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On April 15, a president of the United States will sit in court for the first time as accused of a crime. The case in question is the payment of $130,000 by Donald Trump during the 2016 election campaign to a former porn actress, Stormy Daniels, to buy her silence about a sexual relationship. By setting the date, the Manhattan judge puts an end to the tangle of dilatory appeals launched by the former president's defense, which is trying to ensure that none of his court cases reach the benches before the November elections. Trump, the Republican Party's virtual presidential candidate, is accused of 34 crimes related to false accounting and illegal campaign donations. This is just one of four criminal cases he faces.
Prosecutor Alvin Bragg set a historic precedent in April of last year by being the first to file a criminal case against a former president. Although the case raises doubts among experts, Bragg managed to break the aura of impunity that surrounded Trump, whom it seemed that justice was not going to reach no matter how many his excesses. An indictment would follow in Georgia and in two federal courts. Separately, Trump has been convicted of defaming a woman he sexually assaulted and faces another civil suit for false accounting. In this, he has received a boost from justice, which on Monday significantly reduced (from 450 to 175 million) a bail that he could not afford.
That the former president has arrived this far without having to face any process is due to the strategy of his defenses, which consists of relentlessly resorting to every detail of the procedures until almost guaranteeing that the most important cases will not come to fruition before the elections. .
If he finally sits on the bench in two weeks, his strategy will likely be to try to take advantage of these circumstances in his favor, but polls show that a conviction would cause him a lethal loss of votes. Seeing him in court, however, cannot serve as a distraction from a frankly disturbing reality: Donald Trump can be president even from prison. The only way to defeat him is, again, at the polls.