“The American economy added a million new jobs in May and a billion new jobs in June,” Santos declared. “President Trump is creating jobs like crazy—he even gave one to Pete Hegseth.”
The unprecedented job growth has boosted Trump’s approval rating, which Santos said currently stands at 140 percent.
Trump’s DoJ has opened an investigation into New York Attorney General Letitia James, related to her successful prosecution of him on business fraud. According to the linked article, the grand jury probe into James is said to be looking into deprivation of rights, which means violating someone’s constitutional rights, against Trump.
I do not see how they could investigate Trump’s perceived enemies and then fail to prosecute most of them. But I also do not see much chance of jury convictions, especially if tried in red states, as seems likely. And I also do not see Trump accepting the humiliation of acquittal after acquittal. How could this realistically play out?
Harassment. It’s essentially the same strategy which private citizen Trump used against his enemies and rivals for decades, in civil courts: keep filing nuisance lawsuits, and force people he hates to lawyer up and burn money on legal fees. Only, now, with the added bonus of possible actual jail time, due to the DOJ being his puppet.
The prosecution itself is consequence enough. The individual person may be exonerated, but their life will be tied up for years and the financial impact of funding the defense will be debilitating. This is then paraded as an example for others: don’t cross me or I’ll ruin your life.
I think it’s more narcissism. He genuinely doesn’t understand that he did anything wrong, and really believes that the prosecutions are a great criminal conspiracy against him. He totally thinks that they are the real criminals and he is the innocent victim.
And when senior LEOs tell him there is no crime to investigate, or if an investigation finds no evidence of wrongdoing, or if a Judge dismisses the case, Trump will genuinely think they are part of the conspiracy, and order an investigation into them too.
From the POV of the accused, yes, especially if another GOP administration is elected in 2028.
The unsuccessful prosecution of Donald Trump was not life-ruining or debilitating. When a co-defendant like Sidney Powell made a plea agreement, it was debilitating to her. But she was presumably guilty*. Defendants off of Kash Patel’s enemies list are unlikely to plea guilty on account of being innocent (although maybe some innocent lower level co-defendant, offered zero jail time in return, will at least plead no contest).
DJT would see it as unacceptable if major defendants were given a so-called slap on the wrist sentence, much less an acquittal. Think how Trump would feel when he meets peer dictators who are much more successful than he is at killing or jailing their internal enemies. Humiliation! I’m not saying Donald will destroy our system of fair trials. I am saying he will want to, and what then happens is hard to predict..
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* Presumably? As an opponent of plea bargains, I do not see a plea bargain, agreed upon to avoid the trial penalty, as being the same proof of guilt as a trial conviction.