A stroke of luck couldn’t have come at a better moment for Donald Trump. The decision of Aileen Cannon, a US District Judge, to throw out the charge that accused the former president of mishandling confidential information on Monday has further strengthened Trump’s campaign, in what was already turning out to be an unparalleled week in his attempt to regain the presidency.
The exoneration came just a couple of days after Trump’s life was threatened by a potential assassin’s bullet that barely missed his ear, and mere days before his anticipated declaration as the Republican presidential nominee. This turn of events gives Trump the ammunition to counter one of the most severe allegations levelled against him: the argument that his careless handling of the country’s classified documents made him ineligible to reassume presidency.
During his journey to Milwaukee for his party’s nomination event, Trump reflected on his brush with death in a Sunday chat, recounting the crucial moment when he moved his head at just the “right angle”, saving himself from a prospective assassin’s bullet in the previous day’s rally. In his words to the Washington Examiner, he acknowledged his survival saying, “It’s absolutely astounding. Technically, I shouldn’t even be alive”.
These close calls for Trump coincide with Joe Biden’s politically precarious phase. Following Biden’s lacklustre debate performance last month, many have questioned his capacity to serve another term, with some from his own party urging him to step down. The assassination attempt has compelled Biden to shift focus from a new strategy aimed at effectively challenging Trump.
Trump has capitalised on the legal and physical threats against him to galvanise Republican support and to raise money from individual donors. The ex-president came into July with a war chest of $285 million compared to Biden’s $240 million. Even though the specifics of his recent fundraising figures remain undisclosed, it’s clear that these incidents have left Trump feeling even more defiant.
On Monday, Trump drew a correlation between his near-assassination experience and the legal battles he’s fighting. He emphasised that the unity of the nation, which he is advocating, must come on his conditions. He voiced on his social media platform, Truth Social, that the dismissal of the “lawless indictment” in Florida should be the initial step towards ending all the “witch hunts”.
The previous president labelled the attempts to scapegoat him for his role in the January 6th Capitol incursion as a “deception” and denied any acquaintance with E Jean Carroll, a woman whom a jury ruled he was responsible for assaulting sexually. “We must unite to ELIMINATE all Misuse of our Justice System and revive American greatness!” the former president added.
The abrupt conclusion of Cannon’s case, considered the most dangerous among all criminal cases against Trump, was due to its verdict. He was charged with transporting secret documents from the White House to his residence in Florida, unveiling their details to unauthorised individuals and then obstructing federal officials from retrieving them.
The case first caught public attention two years back, when local authorities at his Mar-a-Lago abode in Florida snapped pictures of scattered documents across numerous rooms. Trump refuted any misconduct insisting upon his rights to retain the documents.
However, that evidence was not under consideration in the judge’s 93-page ruling. Rather, Cannon – a federal bench appointee by Trump in 2020 – voiced that the nomination of Special Counsel Jack Smith as a prosecutor was irregular since it lacked Senate approval.
Regardless of his guilty verdict in the New York payoff case, the criminal prosecutions against Trump have largely remained at a standstill. Trump witnessed another leeway when his Manhattan hearing was postponed till at least September following the Supreme Court’s opinion on presidential immunity.
This verdict could potentially thwart proceedings to indict Trump in two pending cases, deferred until post the November election. These cases essentially accuse him of participating in a plot to challenge the 2020 presidential election outcome. – Bloomberg.