Do you care if Trump is guilty? He doesn’t

Happy Thursday. There are 158 days until the election and we are moving on from bad-built B words to expletive A words.

“People might call him an a--hole, but he’s my a--hole.”

That would be Dennis Quaid, 70, loving on Donald Trump (on Fox, of course).

So beautiful, so real.

Meanwhile, Robert De Niro, 80, has thrown his clout behind President Biden.

De Niro made a stop for the president in front of the New York courthouse where The Donald is waiting to learn his fate. He called Trump a tyrant and a threat to democracy, but my favorite part was when he got into it with Trump supporters after the event, Godfather style.

“Take that stupid f— hat off,” De Niro screamed at one of them, his face twisted into his signature ya-wanna-piece-of-me snarl and his finger doing some serious pointing.

“You’re a bunch of clowns.”

Folks, the boomers are poppin’ off — proving America is in fact a great country for old men.

Which brings us back to the king of disgruntled boomers, and this Shakespearean moment with the Fates looming above, dangling justice like a dollar bill at a strip club.

The jury deliberates

In this courtroom sketch from Tuesday, Donald Trump attorney Todd Blanche gives his summation to the jury. Trump is seated far left.

(Elizabeth Williams / Associated Press)

Here’s the quick recap of where we are: Trump’s lawyer, Talky Todd Blanche, gave another meandering speech as his summation, strangely acknowledging all the documents the prosecutor put forward are real and getting smacked down by the judge (in front of jurors) for bringing up possible prison time.

That’s a no-no because the jury’s only job is deciding guilt or innocence — the judge gets to decide the sentence. And the idea of sending an ex-pres to the big house could have a chilling effect on the jury.

Blanche — a former federal prosecutor — clearly knows this, so likely he didn’t care and wants the jury nervous, because honestly, the prosecution has a pretty good case.

Other than that, Blanche’s whole presentation was tepid.

His money line was supposed to be a riff on GOAT (Greatest of All Time), which just came across as hokey: “Michael Cohen is the GLOAT. He’s literally the Greatest Liar of All Time.”

So that’s where Trump’s team left it, with a dad joke.

The prosecution gave their closing to Asst. Manhattan Dist. Atty. Joshua Steinglass, who went on for more than five hours Tuesday, walking the jurors through all the documents that prove the case.

He seemed to keep the jurors’ attention better than Blanche, but everyone had to stay until 8 p.m. for him to finish. Was all that really necessary?

Yes.

You really don’t want to be the prosecutor who spent 20-plus days going after a former president, then lost because you felt the need to wrap things up before happy hour.

Steinglass tried to make it clear that this case was a conspiracy as Trump alleged, it’s one that Trump managed. If Stormy Daniels had come out with her sex-capades story before the election (and remember, before the cult of Trump was fully formed) he might have lost.

“The name of the game was concealment, and all roads lead to the man who benefited the most, Donald Trump,” Steinglass said.

The waiting is the hardest part

So what now? We wait for the jurors to do their thing — and it seems like this jury takes its job seriously. Wednesday ended with them asking for a read-back of four pieces of testimony, including some by former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, about a meeting at Trump Tower where the conspiracy was allegedly hatched.

For Trump, the wait means a resumption of insane tweeting (He’s not allowed to leave the courthouse while the jury is there). He spent much of Wednesday on his Truth Social, with gems like these:

IT IS RIDICULOUS, UNCONSTITUTIONAL, AND UNAMERICAN that the highly Conflicted, Radical Left Judge is not requiring a unanimous decision on the fake charges against me brought by Soros backed D.A. Alvin Bragg. A THIRD WORLD ELECTION INTERFERENCE HOAX!

(Note: Law requires a unanimous decision by all 12 jurors, so this is typical Trump bunk.)

He even found time to weigh in on other controversies, like Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. flying weird flags and denying it means anything.

Congratulations to United States Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for showing the INTELLIGENCE, COURAGE, and “GUTS” to refuse stepping aside from making a decision on anything January 6th related.

But the tweet that we should pay attention to is this one:

Mother Teresa could not beat these charges. These charges are rigged. The whole thing is rigged!

Within hours, he had sent this one out in a fundraising email.

So it appears Trump is already practicing post-conviction talking points, if a guilty verdict does come down. There are even rumors that he has merch ready to sell, one way or another. Run from Justice tennis shoes? Perp-walk walkers?

So did none of this matter?

There’s one big reason the verdict isn’t going to matter, and one important reason it does.

It is almost too obvious to point out that Trump supporters do not care what the guy does. He can in fact shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without consequence from them. If he is found innocent, he’ll claim vindication (without any irony that he has spent months calling the justice system corrupt).

And if he’s found guilty, he’ll stick with the witch hunt, “I’m being persecuted for being your hero” stuff. If he is deemed guilty, I will be shocked if he received anything but probation — this is a first offense, everything else aside.

So it’s truly a win-win. His base isn’t going anywhere — no matter what the polls say (though my colleague Noah Bierman makes a good case that I don’t know what I’m talking about).

But.

Justice actually does matter, especially when it comes to guys like Trump.

White-collar crimes are hard for us to conceptualize because they don’t involve guns or masks or deeds done in the dark of night. It involves papers, and phone calls and charges that end up as mail fraud for reasons none of us understand. By some definitions, white-collar crime is committed by rich people in positions of trust, and somehow just isn’t as bad as, say, holding up a gas station.

Trump is right on this — he is (like most powerful people) getting different treatment from the justice system. Just not in the way he means.

In the past 20 years, the justice system has significantly cut the number of the white-collar cases it takes to trial, opting for settlements or fines or other resolutions that often feel like fancy-dude justice.

But the perpetrators do profit, and harm is done. In 2021, losses from white-collar crime cost somewhere between $426 billion and $1.7 trillion.

In 2016, a white-collar crime may have cost a fair election.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Alito Refuses Calls for Recusal Over Display of Provocative Flags
The ‘It’s Florida’: Florida sticks by social studies standard teaching ‘benefit’ of slavery
The L.A. Times Special: Polls say a conviction could cost Trump a fifth of his support. Should we believe them?

Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria

P.S. Otter 841 is back!

The surfboard-stealing new mom made a Memorial Day appearance at a popular Santa Cruz beach. Gotta love this gal, as my colleague Susanne Rust reports.

A sea otter looks back at a surfer after climbing onto their board off Santa Cruz on July 9, 2023. For a month, the otter had been attacking and terrorizing surfers off the Santa Cruz coastline and, in at least one case, stealing a board.

(Mark Woodward)

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