Donald Trump
| Donald Trump | |
|---|---|
| Other names | Donald John Trump |
| Born | 6-14-1946 New York City |
| Occupation | real estate investor, entertainer and politician |
| Known for | U.S. President 2016-2020; January 6 U.S. Capitol riot; host of TV show The Apprentice |
Donald John Trump (1946-?) was the 45th[1] President of the United States of America and a Republican, serving one 4-year term from January 20, 2017, to the same date in 2021 after defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 general election. Trump's confident stance toward everything is epitomized by a boast he famously made to his followers at a Sioux Center, Iowa, campaign rally in 2016:
“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”[2]
Policies as president
Trump's presidency was notable, not just for ending in an attempted insurrection, but for reneging on prior international commitments, upending longstanding diplomatic relationships, and engaging in brinkmanship with adversaries[3]. Trump used social media such as Twitter to attack and embarrass critics, and adopted a harsh policy against immigration which separated parents from children at the border. There was also a concerted attempt by the president's administration to demonize and damage domestic federal agencies such as the EPA and the U.S. Geological Survey and those responsible for education, financial oversight, census-taking, tracking radioactive materials, and weather monitoring.[4] Many of these measures were highly popular with his base of support, who regarded the U.S. government as bloated and as having failed them economically, in part by allowing rampant illegal immigration, and who liked the image Trump portrayed, via his "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) slogan, of a strong America as compared to the rest of the world.
Not re-elected
In Nov. 2020, Trump ran for re-election but lost to the Democrat Joe Biden. Trump may have lost (at least in part) because of his failure to acknowledge and manage the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, during which he failed to take any substantive actions himself and then withheld expected federal funds to punish states that proceeded to take public health measures on their own.[5]
Both of Trump's presidential campaigns, in 2016 and again in 2020, were notable for his constant use of scorched-earth politics.[6] No politician in recent decades has used attack-dog tactics as steadily since perhaps, Richard Nixon in 1968 and 1972.
Trump vigorously contested the 2020 election results in a social media campaign called "Stop the Steal"[7], though with no actual evidence (as determined by numerous lost lawsuits). Trump had to leave office when his term expired on January 20, 2021. Just before Trump left office, Trump's supporters staged the January 6 U.S. Capitol riot, a violent assault by Trump supporters which Trump himself arguably incited and planned. The attack is widely regarded as an insurrection or attempted coup d'etat because it was intended to prevent the historically peaceful transfer of power between presidents. According to the "January 6th Report"[8] compiled by a committee dominated by Trump opponents[9] and later issued by Congress, the riot was the last of multiple futile attempts by Trump to get the 2020 election results overturned, as he also tried to intimidate various state and federal officials (including his own vice-president, Mike Pence) to take illegal actions designed to overthrow valid election results. So far, he has not been convicted of any of these allegations, although he is under indictment for some.
After the riot, as about one thousand of its participants began to be prosecuted[10], Trump's popularity waned drastically, although as of early 2023, he still commands a loud and potentially violent following[11] and has control of enough funds to affect the future direction of the Republican party[12].
Criminal charges
As of 2024, Trump is under four criminal indictments, two at the federal level (Florida and Washington) and two at the state level (New York and Georgia).
In April 2023, Trump was indicted in New York City for 34 alleged state felonies relating to falsified business records and misuse of campaign finances during his 2016 run for President. Commonly called "the Manhattan hush money case", this matter is slated for a jury trial to begin in late March 2024.[13] It will be the first criminal case heard by a jury against a former president. Among other charges, Trump is accused of a scheme to influence the 2016 presidential election by paying off porn star Stormy Daniels, who alleged she had an affair with the former president, to secure her silence and using campaign funds, while falsifying records to make the transaction seem like a mere business expense having nothing to do with the campaign. Trump, who has denied the affair, has accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, of prosecuting him for political reasons.
In June 2023, a federal grand jury in Florida indicted Trump for 37 charges of retaining classified documents after his presidency ended.[14] (Other senior politicians of both parties have similarly been found in possession, but no others have yet been prosecuted. Details of course differ in all cases.)
On 1 August 2023, Trump was indicted in Washington, D.C. by a federal grand jury on charges of attempting to subvert the 2020 election by fraud and interference with due process.[15]
On Aug. 14, 2023, a Georgia grand jury indicted Trump on 13 charges relating to attempts to interfere with the election process in Georgia after his Nov. 2020 loss of the presidency to Joe Biden.[16] This latest indictment included 19 individuals, several top Trump associates among them, who are accused of "racketeering" (defined in Georgia law as similar to a conspiracy, but without explicit agreement among the parties, just implicit understanding), to overturn the election. Trump is attacking head prosecutor Fani Willis by making public accusations that she has, or is having, an extra-marital affair with one of her staff in the hopes of having both prosecutors thrown off the case by the judge.
The distinction between federal and state law may be particularly important here. If Trump becomes President again, he might try to pardon himself for any federal crimes. There is no precedent, so the Supreme Court would have to rule on constitutionality. The presidential power of pardon definitely does not extend to state crimes, which are governed by the constitutions of the respective states.
Trump routinely uses public media and stump speeches to make public statements on social media attacking witnesses, judges, attorneys and others associated with legal matters pending against him and associated with the Jan 6 riots. Many of the prosecutors in these cases are finding it necessary to hire bodyguards due to the threats against them by radical members of Trump's base.[17]
Running again, or trying to
Trump has announced he is running for president again in 2024, presenting a challenge to the Republican party members, some of whom would like to distance themselves from Trump's extremist views and past deeds but who also fear being cut out of party support if they break party discipline. In the public eye, Trump has used his popularity on social media to endorse or condemn members of his party in recent years[18], and behind the scenes, breaking with Trump deprives GOP candidates of financial support from Trump's money-rich political machine.
It is generally believed that the many legal prosecutions underway as of 2023 strengthened Trump's support among his hard-core Republican base (generally believed to be about 1/3 of all Republicans), who tend to see him as a victim of persecution, but it is unclear, if Trump runs as the Republican party candidate for president in 2024, what overall percentage of Republicans will vote for him. Many Republicans fear he might lose the election if selected to run again, yet so far, no Republican challenger seems likely to take the nomination from him.
Trump has not so far been charged directly with insurrection, which might disqualify him from reelection under a provision of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. As of Dec. 2023, the famously non-partisan Colorado Supreme Court nevertheless has disqualified Trump from the state's primary election under this provision based on the bulk of Trump's publicly known behavior surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol riot. The decision is expected to be appealed through the federal court system, landing eventually at the U.S. Supreme Court. If the U.S. Supreme Court were to decide to take the case quickly, it likely would freeze all similar cases and restore Trump's name to the Colorado ballot while the case was being presented to the Supreme Court--and that puts the U.S. Supreme Court at the center of a frought political battle. In the past, the U.S. Supreme Court has generally rejected applications to overturn state decisions in matters having to do with how electors are chosen, but no one knows what the result might be in this particular case; it is considered uncharted legal territory. Maine's Secretary of State has issued a similar ruling.
Similar attempts to block Trump from running for president again have failed in three other states, as of January 2024. At least 16 other states currently have pending legal challenges to Trump's eligibility of office under the 14th amendment.[19] Four of the challenges (MI, OR, NJ and WI) are in state courts, and eleven are in federal district courts (AK, AZ, NV, NY, NM, SC, TX, VT, VA, WV and WY). The Maine secretary of state will shortly rule on whether Trump can appear on that state's primary ballot, and whichever way that ruling comes out, there is almost certain to be an appeal by the losing party. The status of these and similar legal challenges is changing rapidly all the time.
Civil lawsuits
In a civil lawsuit in May 2023, a jury in New York City found Donald Trump liable for damages for sexual abuse and defamation against E. Jean Carroll and awarded her $5 million, based on an incident that took place in the mid-1990s.[20] He is to appeal the decision. In another civil case, a New York court found he had fraudulently obtained loans by overstating his assets.[21] He replied that all the loans had been repaid in full, with interest, by the due dates, so no one had lost out.
Another civil trial in New York State over alleged business fraud by former president Donald Trump and his company was instigated by New York Attorney General Letitia James in 2022. The lawsuit charged that the company drastically inflated the value of Trump's real estate properties in business deals, purposely deceiving lenders and insurance companies over the course of a decade, and inflated Trump’s net worth by up to $2.2 billion a year, thus cheating Trump's business partners out of potential earnings. James asked for $250 million in damages. Trump lost the case in early October 2023. New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron decided a significant portion of the case by finding Trump and the other defendants liable for committing fraud. The judge also ordered the cancellation of some Trump Organization business certificates in the state of New York and directed that a receiver be appointed to oversee the dissolution of those entities. Details of the amount of damages to be awarded are still being worked out. Because the case is civil, no defendant faces prison time, even if crimes related to falsifying records were committed. Trump directed public fury at Judge Engoron and his law clerk, whom Trump's lawyers accused of bias and having too much influence over the judge's ruling. A gag order was issued to prevent Trump for making additional comments about the law clerk, who has received a flood of threats, many antisemitic, throughout the course of the trial. Trump has twice violated the gag order and was fined $15,000 for that.
Impeachments
Trump is the only president in U.S. history to have been impeached twice.[22]
Notes and references
- ↑ Trump was the 45th president by the normal American way of counting, which reckons Grover Cleveland twice as he served two non-consecutive terms.
- ↑ Trump: I could ‘shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters’ on CNN, 1/23/2016. Last access 4/29/2024.
- ↑ The most consequential of Trump's withdrawals from prior international commitments was when he refused to state publicly that the U.S. would adhere to Article 5 of the NATO Charter on the collective defense commitment of the treaty, thus severely undermining NATO's credibility. Given that Trump also withheld foreign aid for defense of the Ukraine that had been allocated by Congress, it is arguable that his actions increased the likelihood of Putin and Russia later attacking the Ukraine. Trump also withdrew the U.S. from arms control treaties with Russia, from the Paris Climate Agreement, from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, from UNESCO, from the Iran nuclear deal, and from the UN Human Rights Council. Finally, Trump threatened to quit the World Trade Organization (WTO) on grounds that their decisions were not fair to the U.S. and proceeded to ham-string its court system by blocking the appointment of replacement judges to the point where the WTO had only a single judge left at the end of his administration.
- ↑ See the article on Chris Christie to understand Trump's failure to have a legally-mandated presidential transition team. Trump's failure to appoint more than 1200 officials in a timely manner may have endangered the ability of the federal government to perform many of its important functions safely, such as tracking stolen nuclear materials.
- ↑ Hindsight 2020 Election Analysis by JP from The Pennsylvania Gazette, May/Jun 2023, p. 15.
- ↑ In politics, a scorched-earth policy usually means a total disregard for the people who are hurt by one's campaign or one's policies
- ↑ See the Wikipedia article Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election for more details.
- ↑ Final Report by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Dec. 22, 2022, 117th Congress Second Session, House Report 117-663
- ↑ After the Jan 6 attack on the Capitol building, six months went by while the 100-member U.S. Senate attempted unsuccessfully to create an investigative commission that would have consisted of an equal number of Democrats and Republicans. Only 54 (of 60 needed votes to prevent a filibuster) could be obtained. Thereafter, the house acted on its own to create a committee (not a commission) for an investigation. House Republican leaders first attempted to pack the committee with Republicans who were known "election deniers", but the Democratic leadership refused to appoint two of them, after which Republicans forbade all of its party members from participating. Nevertheless, two long-standing, respected Republicans were invited and accepted, breaking party discipline. They are Liz Cheney (then representing Wyoming, who acted as vice-chair of the committee) and Adam Kinzinger (then representing Illinois). Both were later censored by their party and lost their subsequent election as a result of their participation in the commission. So while one can say the committee was numerically dominated by opponents of President Trump, it could have had as many as five Republicans (and seven Democrats), but the Republican leadership (who were still under considerable political pressure from Donald Trump) clearly desired that there be no investigation at all, so it ended up as two Republicans and seven Democrats. During its investigation, the committee conducted public hearings over seven weeks that were widely watched on television and had a significant impact on public opinion. Out of dozens of witnesses, only one Democrat was called upon to testify. The importance of Liz Cheney's participation should not be underestimated; she is from a historically Brahmin family among Republicans, and her turning against Trump arguably marked a sea change for the Republican party. See Wikipedia's article U.S. House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 Attack for more details.
- ↑ 24 Months Since the January 6 Attack on the Capitol at the U.S. Department of Justice website; shows the prosecutions still underway.
- ↑ Trump’s grip on the Republican base is slipping — even among his fans from the Washington Post, Feb. 23, 2023.
- ↑ The Jan. 6 committee says the Trump campaign ripped off donors. But was it illegal? at National Public Radio (NPR). After he lost the presidency in 2020, and before the riot, the Trump campaign took $250 million in donations given towards an election defense fund to pay for legal fees to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, but instead, the money went to the Save America political action committee, and then from there to several pro-Trump organizations which are headed by former officials close to Donald Trump's inner circle. This enormous pot of money is now being used to threaten and cajole Republican party members to adhere to Trump's choices or lose funding.
- ↑ Trump Hush-Money Prosecution in New York Returns to the Spotlight by Corinne Ramey and James Fanelli in the Wall Street Journal, 2-6-2024.
- ↑ When he left the White House in 2020, Trump brought classified documents with him to his Florida estate. According to reports from the Washington Post and the New York Times, when the FBI searched his estate in August 2022, they found documents related to nuclear weapons, as well as files containing information that could put U.S. informants in the field in danger
- ↑ Trump Indictment: Jan. 6 Riot Was ‘Fueled by Lies’ From Trump, Special Counsel Says by the New York Times, Aug.1, 2023.
- ↑ Trump faces 13 counts in Georgia indictment; 18 others charged By Holly Bailey, Amy Gardner, Leo Sands and Marisa Iati of the Washington Post, 8/15/2023.
- ↑ Jan. 6 Prosecutors Ask for Protective Order, Citing Threatening Trump Post by Alan Feuer and Maggie Haberman at the New York Times, Aug. 5, 2023.
- ↑ How Trump Has Used Fear and Favor to Win Republican Endorsements by Jonathan Swan, Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman at the New York Times, 1/4/2024. The subtitle of the article says: "The former president keeps careful watch over his endorsements from elected Republicans, aided by a disciplined and methodical behind-the-scenes operation."
- ↑ Here Are the Other States Where Trump’s Ballot Eligibility Faces a Challenge by Nick Corasaniti at the New York Times, Dec. 20, 2023.
- ↑ Jury in civil trial finds Trump sexually abused, defamed E. Jean Carroll: Jurors award $5 million to E. Jean Carroll, who accused Donald Trump of raping her at Bergdorf Goodman in the 1990s from the Washington Post, By Shayna Jacobs, Kim Bellware and Mark Berman, May 9, 2023.
- ↑ What We Know About a Judge’s Finding That Trump Committed Fraud by Karen Zraick in the New York Times, 9/27/2023
- ↑ See the Wikipedia article Impeachment of Donald Trump for more details of the two impeachment efforts against Trump.