Law versus man: Trump’s courtroom drama begins

When troubles come, they come not single spies but in battalions. Donald Trump’s criminal indictment — the first in history of a former, and possibly future, US president — has a Shakespearean quality to it. This dramatic moment has been long anticipated and cued by Trump himself, who expected it to take place last week. Yet it still retains the capacity to shock. Until it is leaked or unsealed, the precise indictment will be unknown.

But we know the outlines of its content, which concerns his payment of hush money to a porn star. In that respect, Trump’s charge sheet has more of the flavour of a farce than tragedy. There is not a soul in America who was not long ago deeply apprised of his history with women. It is hard to believe it would badly harm his presidential campaign in the short term. He may even get a boost. Trump will milk every drop he can squeeze from his narrative of a crooked deep state that is out to get him.

That is how it looks today. But there could well be squads, if not battalions, of future indictments to come. Whatever the legal merits of the case that Alvin Bragg, Manhattan’s district attorney, has brought, nobody could accuse him of lacking courage. Having broken the dam, Bragg has made it easier for other public prosecutors to make the leap. They will no longer be taking the risk of being the first official to aim at the king and miss. That is on Bragg’s shoulders. The very least that he has done is to pave the way for other prosecutors to take lesser reputational risks by pressing far graver charges.

On the potential docket are the allegations that Trump tried to interfere with the 2020 election, up to and including sedition, knowingly stored highly classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home and then lied to the FBI about it, and that he tried to coerce Georgia election officials into falsifying voting counts to change the state’s electoral college result.

Even the sex dimension could pick up steam. Trump may have to appear on the stand in New York next month in a civil case brought by E Jean Carroll, who alleges Trump raped (and subsequently defamed) her in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s. History will record Bragg’s action as the beginning of whatever legal fate awaits Trump, including potential jail time.

It could take years before appeals are exhausted and final judgments rendered. Justice is never in a hurry. Politics usually is. Over several decades, Trump arguably has had as much experience of getting out of legal difficulties as anyone in America. He is the Houdini of bankruptcy courts. Nor does being indicted, or even convicted, bar him from running for the White House. The battle will thus inevitably turn into one between Trump’s political skills and the strength of the US legal system.

So far it looks like Trump has most of his party behind him. Shortly after news of Trump’s indictment broke, Ron DeSantis, Trump’s most serious rival for the 2024 Republican nomination, accused Bragg in a tweet of advancing a “political agenda” that is “un-American”. As Florida’s governor, DeSantis also vowed to fight Trump’s extradition to New York — a moot gesture as Trump will voluntarily present himself for arraignment on Tuesday. Much of the rest of the Republican party issued similarly Trumpian missives.

It is an extraordinary moment in the history of the US republic. The party of law and order appears to be lining up against an American bedrock principle that no person shall be above the law. But the situation could be even riskier than that. Bragg is African-American. Trump has described Bragg as an “animal” and a “degenerate psychopath”. A Republican senator, Rand Paul, has demanded Bragg’s arrest. Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene has called for George Soros, who indirectly funded Bragg’s campaign for district attorney, to be stripped of his citizenship.

Soros, who has never met Bragg, is the stock Jewish financier of almost every conspiracy theorist. Aside from the racial dog whistles, there are also more generalised hints of insurrection. Fox News, which had gone cool on Trump following the almost uniformly negative showing of the candidates he endorsed in last year’s midterm elections, on Thursday swung firmly behind him again. “The rule of law appears to be suspended tonight — not just for Trump, but for anyone who would consider voting for him,” said Tucker Carlson, its highest-rated anchor. Now, he added, is “probably not the best time to give up your AR-15” (a military assault rifle used in most of America’s mass shootings).

It is hard to believe such demagoguery would recede if Trump were indicted on more serious charges. The most important court will thus ultimately be US public opinion. If past is prologue, America’s reactions will be deeply polarised. Public opinion has shifted remarkably little on Trump over the past six years. All things being equal, having a potential criminal — indeed a potentially serial criminal — as your presidential nominee ought to be lethal for Republican prospects. But all things in today’s America are decidedly not equal. The country is entering a deeply consequential struggle on whether it is to be a government of laws, or of men.

edward.luce@ft.com

This opinion piece has been updated since it was first published