Joyce Vance Reflects What If Trump Was In Office As Wagner Acts?

The difference between one day and the next can be a lot more than just a few hours. Sometimes one day can mark the passing from one era into the next. We found that out in the early hours of December 7, 1941 and last night, June 23, 2023 was another one of those situations, where the reality of armed conflict drives history.

Waking up this morning, we found out that a situation which had begun last night, in another hemisphere, had changed the direction of the war in Ukraine. In this conflict, one thought must have occurred to you, as it has to so many: what if Donald Trump was in the White House? Can you imagine where we might be?

Joyce Vance shares her thoughts,sketched out Friday night:

Tonight, all eyes are turned toward Russia. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the volatile head of the Wagner Group, claims to be leading his troops from Ukraine into Russia. The Russian government is calling it a coup attempt. The Wagner Group, a private mercenary organization, has been fighting in Ukraine for Russia. No one knows for certain where this is heading as I’m writing Friday evening. But there is no doubt most people, whether they will admit it publicly or not, are relieved that Joe Biden, surrounded by competent advisers, is at our country’s helm at this moment. The idea that we could wake up in the middle of the night to a Trump tweet changing the course of world history for the worse if he were in power is all too real.

If there is anything that forces people to confront the reality of what a second Trump presidency could bring, it’s a moment like this one. The prospect of the twice-impeached, twice-indicted former president being in charge of foreign policy with a cornered Russian leader fighting for his political future is horrifying. Putin has no regard for the rules that protect noncombatants. He has kidnapped, bombed, flooded, and starved Ukrainians. And it’s impossible to discount the possibility Trump could win again, especially with a political group called No Labels advocating for a “unity ticket” and Trump far out in the lead in the Republican primary.

This is the same mantra I am chanting these days. A lot of people, for reasons which are unclear to me, are discounting the reality of the threat that No Labels poses. I can tell you with certainty that the posts done here on No Labels do not get read a great deal and why that is, I don’t know. Far be it from me to be the prophetess of doom. My posture is never that we throw up our hands in despair, my posture is that we have eyes in the back of our head and see every single possibility coming from any and all angles. We need to be prepared for anything.

Vance goes on in her article to talk about Pat Robertson’s bid for the presidency in 1988 and the legal challenges he faced over his libel lawsuit, which he filed against Andy Jacobs and Pete McCloskey, who challenged Robertson’s Korean War record. Vance contrasts that situation to Trump’s. Trump has a defamation suit at issue, still, not to mention his other criminal and civil matters which are pending. And the clock moves on, as it did in the 1988 campaign, towards the primary and Election Day.

Robertson ultimately decided to dismiss his lawsuit, saying that it conflicted with his political ambitions, and that they were more important.

Donald Trump will soon face a similar problem. How do you campaign for the presidency while facing court-imposed deadlines and court dates? Trump’s case is criminal, not civil. He can’t dismiss the prosecution in Florida or wish it away, much as he would undoubtedly like to. […]

Pat Robertson may not have gone on to win the nomination, but he did get out from underneath what had become an oppressive legal situation with minimal damage to his candidacy. […]

Trump could, at least hypothetically, do the same. A plea could be more attractive than legal proceedings where more and more evidence of his wrongdoing becomes public, especially if it’s not too late for his lawyers to negotiate a misdemeanor deal for him. If that happened, it’s not hard to imagine Trump maintaining he was forced to plead to the “witch hunt” so he could continue his campaign. He’d probably use it to raise millions of dollars.

The irony here has always been that had Trump returned documents to DOJ, even as late as when they issued the subpoena to him, he could have avoided prosecution. The indictment does not charge him with retention of any of the documents that were recovered prior to the search of Mar-a-Lago. He is only charged with the documents seized when the search warrant was executed. It is those documents, and his obstruction of the investigation, that led to the indictment—not much of a witch hunt.

One would hope that Trump’s pattern of extreme conduct would be sufficient to ensure that a misdemeanor charge is off the table, but it’s impossible to predict whether DOJ might not feel bound by its own prior precedent—the two cases involving CIA directors and similar, if not worse conduct, that we’ve discussed previously. Prosecutors might see value in having a firm conviction, even to a misdemeanor. A conviction pursuant to a plea deal could not be challenged on appeal. The government would not have to worry they could end up with a diehard Trump supporter on the jury who would refuse to vote to convict, no matter how strong the evidence. There is always risk in a jury trial. Certainty could have its appeal.

That would move us along to the prospect of how voters would react to a candidate who has pled guilty to keeping classified documents. That changes the narrative from “witch hunt” to stipulated fact. How would an admission of guilt on Trump’s part play out to his cult?

And, of course, a plea seems unlikely given Trump’s personality and his absolute inability to say he’s wrong, let alone to say it in open court, under oath, with the press present. His move here is more likely one that involves attempts at delay and appeal. And a plea, even though it might end the documents case, would still leave the pending prosecution in Manhattan as well as the prospect of another in Georgia and the special counsel’s ongoing investigation into January 6.

That means the former president is going to have a full dance card even before the primaries get underway. And it’s not going to clear up as easily as Pat Robertson’s did with a motion to dismiss his own civil lawsuit. Friday evening, the special counsel asked the court to move Trump’s trial date from the current date in August to December 11, 2023. The December date is a more realistic one, accommodating the complications involved in a case where much of the evidence is classified. Whether the judge accepts the recommendation is entirely up to her—she controls the calendar. Whether it sticks if she does could turn on how quickly she rules on matters before her and whether the 11th Circuit acts promptly on any appeals. But Jack Smith seems to want his day in court. He wants it this year. That’s a good sign that he’s both confident and ready.

The first Republican debate is on August 23 of this year. Voting for candidates likely starts in January 2024 in Iowa and New Hampshire. Will the calendar break Trump? Will the evidence of his crimes sink in and finally break the fever dream that’s kept him at the helm of the Republican party? It’s going to be a fascinating primary season. And an important one, too. We do not live in a safe moment for Trump to be in the White House. Of course, no moment where he’s there is a safe one for the Republic.

Parse through all of this and imagine it comes to pass this way and then imagine a situation where, heaven forfend, a third party challenge from No Labels bleeds off enough Democratic votes to allow Trump, Putin’s puppet, to return to the Oval Office. The peril that the Republic could find itself in would make the Civil War look trivial by comparison. And don’t forget the Republicans in the House who are endeavoring to expunge Trump’s two impeachments. We are on some very rocky ground here. As thoroughly despicable as Trump is, he presents a grave and present danger to the republic and he has the backing of the GOP.