Donald Trump’s hush-money trial in New York was remarkable for many reasons. It was remarkable to see a former president sit through his own court-case. Remarkable because of the 10 gagging orders that the presiding judge placed on the defendant. And remarkable because most of the American public actually zoned out of the trial.
While the US media portrayed it as the trial of the century, the actual case revolved around something that the American public have known about for eight years, which is that decades prior President Trump allegedly had a “relationship” with the porn star Stormy Daniels – and that ahead of the 2016 election she had been persuaded to sign a non-disclosure agreement (now reframed as “hush-money”) in order not to go public.
Of course, Stormy Daniels did go public. Very public. For a time even her lawyer was a household name in the United States, attempting to make his own money off the whole business before he himself went to prison. The Stormy Daniels affair is hardly news to the American people.
Since Trump left office he has faced a slew of legal battles. The victorious case brought in New York by the Left-wing District Attorney Alvin Bragg was predicated again on the old Stormy Daniels affair, while now claiming that the money paid to Daniels came from campaign funds and was thus illegal. That was the basis of the trial.
The prosecution did everything they could not just to convict Trump but to humiliate him. This included inviting Stormy Daniels to the stand – something which wasn’t legally necessary. They then made sure that she gave additional detail to her salacious story. Details which were not just newly humiliating for Trump, but which differed in tone and substance from previous tellings of her experience.
The idea that the trial comprised the latest round of a political and legal witch-hunt was only enforced by such details. And while the media ate up every detail it was clear that the majority of the public did not. This might baffle some British readers, but there is an important detail worth mentioning here.
American voters long ago reckoned with Trump’s checkered past when it came to his fitness for office. He came to win the 2016 election, after all, in the aftermath of the “Billy Bush tape” in which he could be heard (again many years earlier) boasting about the advantages with women which could accrue to male celebrities. While the Democrat media hoped that such details would scare off voters, the American electorate hated the media more than they hated Trump’s locker-room talk. He won the election.
Now there is a question of whether this verdict of guilty on all counts in the hush-money trial will be a watershed moment for the 2024 race, or what Americans call a nothing-burger.
In some ways the trial was good for Trump. It kept him in the news, locking him down in a NY courthouse but without preventing him from campaigning. In fact, it acted as an accelerant for his political battle, showing him to be a victim of a system which many Americans believe is rotten through and through.
The guilty verdict has the potential to change all that. Trump will of course appeal, but it’s unlikely to be heard before the election. But there is a serious prospect of him actually going to jail for a period. With his various social media outbursts necessitating ten consecutive gag orders, he has not exactly made friends with the presiding judge – who is unlikely to be in a forgiving state of mind.
As so often with Trump, we are now in the realms of the unknown. A spell in jail may be the sign many Republicans and others need to say “It’s all just too much trouble. Let’s ditch him”. On the other hand, it may sufficiently appall voters that they develop feelings of sympathy for Trump, voting him back into the White House. But it is a perilous path, and America is now – as so often in the age of Trump – in deeply uncharted political waters.
Donald Trump’s hush-money trial in New York was remarkable for many reasons. It was remarkable to see a former president sit through his own court-case. Remarkable because of the 10 gagging orders that the presiding judge placed on the defendant. And remarkable because most of the American public actually zoned out of the trial.
While the US media portrayed it as the trial of the century, the actual case revolved around something that the American public have known about for eight years, which is that decades prior President Trump allegedly had a “relationship” with the porn star Stormy Daniels – and that ahead of the 2016 election she had been persuaded to sign a non-disclosure agreement (now reframed as “hush-money”) in order not to go public.
Of course, Stormy Daniels did go public. Very public. For a time even her lawyer was a household name in the United States, attempting to make his own money off the whole business before he himself went to prison. The Stormy Daniels affair is hardly news to the American people.
Since Trump left office he has faced a slew of legal battles. The victorious case brought in New York by the Left-wing District Attorney Alvin Bragg was predicated again on the old Stormy Daniels affair, while now claiming that the money paid to Daniels came from campaign funds and was thus illegal. That was the basis of the trial.
The prosecution did everything they could not just to convict Trump but to humiliate him. This included inviting Stormy Daniels to the stand – something which wasn’t legally necessary. They then made sure that she gave additional detail to her salacious story. Details which were not just newly humiliating for Trump, but which differed in tone and substance from previous tellings of her experience.
The idea that the trial comprised the latest round of a political and legal witch-hunt was only enforced by such details. And while the media ate up every detail it was clear that the majority of the public did not. This might baffle some British readers, but there is an important detail worth mentioning here.
American voters long ago reckoned with Trump’s checkered past when it came to his fitness for office. He came to win the 2016 election, after all, in the aftermath of the “Billy Bush tape” in which he could be heard (again many years earlier) boasting about the advantages with women which could accrue to male celebrities. While the Democrat media hoped that such details would scare off voters, the American electorate hated the media more than they hated Trump’s locker-room talk. He won the election.
Now there is a question of whether this verdict of guilty on all counts in the hush-money trial will be a watershed moment for the 2024 race, or what Americans call a nothing-burger.
In some ways the trial was good for Trump. It kept him in the news, locking him down in a NY courthouse but without preventing him from campaigning. In fact, it acted as an accelerant for his political battle, showing him to be a victim of a system which many Americans believe is rotten through and through.
The guilty verdict has the potential to change all that. Trump will of course appeal, but it’s unlikely to be heard before the election. But there is a serious prospect of him actually going to jail for a period. With his various social media outbursts necessitating ten consecutive gag orders, he has not exactly made friends with the presiding judge – who is unlikely to be in a forgiving state of mind.
As so often with Trump, we are now in the realms of the unknown. A spell in jail may be the sign many Republicans and others need to say “It’s all just too much trouble. Let’s ditch him”. On the other hand, it may sufficiently appall voters that they develop feelings of sympathy for Trump, voting him back into the White House. But it is a perilous path, and America is now – as so often in the age of Trump – in deeply uncharted political waters.