Trump’s indictment over hush money to a porn star would be poetic justice | Margaret Sullivan

You have to hand it to Stormy Daniels.

After all of Donald Trump’s well-documented misdeeds over the decades – his bogus university and failed casino, his Covid denialism, his connivance with dictators, his blatant lies about election fraud, his incitement of a deadly riot – it required a hush money payment . to a porn actress to create the most imminent threat of him facing criminal charges

It may seem bizarre that such a small-time offense — a mere $130,000 to cover up a reported affair — could be the thing to bring down this world-class con man.

But in the never-ending weirdness of Trump World, it would make a kind of inevitable sense.

After all, the toughness of the Stormy Daniels situation is a perfect match for one of Trump’s enduring qualities.

Remember her boast on the infamous Access Hollywood tape about sexual assault. Remember his cringing hints about wishing he could date his own daughter. Don’t discount that he served fast food to the Clemson football team when they visited the White House. Or his terrible paper towel toss to Puerto Rican hurricane victims. Or his love of flashy decor that prompted the UK’s House and Garden magazine to advise in a 2020 headline: “Why we should never forget the monstrosity that was Donald Trump’s golden apartment.”

What’s more, the facts of the case may not be nearly as minor as they seem. Did you have to use business records, possibly to cover up a violation of election law? This is not a wink, and the implications are significant.

“The Stormy Daniels incident is the origin story for Trump’s efforts to manipulate elections and get away with it,” University of Alabama law professor and former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance recently noted, objecting to the idea that it has little is other than a “record-keeping error.”

The potentially criminal element goes back to just before the 2016 presidential election when adult film actress Stormy Daniels, after many failures to do so, tried again to come out with her story about a 2006 affair she credibly claims she had with Trump did. (He denied it.)

But she eventually agreed to keep quiet about it and accept a payment after a deal was negotiated.

You can’t make up the details.

“Mrs. Daniels signed her copy,” the New York Times reported, “on the trunk of a car near a porn set in Calabasas, California.”

Of course, it would be a long way from a grand jury indictment (even that is far from certain) to criminal conviction.

Such an outcome would likely depend on prosecutors being able to prove that Trump paid back his fixer, Michael Cohen, who made the payment, and falsified business records, possibly to cover up a violation of campaign finance laws.

Meanwhile, and ever so predictably, Trump – as usual “witch hunt” – is using the threat of impeachment to raise money from his ever-loyal base of followers who believe he can do no wrong. In the three days after his initial claims that he would be arrested, he reportedly raised $1.5 million, and that’s just the beginning.

The never-ending worry is always the point.

After famously predicting that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters, Trump now has a revised vision for how his hero’s journey will continue.

Claiming that he will be forced to make a concerted move in midtown Manhattan, he sees such a spectacle – the beloved and beleaguered former president in handcuffs – as a way to bond with the MAGA base.

Trump even told allies, according to the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell, that he didn’t care if anyone shot him in the process.

That would only make him “a martyr”, which in turn would ensure that he would win back the presidency in 2024.

Of course, no one should wish for any element of that to happen. Many of us just wish he would go away and let the damage control continue.

But it would certainly bring everything full circle – the Trumpian version of poetic justice.

As for actual justice, it is likely to be more elusive.

With Trump, the final curtain is always eagerly anticipated, but somehow the show goes on.