It’s a different week but a similar story for Donald Trump.
He’s due back in New York on Thursday under a dark legal cloud to answer more questions about his conduct, a week after becoming the first ex-president to be charged with a crime.
Last week, Trump pleaded not guilty in a case arising from a hush money payment to an adult film star. He’s expected back in the city where he made his name to give a deposition in a separate civil case alleging that he and three of his adult children falsified Trump Organization accounts in a years-long fraud to enrich themselves.
The two trips encapsulate the converging legal battles that are putting Trump’s time-honored strategy of delay, denial and distraction to its ultimate test.
The barrage of legal jeopardy doesn’t mean the ex-president is guilty of anything, and he denies wrongdoing in all cases. But it shows that at least Trump – as well as some of those most involved in amplifying his election fraud misinformation after the 2020 election – may be forced to answer for conduct that critics and political opponents have long argued flies in the face of the law, truth and decency.
It’s possible that the charmed life of the real estate magnate turned reality star turned twice-impeached ex-president may be about to be doused in a cold shower of reality. But Trump is not walking into this dark legal storm meekly. His lawyers fired off new filings and digressions in some of the many cases against him Wednesday, and his allies in the Republican House majority stepped up their efforts to shield him.
Trump’s lawyers, for example, are asking a judge to delay for one month a civil sexual assault and defamation trial brought by former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll, which was slated to begin later this month. His team wants a “cooling off period” following his indictment in the Manhattan…
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