Donald Trump's criminal case looms over US 2024 presidential election, as will China
The criminal case against Donald Trump, who pleaded not guilty at his arraignment on Tuesday in Manhattan District Court to 34 felony counts related to a 2016 pay-off of porn star Stormy Daniels, is likely to become a prominent feature of the 2024 presidential election - as, to a lesser extent, will China.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who oversaw the first criminal charges ever brought against a former American president, called for a January 2024 trial start.
But Trump's lawyers, who are expected to file a host of motions challenging and otherwise slowing down the case, said they needed until spring 2024 to prepare. New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan has not ruled on the timing issue.
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In a meandering and acrimonious speech on Tuesday evening from his Palm Beach, Florida home at the Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump, a Republican, portrayed himself as the victim, accused Democrats of spying on him, and slammed Bragg and Merchan.
"The only crime I've ever committed is to fearlessly defend our nation," Trump, 76, told supporters. "I have a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife."
The timing of the New York criminal case could see it go to trial in the middle of the US presidential race. An early 2024 trial start would coincide with the Republican primaries. Later on could bump it up against the Republican National Convention.
Political analysts say this calendar is likely to see Trump's legal team redouble efforts to delay proceedings in a bid to contain any damaging publicity and revelations until after the November election.
So far, the indictment has helped the controversial politician in his re-election campaign, turning it into a fundraising windfall.
One plea for support in recent days was titled, "My last email before arrest". Another fundraising email, released on Tuesday, included a photo of a fake Trump mugshot-emblazoned T-shirt with a "NOT GUILTY" message.
The campaign claims to have raised US$8 million since the indictment was announced.
"Trump thrives by sucking oxygen out of the room, and we'll see him continue to suck oxygen out of the room," said Douglas Kriner, a professor at Cornell University, who expected a vicious election in 2024.
"The main reason it could be nastier is that Covid made the 2020 [US presidential] election so weird, limiting face to face campaigning ... with the grievance show [increasingly] on full display and vitriol targeted at government at multiple levels."
Trump has also benefited at the polls, with support surging far ahead of his Republican rivals in recent days, giving him at least temporary momentum and an opportunity to arm-twist and bring on side his challengers.
"The indictment has had the short-term effect of his opponents choosing to criticise the prosecution rather than criticise Trump," said Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll at Marquette University.
"That tactical choice has helped Trump because opponents believe they have to defend him to appeal to [Republican] voters, yet they forfeit the potential gains from criticising an opponent."
Since the indictment was announced, Trump has pressured most fellow Republican candidates and likely candidates, including Florida Governor DeSantis, his principal rival, to condemn the New York criminal case with the exception of former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, 72.
"Trump is on a caffeine high right now because he can portray this as part of his witch hunt narrative," said Brett Bruen, president of the Global Situation Room crisis management firm and a former diplomat.
"The more that suburban voters get dirty details on how his personal life and how his business life goes, it's not going to endear him to voters. And it will cause Republican primary voters to consider whether he can win in a general election."
Trump's closely watched speech just hours after his indictment offered little new in tone or substance for undecided voters as he railed against President Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, Democrats, US foreign policy, prosecutors, the US legal system, the FBI and a host of others allegedly out to get him.
Even though presidential elections tend to be primarily focused on domestic issues, China could loom large in the lead-up to the November 2024 contest. Even arguably more than Russia, China is an easy target for politicians, a global giant integrally tied to a host of economic and political concerns affecting average Americans.
"It's something on both sides of the aisle that politicians find a popular issue to focus on, whether on jobs, balloons, threat to our data, all of this ties back to China," said Bruen.
While Trump is on a near-term high and the Stormy Daniels New York case is widely seen as the weakest of the legal cases facing the former president, the cumulative impact of other possible indictments over the next 19 months could weigh heavily.
The former president is under investigation in Georgia over his bid to nullify that state's 2020 election results. Separately, prosecutors are looking into Trump's role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol. And an investigation over his handling of classified documents is ongoing.
Trump's loyal base did not appear fazed by the release of the 16-page indictment Tuesday listing 34 felony counts of falsifying business records with "intent to defraud and intent to commit another crime". Many see his litany of transgressions as evidence of his willingness to buck the system.
But Trump, who identifies as a winner, appeared shaken, angry and sullen as he left the courtroom after having his fingerprints taken, his rights read and the charges outlined. Trump pleaded not guilty and has denied any wrongdoing.
"There's nothing. The indictment itself is boilerplate," Todd Blanche, a member of Trump's legal team, told reporters after the arraignment. "His reaction was what exactly what would happen if it happened to anybody that I'm looking at now. He's frustrated, he's upset, but I'll tell you what, he's motivated and it's not going to stop him."
A separate 13-page "statement of facts" accompanying the indictment that lacks the weight of a formal charging document provided more detail, depicting the former president as an active participant in efforts to avoid paying taxes and "conceal criminal conduct".
That statement cited a covert payment of US$130,000 to Stormy Daniels, US$30,000 paid to a former Trump Tower doorman trying to sell an apparently specious story about an alleged love child and a US$150,000 payment to a woman believed to be Karen McDougal, an ex-Playboy model who, like Daniels, claimed she had an affair with Trump.
In each case, Trump tried to hide "damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election", according to the statement.
Some legal analysts found weakness in the New York case. At issue were untested legal complexities in attempting to link falsifying business records charges - only a misdemeanour - to alleged federal election fraud violations to win a felony conviction.
Even if Trump were convicted, the felony charges he faces involve relatively low-level felonies involving a maximum of four-year jail sentences. And a criminal conviction would not preclude his being reelected president under the US Constitution.
This year, without a US election or Chinese Party Congress, was also seen as an opportunity to put a floor under dismal US-China relations when Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met on the sidelines of a G20 meeting in Indonesia.
But as distrust has intensified, that window may be shut. Xi met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow last month in the wake of the war in Ukraine. And Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has met with several lawmakers during her recent US stopovers.
"Events are conspiring against them," said Bruen, a former undersecretary of State for public diplomacy, referring to the two rival powers.
"We have the Taiwanese leader meeting with congressional leaders this week and invariably there will be an aggressive Chinese response that further reminds the world and the US that China is not as stable a geopolitical power as they try to make out."
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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