WASHINGTON – His position in rewritten history books, President Donald Trump has endured his moment of political judgment largely alone and quietly.
For more than 4 years, Trump has ruled national discourse like no one before him; however, when his legacy was engraved in stone on Wednesday, he incredibly left it aside.
Trump is now a moment for none, the only president to have been charged twice with a felony or misdemeanor, a new coda for a period explained through deepening the nation’s divisions, his mistakes in the worst pandemic in a century, and his refusal to reach an agreement for defeat at the ballot box.
Trump remained out of sight in an almost empty White House while the political trial process took place at the U. S. Capitol, where the damage from last week’s riots was a visual reminder of the president’s insurgency he accused of inciting.
Abandoned by some members of his own party, Trump may simply do nothing by watching the story broadcast on television. The suspension of his Twitter account disadvantaged Trump from his tough tactics to keep Republicans online, giving the impression that Trump had been deactivated and, for the first time, his control over his adoptive party in question.
Despite everything he heard hours after the vote, in a dim video condemning the insurgency on Capitol Hill and warning his supporters of any additional violence, it was a message that was largely a week away, when the troublemakers marched in Trump’s name descended to the Capitol to verify and prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s victory.
“I have to be very clear: I unequivocally condemn the violence we saw last week,” Trump said. He added that “no genuine supporter” of his “will ever tolerate political violence. “
But the message, partly motivated to warn against legal exposure for triggering the mutiny, opposed what Trump has said in his tenure, adding when he suggested his supporters “fight” for it last week.
Trump did not say a word about his political trial in the video, complained about the ban on his social media and later on Wednesday asked his allies if he had gone too far with the video, wondering if he could disappoint some of his members. Four White House officials and Republicans close to the West Wing discussed Trump’s personal talks on an anonymity because it was not legal to do so publicly.
With only a week in Trump’s tenure, there hasn’t been a bellicose message from the White House fighting proceedings at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue and no legal response fixed. The same area violated through troublemakers a week before a Democracy Citadel siege that left five other people dead.
In the end, 10 Republicans voted for the trial.
It was a marked replacement for Trump’s first indictment. The December 2019 vote in the House, which made Trump the third president indicted in history, took place on partisan principles. tension in Ukraine to investigate a political enemy, Joe Biden, now president-elect.
At the time, the White House criticized for not created the kind of resilient “war room” that President Bill Clinton mobilized in his own struggle for political judgment. However, Trump’s allies arranged their own rejection campaign. There were lawyers, message meetings at the White House and a media bombardment led by allies on television, radio and conservative websites.
Trump was acquitted in 2020 through the GOP-controlled Senate and his approval rates were not affected, but this time, as some members of his own party subsidized him and accused him of committing impenetrable crimes, Trump stayed away and quietly. the bombastic “I can only fix it” seemed to end up in a groan.
Third-place Republican Liz Cheney of Wyoming said there had never been a greater betrayal through a president. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, Republican for Kentucky, told his colleagues in a letter that he had not done so. how I would vote in a political trial.
For the first time, Trump’s long term seemed uncertain, and what was once unthinkable, that enough Republican senators would challenge him and vote to remove him from the workplace, seemed at least possible, though unlikely.
But the White House has made no effort to align the votes with the president’s defense.
The team around Trump is shattered, the White House council’s workplace is not building a legal defense plan, and the legislative affairs team is largely abandoned. Trump trusted Senator Lindsey Graham, RS. C. , to pressure Republican senators to oppose the political trial. Graham’s spokesman said the senator made the calls of his own free will.
Trump and his allies believed that the president’s strong popularity among the republican electorate of lawmakers would deter them from voting against him. The president was furious at McConnell and Cheney’s perceived disloyalty and deeply frustrated at not being able to retaliate with his Twitter account, which has kept Republicans online for years.
He also opposed his private lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who has promoted conspiracy theories and many in the president’s orbit are partly guilty of any of the accusations. Trump was irritated by Giuliani’s generous spending, which included a $20,000-a-day payment request and told attendees not to pay him.
Trump watched much of the day’s debates on television from the White House apartment and his personal dining room next to the Oval Office. Shortly before his political trial, Trump in the East Room of the White House presented the National Medal of arts to singers Toby Keith and Ricky Skaggs and former Associated Press photographer Nick Ut.
His main concern, beyond his legacy, is the moment when the prosecution can affect his political and monetary future.
The loss of his Twitter account and fundraising lists can complicate Trump’s efforts to remain a Republican kings doer and potentially return in 2024. In addition, Trump has been instiling punches into his business, adding the retirement of a PGA tournament from one of his golf courses. New York’s resolve to avoid taking care of its business.
It is imaginable that if the Senate condemns him, he will also be prevented from running in the election, accelerating any hope of any other presidential campaign.
A White House spokesman did not answer questions about whether someone in construction seeks to protect Trump, who is now the subject of presidential political trials in the country’s history.
A crusade adviser, Jason Miller, argued that Democrats’ efforts would serve to galvanize Republican base Trump and, in the end, harm Biden. He blamed democrats for the immediate speed of silence, saying that “there was no time to mount a classic intervention operation. “”But he promised that “the real war will be the Senate, where there will be a more classic recoil effort. “
The Capitol Hill retreats went as the House was on its way to the appeal of a political trial.
Some of the Capitol’s doors were damaged and the windows damaged; a barricade had been erected outside the construction doors and there were new retainers; hundreds of Members of the National Guard patrolled the corridors, even sleeping on the city’s marble floors. the same roundabout that once housed Abraham Lincoln’s coffin.
And now, the Capitol is the most historic site, adding to the bankruptcy that introduces Clinton, who was charged 21 years ago for mendacity under oath on sex with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, and Andrew Johnson, who was charged 151 years ago for challenging Congress over reconstruction. Other access considerations Richard Nixon, who has avoided political judgment by resigning during the Watergate investigation.
But Trump, the defendant twice, will be alone again.
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Lemire back from New York.