Teflon Don: could Trump benefit from indictment?

Donald Trump is to become the first former US president to face criminal charges after being indicted by a New York grand jury yesterday.

A Manhattan jury decided that the former president should face “what sources said were more than 30 counts related to business fraud” over hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, reported CNN’s White House reporter Stephen Collinson. Trump, who is alleged to have had an adulterous relationship with Daniels, has denied any wrongdoing and claims to be the victim of “political persecution and election interference” ahead of his 2024 bid.

The indictment is “the latest stunning barrier shattered by the nation’s most unruly president”, said Collinson. But some pundits claim that being prosecuted could ultimately boost Trump’s bid for a second stint in the White House.

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What did the papers say?

In “the pre-Trump universe”, an indictment over a “hush money payment to an adult film star” would have been “career-ending”, said The Guardian’s Washington D.C. bureau chief David Smith. But Trump has become a “political judo master”, flipping allegations against him “to his own advantage”.

“The bigger the alleged crime”, Smith wrote, the “more he plays the victim”, and “in the short term at least”, the indictment may “help rather than hurt him in the 2024 Republican primary”.

The Telegraph’s US editor Nick Allen agreed that “a mugshot could become the most effective fundraising tool he has ever had”, adding “rocket fuel” to Trump’s campaign to be the Republicans’ presidential nominee as he accuses Democrats of “weaponising the legal system”.

Early indicators suggest Trump’s indictment may have “cemented and even increased his popularity”, said The Times. The paper pointed to a survey conducted after Trump predicted he would be charged that found he had the backing of 54% of Republican voters for the nomination.

He also appears to have sympathisers beyond the GOP. A separate poll, by Quinnipiac University, showed that 93% of Republicans believed the case against Trump was politically motivated, and that 72% of independent voters and 29% of Democrats agreed.

Not everyone is convinced that he can win through though. “Stop overthinking it,” said Alexander Burns in Politico, “an indictment would be bad for Trump.”

The former president “needs to grow his support”, Burns argued, not “merely rev up people who already care deeply about his every utterance and obsession”. And “it is not likely that many Americans who are not already part of Trump’s base will be inspired to join it” because of the indictment.

But CNN’s Collinson insisted it was “too early to predict how voters, in the GOP primary or in the national electorate, will respond”.

What next?

Lawyers for Trump have indicated that he will turn himself in to appear in a New York court on Tuesday to face the charges. According to The Times, a source “said the details of a surrender were still being worked out”.

For both “the poor or powerful”, said the paper, arrest in New York usually means “being fingerprinted, having a mugshot taken and fielding basic questions such as name and date of birth”. But “there is no playbook for booking a former commander-in-chief”, and Trump has a full US Secret Service protection detail, “meaning agents would need to be by his side at all times”.

However his arrest plays out, the arraignment will be presided over by Judge Juan Merchan, who also recently heard the case against The Trump Organization for tax fraud.

Charges will be read out, followed by a plea from Trump or a lawyer acting on his behalf. The former US leader is then expected to be released to attend court at another date.

Further threats may lay ahead for Trump, because “there could well be squads, if not battalions, of future indictments to come”, wrote Edward Truce for the Financial Times.

“Having broken the dam”, this first indictment has “made it easier for other public prosecutors to make the leap”, he continued. “They will no longer be jumping alone into the darkness or taking the risk of being the first official to aim at the king and miss.”

A criminal charge is not a bar to running for the White House, and nor is a conviction. The Constitution “does not prohibit Trump from serving again as president, even from jail”, said the Los Angeles Times.