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The power of the presidency always lures those seeking reflected glory. And
Donald Trump’s riotous palace court – renowned for lax Oval Office walk-in
privileges – was a pageant of characters who might normally have gotten nowhere
near a president.

But the price for proximity to power in the most scandalous presidency of modern
times came due just before midnight on Monday when 18 of Trump’s former aides,
officials, lawyers and associates were indicted alongside him over their efforts
to subvert the 2020 election in Georgia. They were the latest members of the
former president’s inner circle to find out that associating with Trump could
put them on cracking legal ice. At least until now, their patron has always
seemed to skate free. But Trump is now staring up at his own astonishing
mountain of 91 criminal charges in four separate indictments – an unparalleled
and dubious record for an ex-president.



The list of co-defendants in the Fulton County case includes Rudy Giuliani, the
former New York City mayor who became a hero on September 11, 2001, for filling
a national leadership vacuum amid the worst terror attack on the US in history.
Giuliani – who later served as Trump’s attorney and political fixer, notably in
events in Ukraine that led up to Trump’s first impeachment – is now ironically
charged with violation of Georgia racketeering laws, the federal version of
which he used as a high-powered and pioneering prosecutor who took down mafia
dons and their networks in the 1980s. The man once known as “America’s mayor” is
also charged with multiple other counts including false statements and
conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer.

CNN reported Tuesday that Giuliani, who amplified Trump’s false claims of fraud
after the 2020 election in a series of bizarre and unhinged appearances, faces
hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees – a situation exacerbated by his
involvement in several other cases and that has left him in financial
difficulties, according to his lawyers. But the quintessential New York City
bruiser insisted Tuesday, “I’m the same Rudy Giuliani that came after the
mafia,” defending his actions as those of an attorney legally representing his
client. “I’m anxious to fight this case,” he said on WABC radio. “We’re going to
beat these fascists into the ground.”



Charged alongside Giuliani is former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, a
former member of the House Freedom Caucus from North Carolina, who was portrayed
as a nexus of Trump’s election meddling effort by the House select committee
that investigated the January 6, 2021, mob attack on the US Capitol. Normally,
the indictment of the top White House official, whose job was to be the
gatekeeper to the president, would shake Washington to its core. But the capital
has reverberated for months with historic criminal charges leveled against the
president he was supposed to be protecting. Meadows on Tuesday filed to move his
case from Fulton County, Georgia, to the federal system – a step the former
president is also expected to take soon. Convictions in the federal courts could
open the way to pardons by Trump if he wins another White House term or by a
Republican president – a route that would not be open to him in state courts.



There is increasing speculation over why Meadows was charged in Georgia but not
in special counsel Jack Smith’s federal investigation into Trump’s election
stealing efforts. Legal experts wonder whether he could be cooperating with that
probe in a sign of peril for the former president.

Other notable figures among those charged in Georgia include John Eastman, a
former attorney for Trump who allegedly tried to convince then-Vice President
Mike Pence that he had the power to interfere with the congressional
certification of election results. Eastman’s attorney, Harvey Silverglate, on
Tuesday described the Fulton County indictment as a stunt to criminalize the
advocacy of lawyers. “This is a legal cluster-bomb that leaves unexploded
ordinances for lawyers to navigate in perpetuity,” he said.

Sidney Powell – who made unfounded claims of election fraud that even Trump
acknowledged to others sounded “crazy,” according to Smith’s federal indictment
– was also charged. She faces racketeering and conspiracy charges.

All of the defendants, including Trump, are entitled to the presumption of
innocence and none have yet entered pleas in the case. But all of them now
potentially face months or years embroiled in what could be a highly complex
case that will likely involve massive legal bills, extreme personal stress and
potentially jail time if convicted – a process that will make the days when they
palled around with a president seem like another world. Trump has pleaded not
guilty to three previous criminal indictments.





TRUMP’S INNER CIRCLES HAVE LONG FACED LEGAL PROBLEMS

Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia case are not the first to find out that the
ex-president’s intolerance for the rules and conventions that normally constrain
presidencies can lead them into treacherous waters. Trump once vowed to bring
only “the best people” to Washington, but his acolytes often find themselves
dragged into his legal storms.



For example, two of Trump’s other associates – his personal aide Walt Nauta and
Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira – have been sucked into the
investigation over Trump’s mishandling of national security documents. Both men
have pleaded not guilty.

Some of those who flocked to Trump at the beginning of his involvement in
presidential politics also got in trouble with the law, often not directly for
acts taken in conjunction with him but after sometimes attracting the interest
of authorities investigating other matters surrounding the then-president.
Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was sentenced to 47 months in
federal prison for defrauding banks and the government and for failing to pay
taxes on millions of dollars in income earned from Ukrainian political
consulting.



Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017 to
lying to the FBI about conversations with Russia’s ambassador to Washington.
Both men had been swept up in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation
into the 2016 Trump campaign’s links to Russia.

Trump’s former political guru, Steve Bannon, was sentenced to four months in
jail last year for contempt of Congress after defying a subpoena to appear
before the House January 6 committee. He has appealed his conviction. Bannon
faces another trial in Manhattan next year in a fundraising fraud case.
Prosecutors have accused Bannon and others of defrauding donors in a fundraising
effort called “We Build the Wall.” Bannon has pleaded not guilty to multiple
counts of conspiracy, money laundering and scheme to fraud.

In yet another case involving a confidant of the ex-president, his long-time
chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg was sentenced by a New York judge
earlier this year to five months in jail for his role in a decade-long tax fraud
scheme after testifying as the state’s witness against the Trump Organization.



And in one of the most well-known cases of one of Trump’s men tumbling into a
legal pit, his former attorney and self-described fixer Michael Cohen served two
years in jail and one year of home confinement after pleading guilty to nine
federal crimes including tax fraud, lying to Congress and campaign finance
violations for helping pay off two women who threatened to go public with past
alleged affairs with Trump before the 2016 election. Unlike many of Trump’s
associates who got crosswise with the law, Cohen pointed the finger directly at
his former boss, saying he facilitated the payoffs “in coordination with and at
the direction of” Trump. The ex-president has denied the affairs but is due to
go on trial in March after being indicted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin
Bragg in a case arising from a hush payment to former adult film actress Stormy
Daniels.

One huge worry for Trump, given the large number of people indicted in the
Georgia case, is whether some will cooperate with prosecutors in order to try to
help themselves. In the past, Trump has been able to purchase the loyalty of
business colleagues and used his pardon powers extravagantly as president. In
one of his last acts as commander in chief, for instance, he pardoned Bannon on
a previous federal fraud charge. He had earlier pardoned Flynn, Manafort and
longtime ally Roger Stone.



Trump, now a private citizen, is no longer in a position to reward such loyalty
among his inner circle, though he might be tempted to dangle pardon offers based
on the possibility of him winning the presidency in 2024. But even if he is
elected again, federal pardons won’t help absolve associates caught up in the
Georgia case, thanks to the founders’ insistence on dividing power between the
federal government and the states. Trump’s leadership PAC, Save America,
however, spent more than $40 million on legal fees for the ex-president and his
associates during the first half of the year, sources told CNN last month.

The huge breadth of the Fulton County case brought by District Attorney Fani
Willis – who said Monday that she plans to try the 19 defendants together –
turns a spotlight on the extended cadre of allies who allegedly helped Trump in
his bid to trash democracy. But with such a huge charging sheet, it could be
months or longer until the case reaches court – meaning that the 2024 election
could be long gone before it reaches a jury.

Former Trump lawyer Ty Cobb told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Tuesday that he wouldn’t
be surprised if it took Willis two years to bring the vast racketeering case to
court.

“If it takes two years, heaven forbid that Trump wins the presidency, then there
will be a fight to the Supreme Court over whether she can proceed against a
sitting president during his term,” Cobb said, noting that while federal
prosecutors could not pursue a president during his term, the capacity of state
prosecutors to do so had not been resolved.

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Of the millions of words uttered about the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol —
or insurrection, if you prefer — none have been so eloquent as those spoken by
Liz Cheney, who at the time was the Republican congresswoman from Wyoming.

Cheney was the vice chair of the House select committee that was investigating
the events of that day. At the opening of a hearing, she issued what amounted to
a warning to her fellow Republicans: “I say this to my Republican colleagues who
are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone,
but your dishonor will remain.” 



For that, she was called a traitor. She lost her seat to a woman who
wholeheartedly supported Trump (and whom Trump in return wholeheartedly
supported). To say Wyoming is Trump country is an understatement: Cheney got
only about 29 percent of the GOP primary vote in 2022.

And even now, after numerous run-ins with the law, the man she warned
Republicans about is leading his GOP rivals for the nomination. It isn’t even
close.

Except for Chris Christie and one or two others, no one wants to say out loud
that Trump is unfit for office, even though I suspect more than a few know it.
Instead, they go after him wearing kid gloves — fearing if they hit him too hard
they may incur the wrath of his most passionate supporters. It’s a lot easier to
wish he’d just go away.

From the moment Trump came down that escalator at Trump Tower in 2015, the GOP
establishment figured there was no way he could win. They saw him as a TV
reality show guy with a massive ego. To political pros, Trump was a joke.

But when it became clear that the joke was on them, a lot of Republicans jumped
on the Trump crazy train hoping the office would somehow change him. When it
didn’t, they stayed with him anyway … despite, well, despite everything — the
lies, the name-calling, the tweets at all hours of the day and night, the
nonstop, never-ending drama.




But then came Jan. 6, 2021 — the day he tried to turn the Constitution on its
head and stay in office even after he lost to Joe Biden. That should have
changed everything.



Loyalty goes only so far, after all. But nothing Trump did that day led GOP
leaders — or conservative TV media allies, or GOP voters — to disown him. A
recent New York Times/Siena poll found that 75 percent of Republican voters
agreed “he was just exercising his right to contest the election” while only 19
percent thought “he went so far that he threatened American democracy.” 

Anything is possible, of course, and there’s still a long way to go, but at the
moment the odds-on favorite to win the GOP nomination is none other than Trump —
the man who allegedly encouraged the Jan. 6 mayhem to stay in office after
losing. And if Biden’s age and mental acuity are on the ballot, Trump may very
well be president again.

Republicans likely hope that, win or lose in 2024, Trump won’t be hanging around
the party’s neck much longer. If he loses, they figure, that’ll be the end of
him. If he wins, they’ll only have to put up with his chaos for four more years.



But Trump is incapable of leaving the limelight. He’s addicted to being the
center of attraction. And even if he winds up behind bars, he will figure out a
way to send social media messages out every 10 minutes about how the system was
rigged, about how he was the victim of a political prosecution. On that, let’s
acknowledge, he just might be on to something,

Speaking of “behind bars,” a recent New Hampshire poll tells us that 57 percent
of GOP primary voters in that state would back Trump even if he was “serving
time in prison during the 2024 general election.” You can’t make this stuff up.

Democrats, in case you were wondering, aren’t any better when it comes to
looking the other way. Whatever Biden’s role may or may not be in his son’s
business dealings, it’s obvious that Hunter’s real business was selling
influence, or at least the “illusion of access” — peddling his family name for
lots and lots of money. Yet I can’t think of even one prominent Democrat who has
risen to condemn Hunter’s smarmy operation. Truth, for both Democrats and
Republicans, is too often an inconvenience to be avoided at all costs.



Which brings me back to Cheney’s warning. “I say this to my Republican
colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald
Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.” 

That may not be something GOP politicians or conservative cable news talking
heads or Republican voters want to think about. But I suspect more than a few of
them have at least an inkling, an uncomfortable feeling, that she may have been
on to something. Whether they care or not is another matter altogether.

Bernard Goldberg is an Emmy and an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University
award-winning writer and journalist. He was a correspondent with HBO’s “Real
Sports with Bryant Gumbel” for 22 years and previously worked as a reporter for
CBS News and as an analyst for Fox News. He is the author of five books and
publishes exclusive weekly columns, audio commentaries and Q&As on his Substack
page. Follow him on Twitter @BernardGoldberg.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.




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