Donald Trump charges: Law is catching up with former president

After entering a plea to election interference charges, there was none of the showmanship that has defined Donald Trump’s political career. He looked upset, angry and every bit his age.

Now that he has been arrested three times, Donald Trump has established a routine.
He announces the forthcoming charges on his social media platform. He complains of political persecution when the indictment is released. He travels to the court on Trump Force One and in his post-presidential motorcade, drawing live coverage akin to the OJ Simpson police chase. He sits sullenly in the hearing, and then he goes home for a political rally.

On Friday, however, Trump skipped that last step. Instead, he spoke briefly to reporters in the rain at Washington DC’s airport, before disappearing back onto his plane.

Former US President Donald Trump holds an umbrella as he arrives at Reagan National Airport following an arraignment in a Washington, D.C. court in Arlington, Virginia. Picture: Getty Images/AFP

There was none of the showmanship that has defined his political career. He looked upset, angry and every bit his age (“seven seven”, as he told the court moments beforehand).

So perhaps it dawned on him on Friday what lies ahead over the next 15 months.

Trump may well have to front three if not four criminal trials – more charges are expected soon in Georgia over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election result in the state – while also campaigning for the Republican nomination and then for the White House.

Witness after witness, including many he once considered allies and friends, will be called to give evidence about his allegedly illegal actions. Prosecutors and judges will give short shrift to his political tactics of distracting and delaying. Prison will be a very real possibility.

And it will be expensive – his political action group has already spent $US40m this year on his legal fees, draining an election war chest that started with $US105m to just $US4m.

Trump won’t stop fighting, of course, not with a genuine chance of beating Joe Biden next year and reclaiming the powers of the presidency to escape his unprecedented legal peril.

But that is the point. Trump stunned the world in 2016 by defending Americans who felt ignored and abandoned by Washington DC’s political elites. Now, he is defending himself.

He is running for the presidency and trying to outrun the law – and it’s catching up.