“Losing an election to the highest office is a crushing blow that no candidate forgets. But when the American electorate delivers its verdict next week, the personal stakes for Donald Trump will be exceptionally high. His fate will oscillate between the presidency and the threat of prison” – says the head of the Guardian's office, w Washington David Smith.
US elections 2024. President or prison for Trump?
The author of the comment reminded that Trump has walked the line between ethics and law throughout his business and television careerfaced countless investigations, legal battles and hefty fines. His private and professional life was “full of scandals on a monumental scale,” and yet he always managed to evade responsibility, Smith wrote.
“He developed a reputation as a guy who could get away with it” – said Gwenda Blair, author of Trump's biography.
The “Guardian” journalist mentioned in this context, among others: lawsuits for fraud and the use of misleading advertising by Trump University companyoffering real estate courses, which the Republican candidate closed in 2016 a settlement amounting to $25 million.
His charitable foundation was accused of using funds for private and business purposesand in February the court in New York ordered Trump and his company payment of $350 million in damages in a civil fraud case.
First US president convicted in a criminal case
According to calculations by the Washington Post, during the four years of his presidency Trump 30 thousand times he lied or made misleading statements on a wide range of issues – from the number of people at his inauguration to the results of the 2020 election he lost.
In May, a jury in state court in Manhattan convicted the former president guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
Trump became the first former president in US history to be convicted in a criminal case. However, the case, initially described as the trial of the century, has already begun to disappear from public awareness and played an unexpectedly small role in the election campaign – said the author of the commentary.
US elections. Donald Trump “like a good conman”
Trump has also been charged in numerous other cases, including: conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 electionafter which supporters of the former president stormed the Capitol.
He was also charged with illegally keeping secret documents taken from the White House.
“With such a caseload, it was widely assumed that Trump would spend this election shuttling between rallies and trials. But that legal campaign never happened because, as before, found ways to throw sand into the wheels of justice and postpone the moment of reckoning,” Smith said.
“Whenever he was impeached, his polls went up.”
In his opinion, Trump also succeeded turn the tables and present the charges against him as proof that he is a martyrpersecuted by hidden hostile forces allegedly controlling the state. In this narrative, Democrats, not Trump, are the threat to American democracy.
“For reasons I don't understand, whenever he was impeached, his polls rose (…). Every time they bring charges against him again, he simply uses it as further evidence that he is being persecuted. It's ridiculous, but he turned it around. Like a good conman,” said former Trump national security adviser John Bolton.
If Trump wins the election, he will likely use all means to suppress the ongoing proceedings against him. If he loses, his legal problems will again gather over him like dark clouds – said the author of the Guardian's commentary.
The Guardian had previously supported the candidacy Kamali Harris in an editorial.
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