What Might Have Been
I was reminded recently (by a reader who tweeted it to me) that the "People v. Donald Trump" trial which began today is not so much: "the porn-star hush-money case," but rather more properly: "the 2016 election-interference case." Because when all the tawdry details are stripped away (so to speak... ahem...) this is indeed what remains: Trump gamed the system to suppress bad news about him which could have influenced how people voted. And since a relative handful of votes in a few key swing states provided him with his victory, if he hadn't done so things could easily have gone the other way. To put it differently, we might now be in a frenzy of horserace speculation about which Democratic candidate would be the nominee to succeed President Hillary Clinton, at the end of her second term.
I know I'm not alone in thinking that the entire planet slipped into some sort of alternate universe in 2016 -- the "Bizarro World" of the Trump era. If this cosmic shift hadn't happened, America (and the rest of the world) would be in a very different place indeed right now, and that's putting it mildly.
For starters, the Supreme Court would likely now have (at the very least) a 5-4 liberal majority. Perhaps Justice Anthony Kennedy wouldn't have retired and would still be sitting on the court (although he is now 87 years old), which would have meant Clinton would only have nominated two current justices, to replace Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (after both died in office). But if Kennedy had retired, the balance would be even more tilted, since Clinton would have had the chance to replace two conservatives with liberals.
After Scalia died, of course, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pulled a disgraceful end-run around the Constitution by refusing to hold hearings on the man President Barack Obama nominated to the high court, Merrick Garland. McConnell's reason was constitutionally and historically ridiculous -- that the American people somehow "deserved to weigh in" on who would replace Scalia by who they elected president. But after Clinton took office, this would no longer have been operative, and Clinton likely would have promptly re-appointed Garland. When confirmed, he would have flipped the court's ideological makeup from 5-4 conservative to 5-4 liberal (which was the very reason McConnell made up such a ridiculous reason for the delay).
Ginsburg's death would not have changed the ideological makeup of the court at all, since Clinton would have named another liberal to replace her (although with McConnell still in place, it likely wouldn't have happened until after she won a second term). If Kennedy had indeed stepped down, it would have further moved the court, to wind up with a 6-3 liberal balance.
Just think of what an enormous difference that would have made. Even setting aside all the other differences stemming from Hillary Clinton being in the Oval Office rather than Trump, America would be in a much different place now with a liberal majority on the high court. The most obvious difference would be that Roe v. Wade would still be the law of the land. And that's just the easiest example -- there are many other important cases that would have gone the other way as well, on gun control, corporate influence, government regulations -- the list is a long one indeed.
In terms what else would have been different, just think of what the country's COVID response would have looked like under Clinton rather than under Trump. She would have encouraged us all to pull together instead of dividing us for no discernable reason. She would have worked with the states on the supply chain issues for medical supplies (masks, ventilators, etc.) instead of setting them against each other in some sort of Hunger Games dog-eat-dog snarling frenzy. She would have trusted the scientists and backed them up to the hilt in public. And, of course, she wouldn't have suggested ingesting bleach (because she is not a dangerous idiot). The message from the Clinton White House would have been: "We're all in this together." Just that alone would have changed the face of the pandemic response -- and perhaps saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
Of course, Hillary Clinton would still have had to face a deep-seated hatred from many Republicans, so we still might have had "mask wars" and fights over school closings and anti-vaxxers and all the rest of it. But the anti-science crowd wouldn't be getting support from the president, they'd be fighting her instead. That would make a huge difference, one has to assume.
What would Donald Trump have done if he had lost in 2016? Well, for starters, he would have done exactly what he did when he won -- loudly complained that the election had been stolen from him and throwing a huge tantrum about it all. Except he wouldn't have been president, so this wouldn't have had much impact at all. He could whine and gibber about the election being "rigged" to his heart's content, but Hillary would still be sitting in the Oval Office. It is highly doubtful that in January of 2017 he could have mounted the insurrectionist attack we all saw in 2021 without being president at the time, so this would have essentially amounted to a tempest in a teapot.
The real question is what the Republican Party would have done if Trump had lost to Clinton. Or, to put it another way, would the MAGA movement have died at the very start, or would Trump still command the loyalty of a large swath of the GOP base even today? That is a very interesting question, although it is unanswerable.
Would Trump have run again in 2020? Perhaps, but then again perhaps not. Initially, from many reports of those close to him, Trump ran for president as a lark -- something fun and interesting to do which built up his own personal brand, but without any real expectation that he would win. So would he have just made a big stink about how Hillary "stole" the election from him and then moved on to other grifting projects, or would he have been incandescent with rage at being called a "loser" and refused to let it go? The latter seems more likely now, of course, but back then (from many reports) he really did kind of expect to lose. So maybe it'd be something he'd endlessly complain about, while it also marked the real end of his foray into becoming a politician? It's certainly a possibility.
If he had kept active in politics, though, what would a Trump-Clinton rematch have looked like in 2020? Again, that's impossible to say. Would he have even won the Republican nomination if he ran? Prior to the current election cycle, presidential losers were rarely given a second bite at the apple, since political parties usually conclude: "He's a loser," and want to better their chances at winning the next time around. But then again Trump breaks all the rules with regularity, so perhaps he would have won the nomination in 2020 again, who knows?
If that had been the case, then the public likely would have gone through the same dissatisfaction then that they are going through now -- which could be summed up as: "Can't we have some other choice? Please?" For better or worse, Hillary would have had a four-year record to run on, while Trump would have had nothing more than four years of carping from the sidelines about how wonderful everything would have been if he had won in 2016 (pretty close to what we're going through now, in other words).
Or perhaps Republican voters would have left Trump behind and nominated someone different in 2020? Perhaps some other candidate could have even beaten Clinton, in which case whoever they were would be running for re-election now, while Democrats scrambled over who would be best to take him or her on.
In this scenario, Trump would have already faded from view. He'd be about as relevant right now as Sarah Palin, to put it another way. He'd be a charismatic crank who occasionally made news by saying something outrageous, but his words would have little weight and he'd be a sideshow, at best.
But no matter what happened in 2020 in that scenario -- whether we'd be closely watching the race to see who the Democrats would name to replace Clinton after she served two terms, or whether it'd be an open race to choose someone to take on a sitting Republican president -- Donald Trump would be relegated to an afterthought. There is no conceivable way to imagine he would now be the GOP's nominee. The only way that would even be possible is if he somehow managed to both have been the Republican nominee in 2020 and then beaten Clinton in their second matchup -- in which case he would be the sitting president now running for re-election.
But whatever the current situation, things would almost certainly be radically different than where we are now. If Trump hadn't successfully quashed all the stories about his infidelities in 2016 and Hillary had managed to squeak out an Electoral College win, America would indeed be in a very different place right now politically.
And that is what the People v. Trump case is really about. That is what Trump's election interference back then changed. So while the salacious details will be drooled over by the political press for the next month or so (the trial is expected to take around six weeks), let's all keep in mind how serious this all really was and still is. Because Donald Trump paying money to silence a porn star may indeed have changed the course of American history in a very big way.
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
Because when all the tawdry details are stripped away (so to speak... ahem...) this is indeed what remains: Trump gamed the system to suppress bad news about him which could have influenced how people voted. And since a relative handful of votes in a few key swing states provided him with his victory, if he hadn't done so things could easily have gone the other way.
Or, he might just as easily have won by a lot more than a relative handful of votes if the 'bad' news about him had come out. I mean, that isn't much of a stretch, you have to admit.
To put it differently, we might now be in a frenzy of horserace speculation about which Democratic candidate would be the nominee to succeed President Hillary Clinton, at the end of her second term.
Well, she might also have been a one-term president. I mean, it wouldn't have surprised me. So, there's that. Of course, in any event, my guy would never have ended up in the White House if Trump had lost in 2016, perhaps. So, there's that on top of that. :)
Remember that the illegal conspiracy to influence the 2016 presidential election not only involved the "catch-and-kill" scheme that was entered into between Trump, Cohen, Pecker/AMI and others but also included the false denigration of Trump's Republican opponents as well as Democrats:
* Ben Carson left sponge inside patient's brain
* Bernie Sanders caught in "child sex probe"
* Marco Rubio photographed at "man fest foam party"
* Ted Cruz "raging alcoholic"
* Ted Cruz "five secret mistresses"
* Ted Cruz named in madam's "black book"
* Ted Cruz's father linked to JFK assassination
* Hillary Clinton 103 pounds, eating herself to death
* Hillary Clinton ill (multiple invented stories)
- 3 strokes
- Alzheimer's
- Liver damage from booze
While at the same time the conspiracy included promotion of Donald Trump through AMI publications.
David Pecker and Dyland Howard are witnesses for the prosecution regarding AMI.
Interesting reading from an employee of AMI:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/03/magazine/national-enquirer-trump-lachlan-cartwright.html
You're not right about what the NY case is about.
Yes, it's not a hush money case b/c there's nothing illegal about paying someone after the fact to keep an affair quiet.
As far as
Trump gamed the system to suppress bad news about him which could have influenced how people voted.
No! How is that a violation in NYS? NY went for Biden. NY experienced no tort. To the extent that election interference was involved that might affect other states, that's a federal matter up to the (toothless) FEC to adjucate.
Trump did not pay hush money to Stormy Daniels. That's what this case is about. Had he done so, there would be no case. He used his business to pay her off and the business wrote it off as an expense.
Simply put.
1. NYS was deprived of tax revenue. NYS frowns on such behavior.
2. Large financial institutions (read: executive and donor class) in NYS were deprived of revenue. NYS frowns at that.
NYS goes after either of those. Put them together and the State goes "balls out," always.
Speak2 -
I am interested, since you are being so precise...
Why do you think the feds didn't go after Trump after he was out of office for the same thing? After all, they had already convicted Cohen of it, and Trump was named an "unindicted co-conspirator" in that case... so why didn't the feds pursue it when they could (after he was out of office)? Your points are valid, but they wouldn't even be an issue if Trump was being tried in federal court for the same thing... the damage then would have been to the whole country, not just to NY.
Merrick's timidity? Or something else?
-CW
Kick -
I will check that article out, and that is a rather extensive list!
:-)
-CW
LizM -
YEah, well, this whole article was speculative... a journey into Make-Believe Land...
:-)
-CW
CW [4]
My best guess is that the feds have been very timid going after anyone who holds wealth and power who may have played a role. No members of Congress, no money people, etc.
I'm trying to think of anyone who wasn't charged with contempt and come up blank.
I imagine the most dangerous lawsuit will be from investors.
The SEC may not have clout with the current judiciary, but the Truth Social investors are the same people who fund things like the Federalist Society.
According to Rachel Maddow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNd5Gu-BUkk, Trump appointees in the DoJ watered down the indictment of Michael Cohen to avoid naming Trump and then interferred with a potential Federal investigation along with other interference. (There was a WAPo article in September 2022 as well.)
Speak2
3
You're not right about what the NY case is about.
CW is actually correct about the case, but there are more details.
Yes, it's not a hush money case b/c there's nothing illegal about paying someone after the fact to keep an affair quiet.
The two aren't mutually exclusive. It's both a hush money case and a fraud case... a conspiracy to defraud the people.
As far as
"Trump gamed the system to suppress bad news about him which could have influenced how people voted." ~ CW
That's exactly what he did. He also entered into a conspiracy to promote himself over all of his other opponents.
No! How is that a violation in NYS?
* Campaign Receipts and Expenditures, Violations; Penalties New York Election Law Section 14-126
also
NY went for Biden. NY experienced no tort.
It appears to me you are confusing damages for civil tort with violations of criminal law (and not for the first time on this forum). If Trump had conspired with someone to kill multiple persons to suppress their stories rather than entering into a conspiracy to "catch and kill" their multiple stories, would he not be guilty of conspiracy to commit murder because he didn't win the State of New York? Not succeeding in New York doesn't erase the violation of multiple laws of the State of New York.
To the extent that election interference was involved that might affect other states, that's a federal matter up to the (toothless) FEC to adjucate.
People can (and do) commit election interference without being successful, and it makes it no less a violation of criminal statute whether they succeed or they failed.
Trump did not pay hush money to Stormy Daniels.
Two of his personal lawyers admit that he did. Guiliani admitted on live television that Trump "funneled it through a law firm," and Cohen admits he paid it with the funds from a HELOC at the direction of Trump and was reimbursed by Trump. There's also a nondisclosure agreement, but Trump apparently never signed it. Trump himself (on live television) admitted to paying it:
That's what this case is about. Had he done so, there would be no case.
He did so and admitted to doing so, and there's definitely a case.
He used his business to pay her off and the business wrote it off as an expense.
Are you aware that Trump's lawyers are arguing that Trump's reimbursement checks to Cohen were not unlawful because Trump "cannot be said to have falsified business records of the Trump Organization by paying his personal attorney using his personal bank accounts."?
Mezzo, you make some very valid points and I stand corrected in several places (try to not make a mistake more than once).
I believe it is still the fact that admitting to paying off Ms Daniels is different than the money coming from his checking acct.
That is, his business paid her off and he considers his business to be himself. Legally, that's not true.
Test