by Vijaya Chandrasoma

Donald J. Trump was arrested at the Miami Courthouse on Tuesday, June 13 on 37 counts of federal felony charges under the Espionage Act, referencing alleged mishandling of top-secret government documents. His lawyer pleaded “not guilty” on all charges, on his behalf. He is presently out on bail, pending trial.

This is the first time a former or sitting president of the USA has been arrested on federal charges. Trump is also the first former president to be arrested by the New York district court, presently on bail, pending trial, on 34 counts of state felony charges of financial and election campaign fraud.

On a relatively minor issue for Trump, in May 2023, a Manhattan, New York federal jury found him guilty of sexually assaulting E. Jean Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room. She was awarded $5 million for battery and defamation. An arrest for sexual assault, a mere misdemeanor, a humdrum event in the life of the spokesman of the audio on sexual predatory.

Trump continues to spew lies, calling himself “the most innocent man, the victim of the longest witch-hunt, in the history of the world”. And 35% of the Republican Party, the so-called Christian, white supremacist base, believe him. They are convinced he can do no wrong, against all evidence.

Even the 17 Republicans who have currently announced their candidature for the nomination of the 2024 presidency, still stand firmly behind him, even though they are in competition with him. Bar four, there will be many more in the near future.

Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson and former New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie were predictable in their continuing criticism of Trump. The other candidates, former US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, and most recently, former Vice President Mike Pence, surprised us by speaking against Trump’s mishandling of top-secret documents.

Nikki Haley had previously decried the case as “prosecutorial outreach”. However, she changed her tune on Monday, when she stated, “if this indictment is true, President Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security. …This puts all our military men and women in danger”.

Mike Pence had previously stated that he hopes the Department of Justice “thinks better” of indicting Trump in the documents case. He has finally admitted that history will hold Trump accountable for inciting the January 6 insurrection. On Tuesday, he said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal editorial board, that he “couldn’t defend the very serious allegations against former President Donald Trump in a federal indictment over the handling of classified documents”.

The worms seem to be turning, at last. Since the advent of Trumpism, violence has been baked into American politics. Miami Law Enforcement took all precautions against a potential January 6 type of insurrection following Trump’s arrest on Tuesday. Trump himself and cronies like Lindsay Graham had earlier threatened “death and destruction” and “riots in the streets” if he is arrested. There has been a lot of recent chatter in social media from Trump supporters like the Proud Boys, about their intention to gather in Miami in large numbers to show support for their beloved Fuhrer. Defeated Arizona Governor and Trump devotee, Kari Lake, made the most unveiled threat over the weekend:

“If you want to get to President Trump, you have to go through me, and you are going to have to go through 75 million Americans just like me. And I am going to tell you, most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA”. Meaning Florida is an open carry state, where anyone can openly display military style assault rifles and sport holstered automatic pistols.

Lake’s threat was for Trump supporters to arrive in their thousands at the Miami Courthouse, fully armed, to protest Trump’s arrest, proved to be a damp squid. In fact, nothing much happened to disturb the peace on Tuesday, a sure sign that his “base” has seen the light and is dwindling.

Miami Police estimated the crowd of Trump supporters amassed in front of the Courthouse at 1,500, before his arrival. There were almost as many anti-Trump protesters, carrying “Lock Him Up” banners, plus media from around the world. There was no significant violence, a disappointing anti-climax to Trump and the white supremacist Trump base, who were hoping for a January 6 style violent protest.

Trump will soon be left with base of a few thousand QAnon, Christian nationalist, radical right lunatics and white supremacists like the Proud Boys, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert. Lots of noise, not much action, fewer votes.

Trump’s function the night after his arrest was a fundraiser at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where the Republican donor audience was treated to his usual rant of lies, claiming “today we witnessed the most evil and heinous abuse of power in the history of our country”.

He stated that the documents under reference belonged to him, as president, to do as he pleases. It is true that the law gives the president almost complete power over the handling of top-secret documents, while he is the sitting president. Trump is no longer the sitting president, hasn’t been for well over two years. He is today just a private citizen, arrested and on bail on a series of felonies. He is, as usual, hallucinating. Or, as has been suspected over the past few years, just plain nuts.

Among the documents Trump has been hoarding at various insecure locations at his residences in Bedminster, New Jersey and Mar a Lago, Florida, were documents on US nuclear programs, potential US military vulnerabilities and plans for US retaliation in the event of an attack. Trump has been charged under the Espionage Act, which defines the retention of “national defense information” i.e., materials that could be invaluable for an adversary seeking to damage the national security of the United States, as a violation of the Act.

Trump has been retaining these documents, displaying them openly to foreign nationals and to others without security clearance, perhaps even selling them to the highest bidder. He has consistently refused to return these documents to their rightful owner, the National Archives and Records Administration, crying, like a petulant toddler, “Mommy, mommy, these colored papers are mine. Daddy said so!”

He has lied to NARA on numerous occasions when asked to return these documents, that he had no more documents in his possession. He even got his lawyers to sign a false certificate to this effect. When NARA was certain that Trump was still retaining top-secret documents, against the law, they obtained a warrant to search Trump’s resort at Mar a Lago. The FBI raid in August 2022 yielded 102 additional documents, including 17 marked top-secret. There is no doubt whatsoever that Trump is still in possession of an indefinite number of such top-secret documents, secreted at his various residences and resorts.

In a remarkable instance of projection, the twice impeached, twice arrested former president, who spread the Big Lie of a stolen election and incited an insurrection at the Capitol to overturn the 2020 election, said, after his release on bail on Tuesday, that “Biden will forever be remembered as not only the most corrupt president in the history of our country, but perhaps even more importantly, the president who together with a band of his closest thugs, misfits and (fascists) tried to destroy American democracy”. Can you imagine a more fitting description of Trump and his white supremacist domestic terrorists’ attempts to destroy our democracy on January 6, 2021?

Amazingly, Trump still has a comfortable lead in the polls for the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2024. In a democracy like America, the nominee from each of the Parties, Democrat and Republican, always have a real shot at winning the presidency. Trump’s previous crimes, before and during his presidency, have been largely ignored, tolerated, indeed celebrated by Republican voters, who remain brainwashed by Trump’s God-given talent for lying.

The majority of Republicans, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, believe that Trump’s performance during his first term was exemplary, with a booming economy created entirely by him. Of course, they conveniently forget the fact that he inherited a thriving America with 72 continuous previous weeks of economic growth, with the lowest unemployment levels in decades, from President Obama.

His massive tax cuts which benefited greatly the billionaires and the corporations; his deregulation of laws imposed by President Obama against corporate pollution for the protection of the environment; his strange flirtation with our adversaries, especially his fawning admiration for the murderous dictator, and America’s traditional adversary, Putin, displayed on the world stage by his traitorous performance at Helsinki, when he sided with Putin against irrefutable evidence provided by all 17 US intelligence agencies and the Mueller Report that Russia interfered in our 2016 elections; his numerous executive orders which benefited only the wealthy at the expense of the poor, the needy, the vulnerable, even our vets; his total indifference to the epidemic of gun violence; his continuing attempts at compromising our social safety net and denying the constitutional rights of women’s reproductive freedom. All these reckless and feckless actions were applauded by a large section of the Republican Party, as long as Trump kept their original, perhaps subconscious, dream of a white, Christian nation alive.

I am convinced that only his criminal mismanagement of the pandemic, which resulted in the avoidable death of hundreds of thousands of Americans, denied him a second term at the White House. Four more years when he would have been able, with the help of his armed white supremacist hordes, to achieve his ambition to create an autocratic America, and to cement his ultimate dream of securing the position enjoyed by his best friends and the new allies of the United States, Russia, China and North Korea – President for Life.

However, his treasonous actions after his defeat at the 2020 elections have served to drive many Republicans away from the Trumpian section of their Party. The Big Lie that the election was stolen from him may be still believed by 60% of Republicans against all evidence. However, his incitement of the violent January 6 insurrection to overturn the peaceful transfer of power; and his arrest under the Espionage Act, with irrefutable evidence that he was mishandling and even trading in top-secret government documents which provided a threat to national security, may have been the last straws.

In spite of his apparent bravado after he was arrested for crimes basically amounting to espionage, even treason, I believe Trump fears that he has finally reached the end of the precipitous road he has been traveling.

Former Trump Chief of Staff, General John Kelly may have nailed it. After listening to Trump’s post-arrest remarks at Bedminster. “He’s scared s…less. This is the way (resentment and bravado) he compensates for that. He gives people the appearance that he doesn’t care by doing this. For the first time in his life, it looks like he’s being held accountable. ….He’s never been held accountable before”’.

The best news I heard after the Miami arrest is that Trump’s Republican poll numbers have increased. These polls are conducted mainly by the right-center of the Party, and do not include its moderate conservatives, whose support seems to be thinning. Also, Independents are currently running about 75% against Trump. Finally, he will be forced to campaign for 2024 while on bail, with probable arrests on four federal crimes hanging over his head. In spite of the anticipated and inevitable delays in the American justice system, there is an outside chance that Trump would be a convicted felon before November 2024.

Democrats should do all in their power to ensure Trump wins the Republican nomination. We will never find an easier cockroach to crush than Trump in 2024. A reinforcement of the concept that we are a country of law and order.