Left-leaning journalists and commentators seem quite frustrated by the fact that the myriad of legal actions being thrown at former President Donald Trump don’t seem to be doing much damage to his campaign. Indeed, the indictments and lawsuits are only helping him garner more support among the conservative base and even right-leaning independents.
The reaction of the news media to this phenomenon would almost suggest that they were hoping Trump’s poll numbers would tank because of the naked effort to weaponize the government against him.
Journalist Andrea Bernstein wrote a column for the New York Times in which she lamented the popularity that Trump has been gaining from being targeted in this fashion.
That a candidate nearly certain to win the Republican presidential nomination carries the stain of having been found by judge and jury to lie fluently is stunning enough. But even more so is the continuity between how, in the past months, Mr. Trump has practiced exactly what he’s on trial for right in front of us, in the courtrooms, in a way that once again has benefited his brand. Even after Mr. Trump had begun to lose, and face real financial and business consequences, he was working out a way to benefit, or at least try to benefit, from the verdicts and from the entire process of being placed on trial.
Bernstein highlighted an example showing how the former president is using the legal efforts against him to his own advantage.
In the mornings before Mr. Trump’s business fraud trial, journalists lined up for hours outside the civil courthouse. A sizable number stopped at the courtroom hallway, creating a crowded press scrum, to catch a few minutes of Mr. Trump’s time on the way in or out. For these press opportunities, the erstwhile TV star set up his shot. He usually stood behind a barricade — conjuring up prison bars — outside the door of the courtroom and spoke to supporters, saying some version of “I should be right now in Iowa and New Hampshire, in South Carolina. I shouldn’t be sitting in a courthouse.”
She continued: “He had no obligation to be there, and the barricades were for his protection. But the picture of Mr. Trump behind the barricades ran repeatedly, on news sites all over the world. His fund-raising emails mentioned the court appearances; he talked about them on the campaign trail.”
Indeed, when the court ruled against Trump and ordered him to pay $355 million for supposedly lying about his net worth to receive better loan terms, it was seen as a massive victory for the left and an injustice by everyone else. However, even some on the left questioned the exorbitant fines imposed on the former president.
The issue was so pronounced that New York Gov. Kathy Hochul was compelled to publicly reassure the state’s business owners that Trump was a special case and that other companies don’t have to fear similar repercussions. RedState's Jerry Wilson reports:
In a mixture of braggadocio and stark-raving fear, New York Governor Kathy Hochul has taken to the airways to reassure New York-based businesses they will not be prosecuted under the same flimsy excuse used to prosecute former President Donald Trump. Trump has been ordered to pay $355 million in fines for allegedly falsely altering his net worth to receive favorable loan terms. In a radio interview, Hochul stated,
“I think that this is really an extraordinary, unusual circumstance that the law-abiding and rule-following New Yorkers who are business people have nothing to worry about, because they’re very different than Donald Trump and his behavior,” Hochul responded.
MSNBC even questioned whether the ruling was fair. Host Katy Tur asked: “Is this fair, to go after Donald Trump like this in this environment?”
“Is this fair, to go after Donald Trump like this in this environment?”
— scott poulson-bryant (@SPBPHD) February 16, 2024
— Katy Tur
clock the looks on Susanne Craig and Lisa Rubin’s faces.
pic.twitter.com/zUqR12JV3j
Legal scholar Jonathan Turley also chimed in, arguing that “at $355 million, one would think that [Judge] Engoron had found Trump to be the source of Original Sin.”
The judgment against Trump (and his family and associates) was met with a level of unrestrained celebration by many in New York that bordered on the indecent. Attorney General Letitia James declared not only that Trump would be barred from doing business in New York for three years, but that the damages would come to roughly $460 million once interest was included.
That makes the damages against Trump greater than the gross national product of some countries, including Micronesia. Yet the court admitted that not a single dollar was lost by the banks from these dealings. Indeed, witnesses testified that they wanted to do more business with Trump, who was described as a “whale” client with high yield business opportunities.
You can see what I’m getting at, right?
Bernstein’s ilk are somehow surprised that the legal actions against Trump are boosting his popularity with a segment of the electorate and are upset that he is using them to his advantage. However, these people are deliberately missing the reality that each of these indictments and lawsuits is motivated by a desire to influence the outcome of the upcoming presidential election.
It would be one thing if Democrats were doing a better job of concealing their political motives. But looking at what they have been up to over the past two years, it seems apparent that they believe they can weaponize the state with impunity. It is abundantly evident that political concerns are driving the numerous legal actions being brought against their most feared boogeyman.
If anything, folks like Bernstein should be more frustrated with her fellow lefties who are employing such a ham-fisted approach to using the legal system against their political opponents. They are the ones who are helping to prop up their nemesis.
