Trump In Witness Protection All Of A Sudden?

Where, oh where in the hell has Trump been the past 24 hours?  It’s like he’s in witness protection or something!  I’ve been doing internet searches and monitoring the news since early yesterday evening and there is NO news on just where he is.  All of a sudden where he is has turned into some kind of super secret, even more secret than “Double Secret Probation” or something!

I’m serious.  I wrote a comment to an article yesterday speculating on Trump’s supposedly being over the Atlantic, headed back to these United States when news broke that Judge Kaplan might allow his legal team to re-open their case.  Let’s backtrack for a minute.

Trump decided not to attend his rape trial.  Which I might add was his right.  He wasn’t legally required to be there.  (There’s been endless discussion of how his not attending might affect the case – draw your own conclusions on that point)  He kept trying to put the whole thing off, hoping it’s said that his victim who is 79 would simply up and die.  Weird since Trump is almost that age himself but whatever.   The judge is one of those no nonsense types, fair but also on to (like an increasing number of judges) Trump’s games.  The standard Trump tactic of delay, delay delay and then find some lame-a$$ed excuse to delay some more.  But this judge stuck to his guns and wouldn’t let Trump proverbially run out the clock.  He made it clear there was going to be a trial starting in late April and that was that.  Trump knew he was gonna have to face the music, awful music since he was the composer in a courtroom.

So what did Trump do?  He decided to get out of dodge and maybe create a distraction.  He went over to the UK where he owns multiple well-known (long before Russia gave him the money to acquire them) golf courses.  Try and make the news about his “bigly” business acumen.  (FYI, they are all losing money!)  And, not to ignore another big thing his trip, which was supposed to last for some days yet just happened to coincide with the leadup to King Charles fancy schmancy coronation tomorrow!  I even wrote an article speculating on whether Trump was trying to hide out or instead upstage the King.  Probably a combination of both but regardless the underlying goal was to distract from a trial in which a jury would decide whether he raped someone.

For Trump the trial went off the rails from the get-go.  He was surely relieved to get an ocean between himself and NYC.  Also, being Trump and remembering visits to the UK when he was President and various muckety-mucks had to pay some attention to him he thought he could soak up some love.  And provide some “See? I’m still important” foreign policy cred to his 2024 campaign.  Taking a dump on the King’s coronation and stealing some of the spotlight would be a bonus to him.  Just the kind of mean-spiritedness that’s part of Trump’s DNA.  But, Mr. Reality TV got some actual reality during his trip.  The masses hated him as much as they always did only now, without the cocoon of protection from the U.S. Secret Service that could force a much wider exclusion zone & screen anyone close enough for Trump to see and hear he got a taste of the contempt in which the good people of Scotland and Ireland hold him.  And he couldn’t get the time of day from the political leaders either.  Or even the “peerage” that permeates affairs over there.  Still, with local headlines being about the King’s coronation he had a buffer from his problems at home.

However, as I said the trial has gone badly for Trump.  Many, including legal talking heads say disastrously.   Even Trump seemed to realize this.  And being Trump he was compelled to do… SOMETHING!  So he announced to the press gaggle still covering him in Ireland that by golly he was coming back to the U.S. to “confront his accuser.”  Well, THAT actually got his name in the news.  At least over here.  Probably in the UK too where folks were glad to see/hear reports he was leaving!   This is where things get… I’m not sure what.

Trump’s lead lawyer Joe “Tacopenis” (thanks Murfster!) stated in court that with the one witness the defense had planned to call not appearing after all the defense wouldn’t be putting on a case.  The judge pinned him down on this point.  When the defense said it rested its case the judge really, really got specific.  He’d heard the news about Trump cutting short his not-so-grand-as-he’d-thought-it-would-be European adventure/golf trip so he could come home and “confront” his accuser in court.  He asked Tacopenis when he’d last spoken to his client and the response was a few minutes before court started.  A lot can happen during hours of court proceedings, like say the defendant saying he was going to appear in court after all.  Trump’s lawyer still rested his case.

Now, reporting suggests this exchange between the judge and Trump’s lawyer happened while Trump was out over the Atlantic winging his way back to… Well that’s what no one seems to know.  Or at least talk about.  Was Trump’s plane headed to NYC?  Florida?  Has he in fact actually returned to the United States?  If he has, just where in the hell is he?

Look, he can talk to his lawyer in person in NYC or from his tacky office at Mar A Lago.  What matters is what we, and more importantly the judge wants to know which is if Trump wants to take the stand and testify in person.  I should note that every lawyer and legal commentator that covers court stuff has talked about how extraordinary all this is.  Trump’s lawyers rested their case.  That means over and done and with closing arguments already having been scheduled for Monday the only thing for lawyers from both sides to do was argue to the judge how the Jury Instructions should read.  (If you don’t know that’s often a very big deal and can make a lot of difference in how a case turns out)

Now?  All of a sudden Trump might be granted something virtually unprecedented which is the chance to re-open his case!   There has been much discussion as to whether Trump’s “intention” was merely a PR and appeal strategy – setting up a PR and legal campaign of his wanting to testify and being “denied his rights” but as has been written here and elsewhere the judge saw right through this.  It’s clear that he’s inclined to, if Trump’s team files a motion and doesn’t wind up babbling incoherently grant Trump’s request and say “Ok – we’ll see your client in court and on the witness stand Monday morning.”  Now, if that happens is there any doubt in anyone’s mind that Trump and Tacopenis will demand a delay in proceedings for Trump to “prepare?”

Look, I’m not a lawyer but have in the course of my life studied legal cases and court proceedings enough to draft the motion to re-open and make the case at the hearing the judge apparently intends to have Sunday.   It’s not like there’s a ton of law/precedent to cite – it’s mostly a plea for mercy along the lines of “We never thought it would get this far or that our case would suck so badly so please, please can we have a partial do-over?”  But as I said even though there’s no basis in law for granting such a motion this judge understands the game being played and is likely to humor it.  THAT means Trump and his lawyers have today, tomorrow and Sunday to prepare for him to take the witness stand on Monday.  Maybe Tuesday if the judge is feeling particularly generous but make no mistake.  The judge is going to point how out long it took to even get to trial, the fact that Trump was deposed and that evidence has already been introduced in court, and that Trump chose to ignore everything.  Not just ignore, but take a golfing vacation to Europe!  In short, the judge will say Trump’s had more than enough time and if he didn’t prepare as much as he’d like to that was his choice.

So, if Trump wants to testify (bad idea!) then he’s going to have to do so early next week!  This all hasn’t turned out anything like Trump thought it would.  He couldn’t stop the trial.  He decided to avoid it and even run away.  His attack dog lawyer couldn’t dent E. Jean Carroll’s class and credibility.  And being a creature of television, not to mention numerous depositions (videotaped) in the past his own deposition in this case wouldn’t serve him well with a jury that by all reporting was riveted on Carroll – as in finding her compelling and credible.

The trait legendary sleazebag attorney Roy Cohn instilled in Trump from early adulthood, attack, attack, attack welled up.  Regardless of whatever his attorney was going to tell the judge Trump decided to take over matters himself on Thursday.  He made his lawyer look stupid in court. (The jury would have been present when the defense rested) And maybe, perhaps probably Trump had no intention of actually taking the stand.  If his intent was to sit there in court during final arguments and glare at Carroll’s lawyer he’s lost whatever marbles he’s got left.  He might as well have a flashing neon sign in front of him angled towards the jury saying “Yeah – I did it.  Watcha gonna do about it?”

Or maybe as has already been noted this is some strategy Trump cooked up to set up an appeal, and/or to raise money by saying how “unfairly” he was treated because he didn’t get to make his own case in person.  No matter.  He’s flailing at this point.

I for one am enjoying the hell out of him flailing.

Still, I marvel at the fact that the same media that loves the ratings they get from covering Trump outrage & scandal either doesn’t know where Trump is and what he’s doing, or is choosing to keep their mouths shut.  I mean seriously, does anyone think for one second there aren’t reporters who travelled with him who know where he was supposedly going, or even if he actually did leave Ireland?  Or where he landed and where he went afterwards.  Given that Trump has Secret Service protection following his movements even in a place like NYC isn’t that hard to do.  Too many people prepping for wherever he’s going to be will ensure leaks as to his whereabouts.  And a good idea of who he’s with.

So why the big mystery?  I just don’t get it.  He can blast out stuff on Non-Truth Social from anywhere in the world with an internet connection.  Yet there hasn’t been much even from there as far as I know.  No one in the media has reported on just where he is since (supposedly) he was in his jet over the Atlantic headed back to the U.S.  It really has me wondering whether Trump has had a complete and for real total meltdown.  Like curled up in the fetal position drooling and soiling himself in a padded room type thing.

I’ve joked in the past about some of those closest to him taking the extraordinary step of duct-taping oven mitts to his hands so he couldn’t tweet.  Did he find himself fitted for the ole “white coat” as in the kind that goes on the front and has straps on the back?  The Trump we’ve known and that so many of us loathed would have stepped off his plane in/near NYC and brashly spoken about how he intended to show up in court and “destroy” Carroll.  We didn’t even get a sad looking return like the one we remember from the title pic.  Something   Is   Out   Of   Sorts.

Where’s “Orange Waldo” today?  Really.  It’s been a strange 24 hours and I can’t help but wonder just how strange.