does Trump benefit from his impeachment?

EPA

NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 21:47

Walter Highland

foreign editor

Walter Highland

foreign editor

In the US it has been about nothing else for days: former President Trump will be officially arrested tomorrow as a suspect in a criminal case, including his fingerprints and a police photo.

The landing of Trump’s blue plane, just before 3:30 p.m. (US time) at New York’s La Guardia airport, was broadcast live by TV channels. Then he got into a black car.

The exact content of the indictment is not even known yet, but American media are already speculating about what effect it will have on Trump’s 2024 election campaign.

According to sources, more than thirty charges of corporate fraud are ready, including Trump’s role in the possible payment of hush money to porn actress Stormy Daniels. Still, Trump appears to benefit from the process. Trump has started to fall in polls for the Republican presidential candidate in recent weeks, but his popularity has risen sharply since the indictment.

Positive impulse

Many Republicans hope – and some Democrats fear – that a criminal trial against Trump will only make him more popular. The word ‘martyr’ is buzzing around in the right-wing media. It was already predicted on Fox News that a police photo of Trump will appear on posters and t-shirts and it will only increase his cult following.

Trump’s most fanatical supporters are certainly feeling empowered. Many Republicans believe the investigations are part of a “leftist plot” to topple Trump. According to a poll, four out of five Republicans see the investigations as a witch hunt.

The argument that the charges are politically motivated is easy to make: the prosecutor in this case is an elected Democrat. “I dare say strongly that President Biden is not behind it,” said America expert Victor Vlam in NOS podcast De Dag. “But if you are the man who puts Donald Trump behind bars, you are well within the party.”

It has already become clear that Trump can use the lawsuit for his gain: a day after the subpoena, his campaign announced that more than $ 4 million in donations had been received within 24 hours.

Accumulating problems

Yet it seems to be mainly the loyal Trump supporters who remain behind him. The majority of Americans support the investigations. The proportion that believes Trump committed a crime is smaller, but still a majority.

AFP

Trump’s name appears in more ongoing investigations. For example, it looks at his role in the Capitol storming and possible election fraud in Georgia, with Trump asking the governor of that state to “find 11,780 votes”. Charges in these investigations are also expected to come later this year.

“All things where there is much more consensus that something really bad has happened,” says Vlam. He doesn’t understand that the Stormy Daniels affair is the first to lead to an indictment, since the other cases seem more serious.

Attack and slow down

In a legal sense, this indictment will in any case have no consequences for Trump’s campaign. The U.S. Constitution does not prohibit anyone with a criminal record from becoming president. Only participation in ‘rebellion or rebellion’ results in exclusion from public functions.

In theory, Trump should even be allowed to campaign from prison. It probably won’t come to that, because of Trump’s oft-used legal tactics. The New York Times described it as ‘attack and delay’: attack the prosecutor and judge on their credibility and delay the course of justice as much as possible by obstructing minor points.

He did the first soon after the indictment. On his social network Truth Social, Trump called the accuser a “depraved psychopath” and wrote that the judge “hates” him. Slowing down has also proven to be an effective tactic for Trump in the past. According to some analysts, this process may drag on beyond the 2024 presidential election.

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