Donald Trump could he end up in handcuffs soon? He himself said it on Saturday. In a post on his social network Truth, the former American president said that he will be arrested on Tuesday, urging his supporters to protest. At the moment, his legal team has announced that they have not received any such notification from the authorities. “The former president has been agitated to anger his grassroots and believes an indictment would help him politically,” CNN reported, citing some “informed people on the matter.”
We remember that Trump reapplied to the nominations Republican presidential election last November 15th. Now, this legal case is part of the investigation, conducted by the district attorney of Manhattan, on the money that the same Trump would have paid in 2016, to get the silence of the porn star, Stormy Daniels, regarding an alleged relationship the two allegedly had in 2006. In particular, the former president is suspected of violating campaign finance laws. This is a highly controversial issue, on which legal experts have long been divided. Generally, supporters of the former president resort to the precedent of John Edwards: Democratic presidential candidate in 2008, who faced similar charges and was eventually acquitted.
Whatever it is, if Trump ended up in handcuffs, he would be the first former president of the United States to suffer this fate. This would not be the first case of a presidential candidate conducting an election campaign from prison. the socialist, Eugene V. Debs, ran for the 1920 presidential election while incarcerated in the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, garnering 3.4% of the vote. This means that, even if he is arrested, Trump could remain in the field for the presidential elections of 2024.
On the other hand, the American Constitution imposes just one of the requirements to become president: natural citizenship, age not less than 35 years and residence in the United States for 14 years. Nothing else. To be precise, the Democrats tried to interdict Trump from public offices through the effects of the second impeachment, attempted on him in January 2021 after the raid on the Capitol: a proceeding which however foundered, as the person concerned was subsequently acquitted in the Senate.
It is also in this context that various members of the Republican Party have criticized the possibility of an arrest. The Speaker of the Chamber, Kevin McCarthydeclared that an indictment would represent “an outrageous abuse of power”, while the former US vice president, Mike Pencespoke of a “political accusation” (among other things, it should not be forgotten that the District Attorney of Manhattan, Alvin Braggbelongs to the Democratic Party).
It goes without saying that, at the time Trump should he really end up under arrest, the electoral campaign in view of the 2024 presidential elections would start to really ignite. And it is not clear how this scenario would affect the electoral process. It would definitely cripple Trump? Or, paradoxically, would you relaunch your candidacy? Of course we don’t know. But, on the nose, perhaps it is the second hypothesis that is more probable. The former president would accuse the Manhattan prosecutor’s office of political persecution. And the other contenders to the nominations Republican (current and potential) would find themselves with less leeway to attack it.
