Former President Donald Trump added four more felony charges to his collection Tuesday, bringing the total count to 78.
Tony Smith, political science professor at UC Irvine, said the big loser in this case isn’t Trump – it’s his leading opponent for the 2024 Republican nomination, Ron DeSantis.
“He’s got to figure out how to get indicted or he’s gonna have no shot at getting away from Trump,” Smith quipped to KNX News’ Rob Archer, Charles Feldman, and Karen Adams.
Smith speculates that the newest set of charges against Trump, stemming from his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, won’t lead to any real legal consequences for the former President, even though the entire nation saw his attempts to subvert the election unfold live on TV.
“He’s gonna say, ‘everything I did was with advice of counsel. I cleared it with people working in the justice department. Everyone assured me, even though I thought it was crazy, that this was real,’” Smith said. “And then when that eventually makes its way up to the Supreme Court, it’ll be a 5-4, yeah, that sounds like a pretty reasonable defense to me.”
In the meantime, this indictment, like its predecessors, will be a boon for Trump’s fundraising. His supporters, who believe the election actually was stolen, are likely to be outraged by what Trump called “yet another Fake Indictment of your favorite President, me.”
But even though his hardcore base is standing behind him, Smith points out that the Republican party has been shrinking as traditional conservatives drift away due to Trump’s antics. Even Mike Pence has turned against his former boss, becoming a key figure in the new indictment.
“If you think about how large the country is and how many people voted for him, but how many actually showed up to try to help him overthrow the government? You know, it really wasn’t that many,” Smith said. “I think it’s easy for Trump to take all the oxygen out of the room, and where all of us end up believing he has a bigger movement than he has.”
Trump is expected to make his initial court appearance in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.
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