Donald Trump returned to Washington this Thursday, the city he had left on January 20, 2021, when he was rushing his last four hours as president. That cold winter morning at Edwards Air Force Base, outside the capital, Trump gave a brief speech to his supporters in which he included a premonition: “Somehow, we will return.”
Yesterday, Trump returned. He did it to plead “not guilty” before the federal court that accuses him of trying to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential elections. On his social network, Truth, the Republican -a favorite in the polls- had already used the entire legal offensive in code Electoralista: «I need another accusation to ensure the election». Because Trump went to Washington for the magistrate Moxila Upadyaha read him the four counts of his indictment for allegedly conspiring to steal the 2020 election. It was a brief, formal act, in which, according to the journalists present, the former president was serious. This is the third time Trump has been prosecuted in four months. And there is still a fourth case, in the state of Georgia, also for an attempt to falsify the electoral results. In total, the former president has 78 charges against him. The next session will be on August 28, and everything seems to indicate that the trial will be fast, exactly the opposite of what the defendant’s defense wants.
That’s where Trump’s premonitory phrase about the fourth indictment comes from. Although the politician faces the risk of ending his campaign for the White House in 2024 in jail -especially in the case that was seen yesterday in Washington- that does not necessarily imply that he will lose the elections. He and Joe Biden are tied in voting intentions, according to a poll published Tuesday by the New York Times. And 69% of Republican voters are indeed convinced that Trump won the 2020 election.
Trump has used the two indictments he has received to date –one for documentary falsification to violate the law that regulates electoral campaigns and another for the withholding of state secrets after leaving office – as springboards to reinforce his campaign. To this day he has no rival in the Republican Party, a political formation whose bases simply adore him, and which he has moved towards an isolationist nationalism and a rejection of liberal ideology that make the so-called Old Great Party an unrecognizable political creature. , who admires Viktor Orban and has legislators who do not hide their sympathy for Vladimir Putin.
That was the situation in humid Washington yesterday, in which the sky dripped non-stop but it never stopped raining when, at four in the afternoon in Washington (ten in the evening in Spain), the ex-president entered the Courts. On the street, the police had put up barriers – including a surreal collection of snowplows – in anticipation of possible incidents. But, with the exception of a few supporters and opponents of the former president, the situation was relatively calm. Of course, one thing is calm and another thing is normal. Michael Symonette-alias “Michael the Black”-, who had flown from Miami to Washington at night to support the former president, explained to EL MUNDO that Trump “is like the king [persa] Cyrus, who saved the Jews though he was not one of them.”although now the “Jews” are “the blacks, the whites and the Hispanics”. Simonette is a regular figure at pro-Trump events, where she often gets favored treatment from the president’s team, wearing her jersey “Blacks for Trump”. well visible. But he wasn’t the only one who had something to say.