Alvin Bragg subpoenaed and a possible impeachment to the Justice Department for contempt of Congress, where Trump’s party now controls the House. However, the Trump and pro-Trump “camp” is showing increasingly wild moods…
Building a “firewall” in Congress
The moves appear to be made with the “blessings” of the Republican Speaker of the House – third in the US political hierarchy – Kevin McCarthy. He fully supports these methods and pressures people to be aggressive in this direction.
The former president has under his absolute influence at least 37 of the 222 Republican members of the House of Representatives. Several of them have occupied key positions. They represent more than a third of the party members on the Judiciary and Oversight Committees, which are promoting investigations not only against Attorney General Bragg, but also against US President Biden.
The “back” of the former president and his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination is also openly guarded by at least five senators of the party. Trump himself is now even threatening with … prescriptions for those party officials who do not “dance” to his own “beats”.
“If they don’t support me, I told them don’t even come,” Trump said at the last campaign rally before his impeachment, which he organized last weekend in Texas.
His eyes are not so much on his upcoming trial in Manhattan in the relatively mild Stormy Daniels case, but mainly on the other major investigations underway against him at the state and federal level.
For the alleged attempt to tamper with the 2020 Georgia election. For his role in the Capitol invasion the following year. For possessing and refusing to hand over classified documents, which he took with him when leaving the White House.
Political-legal “storm”
The Democrats are already sharpening the “knives”. The crude intervention of the Republican chairmen of the three parliamentary committees in the investigation of the Manhattan prosecutor is considered a… dress rehearsal for what comes next in the political and legal life of the USA.
It is now widely believed that pressure on Republicans will escalate as Trump’s legal adventures deepen. The goal – as already seen – will be to use their power in the parliamentary committees to the maximum extent possible to protect him.
Against this background, Democrats seem to see an opportunity to expose and embellish Republican machinations, as they will use the official power of Congress to effectively coordinate with an accused criminal.
For moderate Republican legislators, meanwhile, the dilemmas are expected to culminate between a forced involvement in this stinking process and a head-on clash with the party’s dominant – so far at least – presidential candidate in 2024.
Pending Republican congressional investigations into President Biden as well, the climate is set to become even more poisonous. Already the first-ever prosecution of a former president, it is expected to spark months of whirlwind information warfare around an incredibly complex issue that has never before been discussed in public.
