Revealed: Trump’s “Indictment” Legal Strategy

I know, we’ve seen this movie at least a hundred times before. But this time just feels different. DA’s don’t invite targets to appear in front of the grand jury if they’re not about to indict them. And local and federal law enforcement don’t get together to discuss the logistics of a Trump indictment and arraignment if they don’t already have pretty solid information that it’s imminent. This just feels inevitable.

The more the Trump indictment craze has intensified, the more heavily the new national drinking game has spread and intensified. The game goes like this, How long will Trump hole up in his McResort, and will Ron Pissantis bail him out by refusing to authorize the extradition from the Florida end. Well, it looks like we’re going to have to find a new way to get plastered when we get together.

After the breaking news regarding law enforcement coordinating a response mechanism for any upcoming Trump indictment, Trump’s legal team released a statement in reply to reporters questions. And one of the questions they responded to put the Florida-bunker-siege question in the rear view mirror once and for all. Mr. Trump will not refuse to turn himself in to authorities for processing if events ever get that far.

And when you think about, it makes perfect sense, for multiple reasons. First, Trump’s whole career is built on his tough guy persona. Bunkering up in Mar-A-Lago makes Trump look like a crybaby bastard, hiding behind Mama’s skirt instead of facing the music for starting the fight at school. Trump’s entire history has him running, but not from the trouble, only the accountability. Trump always answers the opening bell, with his chin out and his dukes up, and only cowers on his stool in the corner muttering No mas, no mas in the 9th round, settling out of court with no acceptance of responsibility.

Second is this. Trump is in a life-and-death struggle with Ron DeSantis for the GOP nomination. Why in the world would Trump want to let DeSantis bask in the glory of the MAGA mob for saving their Mangy Messiah from the Roman Praetorian Guards in New York? It makes him look submissive to DeSantis. And likewise, why would he want to give DeSantis the opportunity to play a 5′ Caesar, haughtily turning down a Trump plea for a missus? Take him out of the equation.

But the most persuasive reason is also the simplest. Trump’s very persona. From day one, with the original Mueller investigation, Trump’s defense has rested on two legs, victimhood and persecution. If Traitor Tot holes up in his flop, he doesn’t look like a martyr. What he looks like is a thug on the run. Trump is going to take a page from the Steve Two Shirts Bannon playbook, and embrace the notoriety in order to turn it to his own purposes.

Of course frankenTrump will pull up to the curb at the Manhattan courthouse, strutting in like Mussolini while the Secret Service bowls the mob out of the way. And when he’s formally arrested and processed, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if he asked the processing officer for a couple of negatives of his mug shots for his own personal use. He’ll perp walk down the hallway to court doing his best sneering John Gotti, and then stop triumphantly on the steps going out to whip the mob into a frenzy. It fits Il Douche like a glove.

But here’s the McGuffin. It’s easy for me to see a way where all of this blows up in Trump’s face, and all for his own good! As dormer President Trump has Secret Service protection. But what if the FBI, Secret Service, and NYPD decide that even with street closures and barricades, it’s too dangerous to risk a splashy street front entrance?

That’s easy as pie. They simply take him in-and-out of an underground garage entrance, which is closed to both the public as well as the media. Trump wanders in and up the elevator all alone, as he is during his processing. He gets his perp walk in and out in public view, which is all any of us are really interested in, and then whisked back to the basement garage and driven to the airport to go back to Florida.

Man! That’s the best graphic example of being hoist on your own petard I’ve ever seen. For four years Trump reveled in his self important treatment as the most protected man in the world. But now, when he desperately wants a mass audience to bloviate to for an hour, his own notoriety makes it too risky to let him have his moment in the criminal sun. Irony Alert!

I’m happy either way. The perp walk is all I give a shit about, and I’d be happy to never hear his voice again. But at least we know that his Walmart lawyers managed to beat him over the head with enough palm fronds to convince him that hiding behind a Secret Service detail would look worse to any potential just than just getting the ball rolling. Now my only fear is that we end up with some dipshit judge who decides to let the trial be televised, turning it into a three ting circus. Don’t touch that dial.