More Trump by the numbers:
-6 bankruptcies
-3 marriages
-1 ex-wife interred by his pro shop
-2 elections where he lost the popular vote
-$130,000 paid to adult actress Stormy Daniels to keep quiet
It’s that last bullet point the former president has to worry about as jury selection for his hush money trial began earlier this week. Trump is now officially the first ex-president to be prosecuted for a crime. So much winning.
Trump has so far been fairly successful in delaying his federal criminal trials, shout out to Judge Aileen Cannon for the assist, but he’s had no such luck in New York. It’s not for lack of trying. The judges here just seem to be less inclined to help the former president run out the clock in hopes of winning reelection and another four-year, get-out-of-jail-free card. So to the courtroom we go where we all get to relive, in horrifying detail, the saga of Trump’s dalliance with Ms. Daniels and the subsequent payoff.
At question isn’t the affair, luckily for the former president it’s not illegal to cheat on your wife in the state of New York, or even the payments themselves, Trump has paid off other affair partners. The issue is the failure to disclose the payments, meant to improve his electoral prospects, in violation of federal campaign finance laws, not to mention the 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up the payments.
Trump is in, what cable news legal pundits call, “deep doo-doo.” It certainly won’t move the group of voters who consider Trump to be God’s chosen president, but being forced to hear the sordid details of the former president’s private life may affect his standing with undecideds who would rather the president kept his hands to himself.
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