Washington.- In an ordinary season of presidential primaries, the impeachment of a favorite for the money that a porn star was paid for his silence would be, at the very least, an opportunity for rivals to attack. But one day after former President Donald J. Trump was arraigned on 34 felony counts, one thing became clear: This will be no ordinary political season.
The fact that Trump’s rivals for the Republican nomination were not offended — indeed, willing to defend him — underscored the former president’s centrality to the Republican Party. His opponents seemed to be using the same playbook that a packed field of White House hopefuls followed in 2016, sitting back, soaking up Trump’s blows and waiting for external factors to bring him down.
“The sad thing is that so many people accept it as part of the character and conduct of the former president,” Asa Hutchinson, a former Arkansas governor who announced on Sunday that she would run for the Republican presidential nomination, said of the charges. “That’s not something I want to dwell on from a candidate’s perspective.”
To some Republican and Democratic leaders, including former and current elected officials, strategists and others, the charges seemed flimsy, a hodgepodge of accounting allegations that seemed far less important than many expected. For others in both parties, the charges and the accompanying spectacle were troubling and had the potential to backlash and damage the former president politically.
At the very least, the charges will have to be answered in a court of law, extending a tawdry tale of extramarital affairs to a courtroom for a party once considered the home of family values.
Trump could criticize the Manhattan district attorney leading the prosecution, Alvin L. Bragg, and the presiding judge, but the court proceedings, and possibly a trial, will unfold in a way that is potentially damaging to a Republican race for the White House. .
“It’s still serious,” said former Rep. Reid J. Ribble of Wisconsin, a Republican critic of Trump who has doubts about the case. “Who wants to be accused of any crime? Most normal Americans will never be charged with a misdemeanor in their entire lives. Being accused of 30 of them? I mean, it’s shocking, and for someone you want to have leading the country, it’s a disqualifier for me.”
Trump’s arraignment on charges of falsifying business records to conceal payments to porn star Stormy Daniels certainly made history. Trump is now the first former president to face criminal charges, doing so in the midst of his third run for the White House.
