Jim Hartman: GOP’s third bet on Trump

For the third time, Republicans will be nominating Donald Trump for president, the one candidate who could lose to a weak and unpopular President Joe Biden.

Sixteen months ago, after the poor showing for Trump’s candidates in the 2022 midterm elections, the former president looked like a fading political force.

But Trump’s dubious indictment by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for hush-money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels caused Trump to jump in primary polls.

Three successive criminal indictments followed, and his polls kept rising among Republicans.

The Manhattan charges against Trump morphed into 34 felony counts that should have been no more than a misdemeanor.

The facts: in 2006 Daniels claims an “intimate encounter” with Trump. As the election in 2016 neared, Trump’s fixer Michael Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet. A nondisclosure agreement isn’t illegal.

Cohen was reimbursed throughout 2017 via a monthly retainer “disguised as a payment for legal services,” the DA claims.

Falsifying business records can be a misdemeanor in New York, but the statute of limitations has run.

Bragg had to charge felonies which requires showing Trump cooked the books with “intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.” Bragg hasn’t clearly identified or charged Trump with the second crime.

Each invoice, check and ledger entry are separately charged to get 34 counts. It’s prosecutorial overkill.

Will Trump get a fair jury panel in Manhattan where 88% voted against him in 2020?

On April 15, Trump became the first former U.S. president to be put on criminal trial. Bragg is making history – in the wrong way.

The Democrats “lawfare” strategy has worked in reverse on Republicans.

Last July, Trump was unable to win the support of many of his own former Cabinet members for his bid to return to the White House.

NBC News reported speaking with 44 of the dozens of people who served in Trump’s Cabinet over his term of office. Then, only four said publicly they supported his re-election.

“I have made clear that I strongly oppose Trump for the nomination and will not endorse Trump,” former Attorney General Bill Barr told NBC News. Asked how he would vote in a general election between Trump and Biden, Barr said: “I’ll jump off that bridge when I get to it.”

Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper declined endorsing Trump believing him “not fit for office” and a “threat to democracy.” He vowed not to vote for Trump in November.

Trump’s Cabinet was a chaotic revolving door.

Two of his former chiefs of staff, Mark Mulvaney and Gen. John Kelly, have been among the loudest detractors of a second Trump term.

Last July, Mulvaney said he was “working hard to make sure someone else is the nominee.” In a November interview, Kelly said he was watching Trump dominate the Republican field with increasing despair.

John Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security adviser from 2018 to 2019 repeatedly said he will not vote for Trump in November.

Just days after Trump won enough delegates to win the GOP nomination, former Vice President Mike Pence said he would not endorse Trump in a remarkable break with tradition.

Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, Trump’s last major GOP primary election challenger, has not endorsed her former boss since leaving the race – but hasn’t publicly ruled it out either.

Trump’s attitude has gone from dismissive of Haley to now expressing indifference to winning over Haley’s supporters. Dissing Haley voters is foolish.

However, the ultimate choice is binary.

Barr has now revised his message for Trump-averse Republicans:

“I think the real danger to the country, the real danger to democracy, is the progressive agenda and while Trump may be playing Russian roulette, the continuation of the Biden administration is national suicide.”

E-mail Jim Hartman at lawdocman1@aol.com.