Op-ed by Summer Lane | Photo: Alamy
The dirty, scum-infested cabal of the New York justice system may deliver a secret weapon to President Donald Trump this spring, as they poise to possibly hand the 45th president his very own “Nelson Mandela” moment amid the tumultuous Manhattan criminal trial.
With Trump’s goal of reclaiming the White House firmly on the horizon, he will be forced to sit, day after day, week after week, in a Manhattan courtroom, facing 34 charges related to “falsifying” business records – a case that is based on a resurrected misdemeanor of which the statute of limitations long ago expired.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden has returned to the campaign trail, chumming it up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, while his legal opponent is chained to a desk in Manhattan, undergoing an intense trial schedule.
Trump is also bound by an expansive gag order, which has barred him from speaking about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff, and their families. On Tuesday – just two days into the trial – District Attorney Alvin Bragg filed a motion to hold Trump in contempt of court for three alleged violations of the gag order while asking the judge to additionally threaten Trump with 30 days in jail upon future violations.
To top it all off, Judge Merchan further threatened Trump with potential jail time if he failed to show up to the trial for even one day amidst the weeks-long debacle, which the president said could result in him missing the high school graduation of his youngest son, Barron Trump.
If this sounds unfair, that’s because it is. It is the very representation of a communist show trial, designed to shock the public and incur character assassination during perhaps the most critical election year this nation has ever faced.
Trump wrote on Tuesday, “The New York System of ‘Justice’ is being decimated by critics from all over the World. I want to speak, or at least be able to respond. Election Interference! RIGGED, UNCONSTITUTIONAL TRIAL! Take off the Gag Order!!!”
Objective justice in New York, apparently, is too much to ask for. Trump spokeswoman and attorney Alina Habba recently told Fox News that there was “no chance of a fair trial” in New York, so is it any wonder that Manhattan was the venue that was chosen for this particular “witch hunt”?
According to new data from AP-NORC, only 35 percent of Americans believe that Trump may have done something illegal in the “hush money” case, illustrating just how thin the basis for the charges appears to the general public.
In the Manhattan case, which marks the first time in history that a president has endured a criminal trial, Trump could potentially be sentenced to prison time, as each count has the potential to dole out up to four years of incarceration, per CBS News.
With the legal system in New York as stilted as it is, it is not inconceivable that the president could, indeed, be sentenced to jail time. In the past, Trump has stated that he would “gladly become a Modern Day Nelson Mandela – It will be my GREAT HONOR.”
He explained, “We have to Save our Country from these Political Operatives masquerading as prosecutors and Judges, and I am willing to sacrifice my Freedom for that worthy cause.”
Americans may recall that Nelson Mandela, the famed leader of the South African resistance against the repressive apartheid, was sentenced in 1962 to five years in prison, and then later, he was sentenced to life in prison in 1964. He was arguably the most famous political prisoner in history upon his release in the 1990s.
If Trump is indeed sentenced to prison time or thrown behind bars for an alleged gag order violation at any point, his vicious opponents will no doubt only make him stronger. People tend to rally with enthusiasm around heavily persecuted figures, and like every other attack on Trump, this kind of “Nelson Mandela” moment would only make the America First movement more powerful.
