US Elections: Will Donald Trump Forgive Himself?

May merey / dpa

Trust is an integral part of any election campaign and if there is one thing that Donald Trump does not lack, it is that. Even by his standards, however, the president of the United States leaned out of the window when he said he would race against “the worst candidate” ever.

What if he lost to Democrat Joe Biden? “Maybe I’ll have to leave the country,” scoffed at the Republican in mid-October.

Trump is still holding out by acknowledging his loss to Biden. In all likelihood, however, he will have to leave the White House on January 20. What happens to Trump next? His opponents would like to see the 74-year-old in court.

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Trump remains a powerful force

It is predictable that Trump – who has always stressed that he is not a professional politician – could disappear from Washington, but not into oblivion. “Trump will likely prove tougher than expected and will almost certainly remain a powerful and disruptive force in American life,” wrote The New York Times.

Trump may have been eliminated, Trumpism, his ideology, is not a thing of the past. The grumbling president got more than 70 million votes in the elections, nearly one in two voters would have liked it to be a second term. In a pre-election Washington Examiner poll, 38% of his Republican supporters were in favor of running for president again if he was defeated. Legally, there is nothing against it if he wanted to race again in 2024.

Trump is expected to continue to attract attention via his Twitter account with over 88 million subscribers, it’s his private one. After four years of continuous fire @realdonaldtrump It is to be expected that Trump will continue to comment on world events via tweets – after all, he did so even before his presidency.

The “criminal record”

Legally, things could get uncomfortable for Trump after being forced out of the White House. The Washington Post, in anticipation of Trump’s defeat, took the trouble to fill out “a criminal record for a former president” before the election. The newspaper cited possible violations of campaign finance laws, corruption and obstruction of justice. The latter is primarily aimed at FBI Special Investigator Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

No immunity

Mueller found no evidence of secret agreements between the Trump camp and representatives of Russia prior to the 2016 election. However, he did not expressly exonerate Trump of obstructing justice. In his final report from March last year, Mueller made it clear that it was not possible to bring charges against a president during his term. But he also wrote that “a president has no immunity after leaving office”.

Could Trump forgive himself?

Trump called the Russia investigation a “witch hunt”. He is likely to react similarly if prosecuted after leaving the White House. During the Mueller investigation, Trump tweeted in June 2018: “As has been stated by numerous law scholars, I have an absolute right to forgive myself, but why should I do it if I haven’t done anything wrong?” Whether Trump is actually allowed to do so is controversial: if he were to take such a step in his final weeks in office, it would be the first in U.S. history.

Nixons Blankocheck

It is true that President Richard Nixon also received a blank check under criminal law for his time in the White House, which resulted in his resignation due to the Watergate case: the pardon applied “to all crimes. against the United States that he, Richard Nixon, in the period from January 20, 1969 to August 9, 1974, committed or could have committed or could have participated in. “It was not pronounced by Nixon himself, but by his successor in office, former Vice President Gerald Ford.

The grip with self-forgiveness

Former prosecutor Elie Honig said in a July comment for CNN that a self-forgiveness from Trump probably wouldn’t last. “But there’s hardly any downside to Trump in at least trying to see if he holds up. A weak shield is better than no shield, at least for someone for whom self-defense is more important than the rule of law. “

Even if Trump gets away with it, self-forgiveness would have a problem: it would only apply to crime at the federal level. For example, it would have no influence on the proceedings at the Manhattan Prosecutor’s Office, which, among other things, deals with Trump’s finances. Prosecutors have requested, among other things, his tax documents, which Trump has opposed publication for years. Critics are convinced he has something to hide.

Back to the origins?

Professionally, Trump could go back to his roots: he could have a TV show again, as a reality TV star he was hugely successful. It has also been repeatedly speculated that Trump could run his own station after his political commitment. Most importantly, it could take over the management of the Trump organization, which is mainly active in the real estate sector and manages, among other things, hotels and golf courses.

After his 2016 election victory, Donald Trump handed over the management of the corporate conglomerate to his sons Eric and Donald Junior. But he remained the owner, even though he promised to “isolate himself completely” from his business. Critics accused him of a conflict of interest and accused him of profiting from the presidency. These accusations are not expected to end when Trump leaves office.

How Trump cashed in the taxpayer

“Since his first month in office, Trump has used his power to funnel US taxpayers – and his political backers – millions into his business,” the Washington Post wrote shortly before the election. An example: At the president’s meeting with then Japanese head of government Shinzo Abe in the spring of 2018, Trump’s vacation home, Mar-a-Lago in Florida, gave the U.S. government $ 13,700 for rooms. , $ 16,500 for food and wine and $ 6,000 for Flowers loaded.

The Washington Post reported that since Trump took office, his company has raised at least $ 2.5 million from the US government. Additionally, there would be at least $ 5.6 million for his campaign team events on his estate, money that went into Trump’s company. It may not be a criminal offense, but it is always morally questionable. According to a Washington Post tally, Trump visited his clubs and hotels more than 280 times in his first term. Trump told The Hill newspaper before the 2016 election that if he won, he would hardly have time to leave the White House because of all the work.

Billions lost during the presidency?

Trump has always denied that he would benefit from his office, on the contrary. He said his political commitment cost him billions of dollars due to lost income. “It makes no difference if I lost two billion dollars, five billion dollars or less,” Trump said in October 2019. “I’m doing it for the country. I’m doing it for the people.” , Trump had just had to record his plans to hold the G7 summit at one of his hotels in Florida.

Because Trump’s wealth has shrunk

In fact, Trump’s fortune shrank from $ 3.1 billion to $ 2.5 billion in one year, according to Forbes magazine estimates in September. In the “Forbes” list of the 400 richest Americans, Trump has dropped from 275 to 352. However, “Forbes” does not consider Trump’s commitment as president the reason for this development, but the crown pandemic, which is affecting the value. of office buildings, hotels and resorts. (sda / dpa)