Trump indictment: It’s about law versus politics

A quote from Oscar Benvides, a former president of Peru, comes to mind in light of recent events: “To my friends, everything. For my enemies, the law.”

What this means concretely, Donald Trump will now experience personally. With the indictment of Manhattan coroner Alvin Bragg, he is catapulted into a completely different world, a world that operates by different rules and which he cannot control or manipulate.

Trump has been known to brag that he can shoot someone in public on Fifth Avenue without losing the favor of his fans. Could be. However, the law does not care about the ex-president’s popularity. With the indictment he is finally called to account, even if – at least for now – only because of a ridiculous case: his affair with a porn actress.

The new world for Trump is expected to begin next Tuesday. Then he must trot in court in New York and complete the “perp walk,” a public humiliation that will involve having his fingerprints taken, his mugshot taken, and perhaps even handcuffing.

Next Tuesday we will know for sure which crimes Trump has to answer for, because then the indictment will be published at the latest. However, this is not quite certain yet. If the ex-president refuses to leave his Florida residence, this could all be delayed.

While Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has already announced that he will not extradite Trump under any circumstances, that is unlikely to be the case. Trump would then become a hunted criminal outside of Florida. His lawyers would have already approved Tuesday’s appointment.

On the outside, Trump is laid-back, trying to maintain his usual daily routine at Mar-a-Lago: golfing during the day, dining with guests at night. However, insiders report that the ex-president is panicking. After all, he saw how the law dealt with people in his direct environment. His chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, and his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, not only had to complete the “perp walk.” Both were convicted and went to prison.

Trump is still far from that. In the upcoming Stormy Daniels hush money trial, there is still controversy over whether it will degenerate into a Shakespearean drama or a dirty theater. It will certainly be a spectacle.

Opinion is also divided on how sensible this charge is. The lawyers plead strictly legal in the sense that no one should be above the law. The same goes for an ex-president.

In fact, in layman’s terms, the matter seems simple: Although he continues to deny it adamantly, Trump had an affair with Stormy Daniels. His lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid her hush money and got that money back. There are not only the statements of the admittedly unreliable ex-lawyer, but also tangible evidence such as written checks and tape recordings. Moreover, another Trump lawyer, the legendary Rudy Giuliani, publicly admitted the facts in an interview with Fox News.

Cohen was convicted of those payments and has already served his sentence. Trump was initially given a rest as sitting president, and then his former Attorney General Bill Barr dropped the case against him on questionable grounds.

It is therefore clear to laymen that if no one should be above the law, Trump must also be held responsible for the hush money affair, however trivial it may be. Only laymen are unfamiliar with Byzantine-American law – at most, quantum physics is probably more complex – so the outcome of the process is still completely open.

Moreover, the impending trial in New York is just the beginning of an avalanche of trials. In the state of Georgia, coroner Fani Willes appears close to indicting Trump for attempted vote fraud. According to the assessment of prominent lawyers, any charges in this case are much more dangerous for the ex-president than the Manhattan case.

Similarly, Special Counsel Jack Smith appears to be well advanced in his investigation of Trump. He examines the secret documents found about the former president and his role in the storming of the Capitol. In addition, there is a slew of civil lawsuits that Trump faces.

The legal no-one-above-the-law thesis opposes the political thesis of Pandora’s box.

In short: the term comes from Greek mythology. Because father of the gods Zeus wanted to take revenge on Prometheus, who had given people fire against his will, he ordered the creation of a beautiful woman. The gods gave this Pandora a box in which they packed all the evils of the world, with instructions not to open it under any circumstances. Of course, Pandora opened the box – since then humanity has known death, disease and doom.

The Pandora box thesis says that the Trump indictment opened the door for similar indictments. Leading Republicans complain that in windy conditions every provincial investigating judge will be able to drag ex-presidents before the kadi in the future, thereby questioning the rule of law and democracy.

In fact, the charges against Trump are historic. Never before has an American former president had to answer in court. “These allegations pose a danger to America because they set a precedent,” warns the Wall Street Journal. “Mr. Bragg, a provincial progressive, unleashes forces that can spiral out of control, something we will regret one day.”

Conversely, however, it becomes a shoe. Had Trump not been indicted, he would have proved not only politically untouchable, but also legally untouchable. Fortunately, this comparison was wrong. Or as former prosecutor Dan Horwitz puts it, “Ultimately, Trump may be a former president, but as of 5 p.m., he’s just a defendant.”