The Guilted Age

Our usual programming of aggregation has been pre-empted by the conviction of Donald Trump, the only conviction he’s ever been associated with. Your regular TFN will return on Monday, made possible by the support of readers who choose to become paid subscribers.

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They all have to do it. Four times a year — more in election years.

They fill out those pesky Federal Election Commission (FEC) forms, quarterly, primaries, general elections, and more. The forms are so woven into federal political life that politicians track and categorize donations and expenditures constantly. They diligently note which expenses were to help the campaign and duly report them as such.

And it can get messy. Which is why campaign veterans are well familiar with those annoying FEC letters telling them they screwed up and giving them a chance to fix it. Point being, they know these laws and have accepted their regime as routine and normal.

Republicans know these laws.

They understand the moral underpinning for these laws. The principle is that voters should know what candidates do to win office. And it’s not just democratic ideals at stake. Because all the candidates are expected to abide by these rules, it’s an issue of basic fairness, as well.

When you win elected office by secretly violating the rules that your opponent follows, when you win by effectively lying to voters in your mandatory disclosures to them, you have stolen your office. Not that long ago, everyone who ran for office understood this.

Which makes Republicans today feigning the illegitimacy of these laws all the more heinous. As does this:

The vast majority of them have been in politics, in governance, for years, if not decades. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has literally served in the United States Senate during both the Second and Third Millennia since the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. He has been a political campaigner for almost half a century, accruing a familiarity with campaign rules few ever do.

But for months, McConnell maintained silence about the prosecution of then-D4FRFP¹ Donald Trump for falsifying business records to circumvent those campaign laws that McConnell understands profoundly well. And yesterday, after DCC3FRFP² Donald Trump was convicted on all of those charges — predicated on laws that have guided him for decades — McConnell wrote that, “These charges never should have been brought in the first place.”

As The Hill noted, McConnell’s previous silence implied the hope that someone other than Trump would be the nominee.

And McConnell, more than just about anyone, understands Trump’s willingness to claim power criminally. Trump’s now been convicted of doing so in 2016, but both times Trump was impeached were about subsequent attempts to steal the presidency, as well, using means of escalating gravity.

Trump’s first — and only successful — attempt was carried out by falsifying private business records. Literally a misdemeanor outside the purview of campaign-finance laws.

But in trying to steal the 2020 presidential election, Trump upped the ante proportionately with the vast power he now held. He told Ukraine’s president to investigate — or just say Ukraine was investigating — Joe Biden. The cloud of doubt, however ephemeral or short-lived, would benefit Trump’s 2020 campaign.

If Ukraine failed to comply, Trump threatened to withhold, illegally, monies already appropriated for Ukraine by the United States Congress. Trump at the time controlled the Justice Department that ought to have prosecuted him for this criminal scheme but did not.

The only remedy, then, was impeachment. The Democratic-controlled House impeached Trump. The Republican-controlled Senate acquitted him.

McConnell blocked Democrats from calling witnesses in the Senate. Rather than serving as the impartial Senate juror envisioned by the Constitution, McConnell said he was taking his “cues from the president’s lawyers.”

He called the impeachment effort “rushed” and won Trump’s acquittal, with only Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) breaking ranks.

While the first impeachment was rushed, the second one was too late in McConnell’s eyes; he never clarified exactly what precise window is required for Republicans to accept impeachment legitimacy.

Because Trump elevated his efforts to steal the presidency so late in his term, the impeachment could not have come before that term ended. Nevertheless, in 2021, McConnell again demurred on impeachment — even after Trump sent hundreds of violent supporters into the U.S. Capitol to steal by force the presidency he first won via fraud and then sought to keep through extortion.

Yes, McConnell acknowledged, this attempted election theft was a “disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty.”

Yes, McConnell said, the mob that sought to kill members of Congress — to steal the presidency from Biden and the right to vote from Americans — had been “fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth. Because he was angry he’d lost an election.”

Alas, however, “impeachment was never meant to be the final forum for American justice,” McConnell said, explaining his vote to acquit Trump again. “We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one.”

Until they are.

The argument offered by McConnell and other Republicans today echoes the one made in court by Trump’s lawyers, from whom they’re apparently still taking their cues. The argument is this: That the charges are so arcane and unusual that, in McConnell’s view, the verdict is illegitimate and the conviction will be overturned on appeal.

This position in and of itself is a violent overthrow of the once-sacred norm of politicians respecting judicial verdicts.

It’s true that the charges are novel, perhaps even unprecedented. But this wasn’t a fatal flaw for the prosecution. It reflected the fact that Trump has been uniquely willing to violate norms no one has before and to seek uncharted paths of electoral criminality. The charges will be rare if the crime is.

Twelve jurors vindicated that interpretation. And in the coming days and weeks there is a very good chance we will learn more about the deliberations, as jurors decide to speak out — anonymously or otherwise. 

Did they feel intimidated by public statements from Trump or his Republican proxies? Were they truly impartial? What sealed Trump’s guilt in their eyes?

It’s possible the specific details will bolster Republican claims — so far unfounded — of a “rigged” trial, but the precedent in high-profile cases is of jurors fulfilling their duties responsibly, even admirably. Should that prove to be the case, this, too, will cement the legitimacy of the verdict and further damn its disingenuous skeptics.

Politicians are supposed to honor and uphold jury verdicts until and unless they’re overturned by a court of law. Especially when they have offered precisely zero evidence of anything untoward in the trial. Even if it’s not presided over by a judge who was appointed by the defendant courtesy of a stolen presidency.

The idea that this crime, that all white-collar crime, isn’t really crime because it’s just “pieces of paper,” as Trump’s lawyer said, is inherently racist and classist. Poor people and people of color are disproportionately targeted not because they are worse than rich people but because they lack the criminal means to which rich people have access. The pieces of paper. The lobbyists who rewrite laws to serve as accomplices with malice aforethought.

Trump’s lawyers and the prosecutors must file motions regarding his sentence by June 13, just two weeks from now. These motions present a quandary for Trump’s lawyers. Typically, defendants seek mercy, demonstrating remorse and, dare I say it, personal growth. Trump’s lawyers will likely seek to delay sentencing, because that’s what they’re paid for.

The big question is whether prosecutors will seek prison time. The quandary for them is that they established in court the severity of the crime. A proportionate sentence would involve prison time and inflame Republicans even further. To date, the prosecution and judge have proved remarkably immune to political pressure and intimidation, but who knows what the next two weeks will bring — Trump is no longer bound by a gag order.

Fascinatingly, the sentencing process includes a report prepared for the judge by a probation officer. Typically, that report is prepared after the defendant is interviewed by the probation officer or social worker or psychologist, who may also speak with the defendants friends friend family members..

The report also includes a victim impact statement. The probation officer may speak with the victims affected by the crime, so expect that knock on your door any day now. And Judge Juan Merchan can consider virtually anything he wants as factors in the sentence, including Trump’s age, previous record, and his conduct during the trial. Which was bad.

We and Trump will learn his sentence on July 11, four days before the Republican National Convention begins. Trump will finally have a chance to speak in open court without risking perjury charges or self-incrimination. On that day, the clock will start ticking to file his appeal: He’ll have 30 days to do it, or else the conviction stands.

As of his sentencing, Trump will officially be deemed a convicted felon in the eyes of the law. And we will learn whether his sentence involves prison time, fines, some form of probation, or, saints preserve us, community service.

Whatever the sentence, Trump likely won’t have to deal with it until after the election is over, since he’s sure to appeal his conviction and that process will take months, at least. Which, in a way, is serendipitous for Democrats. It will mean that Trump’s status as a convicted felon will be official during the campaign and on Election Day — without the sight of Trump in prison garb galvanizing the right and without the conviction being overturned as illegitimate.

And even Trump’s own team considered the process legitimate right up until it legitimately convicted him. We know they did because unnamed Trump allies said before the verdict that they were hoping for a hung jury based on the behavior of one juror in particular. That juror’s “face lit up” when Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and other MAGA sex symbols showed up in court.

But you don’t hope for a hung jury if you know the trial is rigged.

And if Biden really engineered two federal and two state prosecutions of Trump, if Biden’s grip on the justice system is that firm, how is it that Monday marks the start of his son Hunter’s federal trial on gun charges — highly unusual gun charges, as the Washington Post’s Glenn Thrush notes.

In a poll released yesterday, 67% of registered voters said the verdict wouldn’t affect their vote. Seventeen percent said they’d be less likely to vote for Trump if he were convicted. That may not sound like a lot, but in a contest of inches, it is. Biden led Trump in the poll, 50% to 48%.

In a March poll, 13% of Trump’s own 2020 voters in North Carolina said a guilty verdict would make them less likely to vote for Trump. The majority of all these moral pillars might have been lying to these pollsters, but probably not all.

And yet, despite this empirical evidence of majority indifference, Axios stood athwart the ramparts of history last night and declared, “America's political fabric has been fundamentally altered.”

(As if Trump hadn’t spent the last nine years doing alterations on patterns designed over decades by a team including then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), then-President Richard Nixon, then-bloviating Rush Limbaugh, then-alive Roger Ailes, then-alive Lee Atwater, then-White House adviser Karl Rove and oh so many more.)

As evidence, Axios cites some low-level GOP politicos, along with heavier hitters, like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL).

Rubio Tweeted, "Don't just get angry about this travesty, get even!” And if that sounds like a call to arms, take solace in the fact that it was actually a call for your wallet.

That’s the problem with grift: the grift always overpowers the ostensible principle that serves as its calling card. As I keep saying, if this were really Biden corrupting the American justice system to imprison a political foe, MAGA would be in the streets and they’d be right to be.

But even with their notoriously hampered empirical skills, most of them see the theater going on here.

The Trump campaign acknowledged as much last night. It’s not just that Trump was immediately fundraising off his conviction — he warned his own ostensible teammates he would punish them for doing the same.

The Trump campaign put every Republican candidate on notice not to fundraise off his conviction. Why? Because that’s his fucking money and you do not fuck with the money. “Any Republican elected official, candidate or party committee siphoning money from President Trump’s donors are no better than Judge Merchan’s daughter,” Trump campaign co-manager Chris LaCivita said ungrammatically, citing Merchan’s daughter as the current GOP exemplar of moral depravity until Monday, when it’s Hunter Biden again. Point being: There’s money to be made, and Trump’s first in a line that consists of no one else.

This kind of cannibalism is a defining attribute of the grifter. We’re seeing it now, because this is a grift. And everyone sees it.

That’s why no one came to his defense with anything but words. No riots. No storming the courthouse. Just threats and saber-rattling and fundraising Tweets.

Hilariously and impotently, Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) Tweeted, “Time for Red State AGs [attorneys general] and DAs [district attorneys] to get busy.” The implication: Republicans should make up fake charges against Democrats. The other implication: That this would be new. 

My dude, you personally tried to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas based on charges trump³ed up by a cohort of theocrats and partisans (as I reported at the time).

Also my dude, your beloved convict literally made “Lock her up” a campaign slogan — and then despite running the federal justice system for four years still couldn’t make it happen. And this predates Trump.

Under Pres. George W. Bush, the White House pressured federal prosecutors to gin up criminal charges of voter fraud — and fired some who refused — to justify laws making it harder for American citizens to vote. Political fabric my ass.

Maybejustmaybe the real reason for this right-wing rage isn’t grief for our debased justice system (which you’d think they would have provided evidence of by now). Maybe they’re not really outraged at a corrupt justice system they’ve spent decades happily siccing on people of color and the poor.

I suspect what we’re really seeing is horror that Trump has now, for the first time, irrefutably lost a major, important battle.

He claimed he actually won the 2020 vote. But you can’t claim that with a jury, when all 12 voters are standing in front of you rendering a verdict of suck it.

Trump lost. He failed to beat the system. And beating the system is the sum and total of his appeal. The system just beat Trump. A defeat that will stand until Election Day. Republicans are terrified that those 12 jurors just shattered the image that has sustained Trump with his base: Invincibility. For the first time, everyone can see his vulnerability.

MAGA loved him from the get-go because he kept winning in a system he always claimed was rigged. That was his appeal: He and only he beat that rigged system. Yesterday, he lost.

That’s why Trump world, a.k.a. the Republican Party, was so on fire to quash the slightest sign of acknowledgment of that loss.

Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD), who’s now running for Senate at McConnell’s urging, acknowledged Trump’s loss yesterday, writing, “I urge all Americans to respect the verdict and the legal process. At this dangerously divided moment in our history, all leaders — regardless of party — must not pour fuel on the fire with more toxic partisanship. We must reaffirm what has made this nation great: the rule of law.”

It was an honorable thing to say in a cohort that abhors honor. The Trump campaign responded accordingly: “You just ended your campaign,” LaCivita told Hogan.

By happy coincidence, on the same day we got the final verdict on Trump’s abuse of power to deceive America, the lies behind the myth of his political creation were also revealed.

As the sun rose yesterday on the day that would give us Trump’s comeuppance, Slate published the insider story of how Trump upcame in the first place. After 20 years of silence enforced by a non-disclosure agreement, Bill Pruitt, one of the original producers of The Apprentice, revealed what he knew.

Pruitt reminds us that Trump was a joke before the show. A tabloid punchline and bankruptcy court habitué. Job one was to transform him.

The biggest takeaway from Pruitt is how much work it took to hide the clear signs of Trump’s financial shortcomings — shabby decor, etc. — and gin up the appearance of vast wealth and opulence but, even more so, to make Trump appear to be a competent and decisive leader. Their Potemkin Village needed a Potemkin Leader.

Producers and writers had to prompt Trump at every turn. Scripting him. Editing him. Covering for him. As someone who’s sat in edit booths and strived mightily to masquerade on-air incoherence and turn blithe self-absorption into empathy and mastery of subject matter, I can attest that having time to edit — to disguise your cuts with b-roll, to rearrange audio into something resembling narrative flow — and the ability to shoot and reshoot and shoot other shit to cover the bad shit you shot, are powerful tools for utterly erasing reality and birthing an essentially fictional dramatis persona.

Yes, Trump visually and sometimes verbally evaluated pretty much every woman in sight:

• “She’s too heavy.”

• “There’s a beautiful woman behind that camera.”

• “That’s all I want to look at.”

And, yes, Trump said the n-word. Repeatedly. On camera. On tape that either no longer exists or likely will never see the light of day.

Goldman Sachs broker Kwame Jackson, who is Black, was in the running to win the first season. Cameras rolling, Trump asked his team, “But, I mean, would America buy a n----r winning?”

Trump got his answer on Election Day, 2008.

He had been wrong, grossly, vilely wrong. America was better than him and better than he thought America was. Trump won in 2016 because he hid the truth from us, about Stormy Daniels and so much more. About who he really was. Now we know just how much Hollywood helped.

The Apprentice was fiction. The Trump America saw was fiction. But thanks to a judge, a prosecution team, and 12 jurors, now we know the real Trump reality: The Biggest Loser.  

TCB

NICOLE SANDLER Don’t forget to catch me every Monday with the weekly “The Fucking News” segment on The Nicole Sandler Show, which you can watch/listen to live every Monday at 5pm, or on demand, here.

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Go get ‘em, kids…!

1. D4FRFP = Disgraced, quadicted, fraudster, rapist, former President.

2. DCC3FRFP = Disgraced, criminally convicted, tridicted, fraudster, rapist, former President.

3. I know.