Trump's longtime rule-of-law problem
Former President Donald Trump gestures as he speaks at his Mar-a-Lago estate Tuesday, April 4, 2023, in Palm Beach, Fla., after being arraigned earlier in the day in New York City. Credit: AP/Evan Vucci
One glaring irony popped out of Donald Trump’s predictably glum and resentful post-arraignment address Tuesday night from the controlled climate of his Florida digs.
In prime time, Trump again attacked New York State Acting Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who presided over two unrelated criminal tax fraud cases involving Trump’s real estate business ex-CFO. The Trump side lost but with no show of partiality from Merchan.
Despite Trump's attacks, it’s the judicial process Merchan represents that gives Trump's expensive lawyers quite a good chance to beat the rap on his behalf. Several legal experts — including progressives who are no friends of Trump — say District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case is full of holes and based on a flimsy legal theory that lacks precedent.
We'll see how that pans out. For now, one thing that does have precedent — lots of it — is Trump’s chronic defiance of judges, laws, law enforcement agencies, and anyone or anything he sees as standing in the way of his personal whims, money or ambitions.
His record shows a selective contempt for the Constitution he was sworn to uphold.
Trump’s public rants once provoked U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts in a rare statement to chide him for calling members of the court “Obama judges” or “Bush judges” or “Clinton judges.” Consider it likely that on the current court, Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch would dislike being pigeonholed as “Trump judges” — even if they are, by the ex-president's definition.
During his term, Trump warned that Democrats in power would “take away your Second Amendment,” which they have not and could not. He said Article II gave him “the right to do whatever I want as president,” which it does not. He demanded that lawmakers cancel a constitutional provision giving citizenship to those born here, which Republicans then in the majority knew they could not.
And of course, there was the fake-elector plot to effectively nullify constitutional succession in January 2021 after he lost fair and square.
With Trump out of office and running again, it bears reminding that these preplanned outbursts are par for the course.
On Tuesday, he even misled his audience as to what federal prosecutors are examining regarding public documents taken to Mar-a-Lago. Trump claimed that under the Presidential Records Act, “I’m supposed to negotiate with NARA, the National Archives and Records Administration,” which he disparaged.
In fact, as soon as a president leaves office, NARA is supposed to take custody of all presidential records.
Four years ago, when Trump apparatchik Roger Stone was charged with lying to Congress, a photo was posted on Stone's Instagram account of the case’s federal judge, Amy Berman Jackson, appearing next to a crosshairs symbol. He had wanted her replaced; she wasn’t. He was convicted, and Trump pardoned him while still in office.
It's all a matter of working the refs, soliciting cash and ginning up rallies.
Now Trump, 76, a real estate scion from Jamaica Estates, denounces Merchan, 60, who emigrated from Colombia at age 6 and grew up in working-class Jackson Heights. As the first in his family to attend college, Merchan worked his way through school and earned a law degree from Hofstra University in 1994.
A New York native less self-obsessed than Trump might consider this contrast in backgrounds between defendant and judge a sign of what makes America great, regardless of the president.
Columnist Dan Janison's opinions are his own.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
