“Hush Money Trial”...give us more!

We're hungry for justice, and New York serves up hope.

Conventional wisdom two weeks ago:  The New York-based trial charging Trump for 2016 election criminality will fall flat on its face.  

“Too coastal,” “We know all this,” “This is the worst case to go first,” reflect just a few of the it’s such a shame reasons it couldn’t have been the Jan. 6 insurrection, documents case, or the Peach State RICO cases to go first.  It was as if the NY trial was beneath us. Not a good use of our time.

Now: Move over, O.J.
Now, the “hush money trial” clocks in as a big hit.  Late night comics are having a field day with what’s now being called “The Trial of the Century!”  News crews follow Trump’s entourage from Trump Tower to the Manhattan Courthouse on Chambers Street with the breathless excitement reminiscent of O.J. Simpson’s Bronco return ride to L.A. 

Common new news tropes abound: “Trump’s forced to face the music.” After eight years, “The legal walls are closing in on him,” “Trump’s excuses have run out.” And cleverly, as his limo turns a corner, “He’s at the intersection of American history!”

What was expected to be a snoozefest is now America’s latest thing.

As comedian Jessica Williams proclaimed as a pretend reporter on Monday night’s Daily Show to a dismissive Jon Stewart: “Why do you have to be all ‘get off my lawn!’ about it? This is a gift!  We need this messy @#%* spectacle trial!”

We need it
This need stems from the disappointment in the failure of the various federal and local judicial jurisdictions to bring him to justice.

The all-important Jan. 6 case, which had been scheduled to begin last month (the protective scaffolding had already gone up around the courthouse), was placed on the back burner by the Trump/Bush wing of the Supreme Court’s justices.  Getting it to trial could take months, especially after the High Court, using opaque, amorphous legal reasoning with no obvious connection to reality, slow-walked Trump’s immunity case hearings. They’re now slated to begin only this week at the end of the Court’s term.  If and when Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 prosecution can be heard before the election is anyone’s guess.

As for the national secrets litigation, it looks like the DOJ's bad luck in drawing Aileen Cannon, the worst possible judge who could hear the case given her twice-rebuked decisions by the 11th District Court of appeals, has continued apace. The Trump-appointed Cannon, too, has dilly-dallied its proceedings from the beginning. The pattern here: Trump-appointed judges are slow-walking his cases.

Cannon’s thumb-on–the-scales form of justice has been so transparent it’s no wonder the University of Michigan Law School has omitted her from its “notable alumni” list.  (I just checked this a.m.)

As for Georgia, given its sprawling RICO charges against 19 defendants, it would always have been an uphill battle to see a courtroom confrontation begin before election day.  But Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis then added more altitude to the task by having an affair with Nathan Wade, her chief lieutenant. The hearings around those charges added still more time to the timetable. So now also a Georgia trial date has not yet been set.

Where it all began
Like a game of musical chairs, that leaves the New York case still standing.  And to The Resistant Grandmother (TRG), that’s more than OK, given all the good things about hearing Trump’s first case in New York.

First of all, to use some literary imagery, it's thematically appropriate.  Had Trump not committed these NYC 2016 crimes and gotten away with them, none of the other cases would have happened.  There would have been no Trump presidency where Trump’s ongoing criminality then took place. A legal rebuke here would be analogous to rooting out the source of Trump’s crimes.

If Trump had not gotten away with making shady deals with National Enquirer publisher David Pecker to steal the election, Trump might not have believed he could steal the 2020 presidential contest through shady deals with fake electors and militia friends like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.  

Had he not flim-flammed his new wife Melania by successfully getting away with paying off porn star Stormy Daniels and silencing Playboy model Karen McDougal, he might never have dreamed up the Stop the Steal fiction – believing now, as invincible, he could flim-flam 2020 American voters, too.

Had he not been able to create “fake news” with pal David Pecker whereby Pecker made up stories about Trump’s political rivals, the former president would not have understood the term “fake news” could be turned around, projection-style, against real news organizations that do not traffic in fake news – poisoning trust in America’s legitimate press. 

Just D-Listers
Another thing that’s valuable is New York’s help in gauging the emptiness of Trump’s threats of violence. It bears repeating that Trump declared last year, when New York was the only and first jurisdiction to file charges, that “all hell will break loose.” Not stipulating the proceedings would take part in Blue State New York, Trump still assumed his followers would show up, rally, and do god knows what. 

Since in 2020 Trump earned about 690,000 votes in New York City to Joe Biden’s 2,231,759 votes, it would be possible to still assume some of those Trump voters would respond to his signal.  But on April 4, 2023, the day of his arraignment, only a few dozen protestors showed up to support the ex-president.  

And, as if he believed, well, they’ll for sure show up on the first day of the trial – the far more consequential event – that, too, had to disappoint. Even fewer supporters showed up – about a dozen – on the trial’s first day, April 15.  Again, they were peaceful, generally made no sense when interviewed, and seemed of the Q’Anon conspiracy variety. The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper refers to them as “D-listers.”  Also across the nation, no Trump protests made the news.

One week into the trial, last Monday, only three persons were counted outside the Manhattan Courthouse.  Sadly, one man came to set himself on fire and died later in a hospital. He carried no apparent connections to the Trump trial, although may have been drawn to the chaos Trump brings.

Epilogue
It’s been five long years since Trump moved from New York to Florida.  Much has changed, is changing, and will continue to between Trump and his hometown.

First, he’s older, more tired, and beset with legal problems centered around his Manhattan-based businesses.  That same dishonesty seems to be at the root of the criminality-laced actions he allegedly and apparently used to win the presidency
in 2016. 

In Alicia Keys’ “Empire State of Mind” she uses this lyric to capture how New York makes things happen – “concrete jungles where dreams are made of.”  As is the case for many a rising star, New York transforms them and makes success possible — just as the Big Apple enabled Trump to turn celebrity into the presidency of the United States.

Today, however, Trump’s hometown dreams appear to have turned against him.  Now within those concrete jungles are the prosecutors, judges, and juries waiting to hold Donald Trump accountable when so far no one else has.  They’re filled with the dreams of those opposed to him, and want justice. And for that, “Let’s hear it for you, New York, New York.”

– trg

Who I write for…

Thanks so much for reading!