Another day in America, another judgment against the Trump family. In the latest, New York state Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron has ruled that the Trump Organisation is liable for ‘persistent and repeated fraud’ and stripped the 45th president’s family business of its operating licenses in the Empire State.
At first glance, it appears to be a devastating piece of news for the Trumps’ fortunes and a victory for New York’s unabashedly anti-Trump Attorney General Letitia James. And, if the judgment is upheld after appeal, it would be exactly that. But that still could be years away. So for now, this new fraud verdict can simply be added to that ever-expanding, unclassified file marked ‘Trump’s ongoing legal troubles’.
Judge Engoron, in rejecting Team Trump’s ‘bogus arguments’, suggested that the family’s lawyers had attempted to ‘glaringly misrepresent’ the law and added that their repeated efforts to fight the verdict ‘invoke the time-loop in the film Groundhog Day’.
In fact, it’s the ‘Trump’s ongoing legal troubles’ story that most resembles Groundhog Day. For seven years, the media has reacted to any and every vaguely authoritative-sounding ruling against Trump as a big gotcha moment. He’s been impeached twice and now faces nearly 100 criminal charges, on top of the various civil rulings against him.
The Trump shows rolls on
And yet, nothing much changes, and the American public cares less and less. The Trump shows rolls on. The same, now familiar scenes play out. Trump rails against the ‘DERANGED’ justice system. ‘The widespread, radical attack against me, my family and my supporters has now devolved to new, un-American depths’, he stated last night on Truth Social. His supporters rally around the MAGA flag, his campaign launches another fundraising appeal, and his lead in the Republican polls continues to grow.
Trump may be prone to hyperbole, but his supporters know that he’s not wrong to point out that New York’s Attorney General, ‘Letitia Peekaboo James’, as he calls her, is out to get him. She undeniably is. Her election campaign in 2018 focused almost entirely on her promise to target the man she called ‘this illegitimate president.’
Attacking the man instead of the crime is not how justice is meant to work. But that’s the way it is in Groundhog Day America.
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