Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Donald Trump may be facing mounting legal troubles. But for his political advisers, it amounts to electoral gold. <\/p>\n
The former president and his team of trusted confidants are planning to use a familiar tactic as authorities in New York ramp up their legal investigations into his private business dealings. They will cast doubt on the investigators, deflect to other issues and claim it is all a partisan \u201cwitch hunt.\u201d <\/p>\n
The script is familiar. Trump\u2019s team believes the outcome will be, too: conservative voters rallying to his side as he assumes the victim\u2019s role.<\/p>\n
“They are using their power to destroy their number one political enemy. They are trying to crush him,\u201d said Matt Schlapp, a Trump-world confidant and chair of the American Conservative Union, who warned of an era of overly-political prosecutions targeting prominent politicians. \u201cAnd will there be reverberations from that that will benefit Trump from that, absolutely.”<\/p>\n
The latest sign of Trump\u2019s growing legal woes arrived this week, when reports broke that a special grand jury in Manhattan had convened to decide whether or not to indict the former president or executives at the Trump Organization over business and tax practices and the management of his international real estate portfolio. Privately, Trump and those close to him conceded that they are nervous about Manhattan district attorney Cy Vance reaching the culmination of his investigation. But publicly, they expect the former president to use his legal plight to gin up support from his base of supporters \u2014 and fuel chatter about a 2024 run. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the same kind of shit playbook \u2014 counter response, blame, attack the investigators, say \u2018I did nothing wrong, I\u2019m a businessman,\u2019 you\u2019ll hear that one a lot,\u201d said one former adviser. <\/p>\n
In a statement following news of the grand jury, Trump immediately proclaimed the investigation to be a \u201cwitch hunt,\u201d accused it of being politically motivated and tried to hitch news of the grand jury to his plans to restart rallies and the release of a poll showing Republican support for another presidential run. To even the non-MAGA Republicans, it seemed predictable, cynical and likely effective. <\/p>\n
\u201cTrump has turned being a victim into an art form, and there\u2019s no doubt he\u2019d use an indictment as fuel to rally support,\u201d said Brendan Buck, former aide to then-House Speaker Paul Ryan. \u201cHe\u2019s convinced his supporters that the only crime he\u2019s ever committed is fighting for them on behalf of elites, and when people believe that, you\u2019re basically bulletproof.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump and allies are anticipating the very real possibility that he or his business partners could be indicted. And one of the main reasons Trump is spooked is that Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization\u2019s chief financial officer who knew the ins and outs of the company\u2019s accounting books, has emerged as a central figure for the New York prosecutors and according to reports, has been pressured to flip against his boss. <\/p>\n
Yet barring any significant new findings, people around Trump do not expect the investigation to have a negative impact on his immediate political future. Trump has been telling friends and aides he seriously plans to run again in 2024, and his team suspects that the legal drama may actually help him with Republican voters.<\/p>\n
“At this point in the years-long Witch Hunt, Republican voters are numb to the continual partisan attacks,\u201d said a person close to Trump. \u201cIf anything, these legal attacks help solidify the president’s political base.”<\/p>\n
Allies of Trump have focused their ire on Letitia James, specifically. The New York attorney general campaigned on a promise to investigate Trump, whom she called an \u201cillegitimate president.\u201d And both Trump and his allies have lashed out at her, accusing her of abusing her office by predetermining investigative subjects.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Attorney General of New York literally campaigned on prosecuting Donald Trump even before she knew anything about me,\u201d Trump said in one of his longer post-White House statements. \u201cThat is what these investigations are all about\u2014a continuation of the greatest political Witch Hunt in the history of the United States. Working in conjunction with Washington, these Democrats want to silence and cancel millions of voters because they don\u2019t want \u201cTrump\u201d to run again.\u201d<\/p>\n
People close to Trump say his recent musings to run in 2024 started before grand jury news. While Trump remains a powerful figure in the party, he misses the trappings and power of the White House, they say, especially following a sleepier spring among fellow retirees in Palm Beach, Florida. <\/p>\n
“When he came down the escalator, the left went after him from the Russia hoax to impeachment, now we are still seeing it in New York City,\u201d said former chief of staff Mark Meadows on Fox News. \u201cThe American people want him to run, and I believe he will run.”<\/p>\n
In the lead up to the 2020 election, Trump used a similar argument to dismiss the legal and political investigations into him at that time. He denounced special counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and his subsequent first impeachment as witch hunts and partisan congressional overreach. He demanded that lawmakers \u201cinvestigate the investigators\u201d and claimed he was the subject of a \u201cRussia hoax.\u201d <\/p>\n
He also spoke about the legal benefits that he believed came with occupying office; that he was largely inoculated from prosecution and indictment so long as he served. That could very well compel him to seek office again, though advisers say that\u2019s not his current thinking, and legal experts argue that he can\u2019t escape state-based investigations by running for federal office. Instead, those who have followed Trump\u2019s career closely believe he will use his current dilemma to gin up sympathy and anger among his legion of followers. <\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things that\u2019s undoubtedly going to frustrate him about the two criminal investigations is he has very little direct leverage. He\u2019s decamped from New York, he\u2019s a resident of Florida, he\u2019s widely loathed in New York City, and does not have popular support, and he doesn’t have any of the political or legal leverage to disrupt those investigations the way he disrupted Mueller,\u201d said Tim O\u2019Brien, Trump biographer and critic of the former president. \u201cBut the thing he did in the Mueller case is he went right to his supporters and the public and said this is a witch hunt.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is well aware that his greatest traction is with his enthusiastic supporters, and I think he\u2019ll go to them as a force to be reckoned with when anyone tries to put him under the whip.\u201d<\/p>\n
With reporting by Sam Stein<\/p>\n