Analysis: America’s next Trump ‘circus’

A flurry of controversies is coming to a head

In a separate probe, the department is investigating whether Trump broke the law by hoarding highly classified information at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Any prosecutions of the ex-President and those around him would set off an extraordinary political conflagration especially if Trump — already the GOP frontrunner for 2024 — is by then a declared candidate for president.

There’s a rising prospect next month’s election will install a Republican majority in the House that will effectively mean a return of Trumpism to political power given the hold the ex-President maintains over the House GOP. Some leading “Make America Great Again” Republicans are already speaking of a possible drive to impeach Biden and have already signaled they will use their powers to investigate to rough up Biden for a possible clash with Trump in 2024.

An already pro-Trump Republican presence in Washington is likely to expand after the midterms. Scores of Trump-endorsed candidates are running on a platform of his 2020 election fraud falsehoods, raising questions over whether they will accept results should they lose their races in just over two weeks.

On another politically sensitive front, the Trump Organization’s criminal tax fraud and grandy larceny trial begins in Manhattan on Monday. The ex-President hasn’t been personally charged but the trial could impact his business empire and prompt fresh claims from him that he is being persecuted for political reasons that could inject yet another contentious element into election season. In a separate civil case, New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, has filed a $250 million civil suit against Trump, three of his adult children and the Trump Organization, alleging that they ran tax and insurance fraud schemes to enrich themselves for years.

Democrats have made their own attempts to return Trump to the political spotlight. President Joe Biden equated MAGA followers with “semi-fascism” and some campaigns have tried to scare critical suburban voters by warning pro-Trump candidates are a danger to democracy.

But raging inflation and spikes in gasoline prices appear to be a far more potent concern before voters head to the polls, which could spell bad news for the party in power in Washington.

An unprecedented political hangover from an ex-president

Trump’s current prominence on the political scene was already highly unusual. One-term presidents typically fade fairly fast into history. But it is a testament to the firm hold he maintains over much of the GOP that he’s still a key player nearly two years after losing reelection. And while there is growing talk about whether his thicket of legal and political controversies could convince some GOP primary voters it’s time to move on, Trump still seems to have plenty of juice.

The ex-President told supporters at a rally in Texas on Saturday regarding the possibility of a new White House bid, “I will probably have to do it again.”

His most immediate clash with the institutions of accountability went to another level Friday when the House January 6 committee issued a subpoena for documents and testimony. Trump has a long history of challenging such requests and of trying to delay or frustrate investigations into his conduct. But the subpoena also raised the possibility that he might opt to testify in order to claim the political spotlight — even though giving evidence under oath could cause him more legal exposure.

Cheney warned on Sunday that Trump wouldn’t be allowed to turn an appearance into a political opportunity.

“It may take multiple days, and it will be done with a level of rigor and discipline and seriousness that it deserves,” Cheney told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“This isn’t going to be, you know, his first debate against Joe Biden and the circus and the food fight that that became. This is a far too serious set of issues.”

Trump offered a glimpse of how he might use an appearance before the committee to create a political extravaganza after the panel announced it would send out the subpoena. In a 14-page letter, he made multiple false and debunked claims about election fraud, and lashed out at the panel itself, branding members “highly partisan political Hacks and Thugs whose sole function is to destroy the lives of many hard-working American Patriots, whose records in life have been unblemished until this point of attempted ruination.”

The committee has taken most depositions behind closed doors and on video and used testimony throughout its highly produced presentations. Only its most sympathetic witnesses have appeared in person. While this has helped create a powerful narrative that has painted a picture of shocking derelictions of duty by Trump on January 6, it has also deprived viewers of seeing witnesses under cross examination. This has made it difficult to assess whether the committee’s case would stand up to more rigorous evidentiary requirements in a court of law.

The prospect of video testimony over an intense period of days or hours is likely to be unappealing to the former President because it would be harder for him to dictate the terms of the exchanges and control how his testimony might be used.

This could all become academic anyway. Given the possibility of a Trump legal challenge to the subpoena, the issue could drag on for months and become moot since a possible new Republican House majority would likely sweep the January 6 committee away as one of its first acts.

The panel is debating whether to make criminal referrals of Trump and those around him to the Department of Justice over their actions around January 6. But the most significant potential areas of criminal liability for the ex-President are in the hands of Attorney General Merrick Garland — over the January 6 case and the classified documents storm — and prosecutors in Georgia, who are investigating attempts by Trump and his allies to overthrow the 2020 election in the key swing state.

If there is evidence a crime was committed, Garland would face a dilemma over whether the national interest lay in implementing the law to its full extent or whether the consequences of prosecuting a former commander in chief in a fractious political atmosphere could tear the country apart.

A decision to charge an ex-president running for a non-consecutive second White House term would undoubtedly cause a firestorm. But sparing him from accountability if there’s evidence of a crime would send a damaging signal to future presidents with strongman instincts.

Since everything about Trump’s political career has been unprecedented, it’s hardly surprising that his political reemergence is posing new questions with the potential to further challenge and damage the country’s political institutions.