The ‘Stormy Daniels case’: a trial turned into a test of Trumpist loyalty

The political aspect of the criminal trial of Donald Trump for Stormy Daniels case, in which the jury reached a guilty verdict this Thursday afternoon for the 34 crimes of which he was accused, is evident. Not only because of his status as a candidate for re-election in November, because of his improvised rallies in the hallway leading to the hearing room or because of the displays of support from sympathizers – nothing massive, quite the contrary – in the park that serves as lobby to Manhattan Criminal Court. Also, and above all, because of the parade of Republican congressmen throughout the trial, an illustrious cohort among whom some see the possible number two on the candidate’s electoral ballot, and others, more simply, a convenient readjustment of ranks in around the invasive figure of Trump—he has colonized the different currents—as the all-embracing leader of the party. The trial became a test of loyalty, not Republican, but Trumpist.

From Mike Johnson, president of the House of Representatives, the former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy or the ultramontana Elise Stefanik, whom many see as a potential vice president and who formally recused the judge for conflict of interest, the Republican offensive around the trial has been much more powerful than the mediocre crowds that have protested in the streets against the process. A kind of Republican mini-convention in court, as a preview of what will be seen in July in Milwaukee when Trump is enthroned as a candidate for re-election.

During the first two weeks of the trial, Trump arrived at the courthouse daily with no entourage other than his team of lawyers and one of his older children, usually Eric and Donald Jr, taking turns. The visible loneliness of the former president, denounced on his social network with calls for mobilization, pushed his supporters, who came out in a rush to support him. What started as a trickle soon became an avalanche: on Monday, May 20 alone, Trump’s official list of guests, as such entitled to access the hearing room, exceeded a dozen. A week earlier, the number of congressmen who traveled the same day from Washington was enough that his absence delayed a session in which it was going to decide whether Attorney General Merrick Garland was in contempt of Congress. Curiously, extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was at Trump’s side when he was impeached, stayed in Washington and urged her colleagues to rush to Manhattan. “I’m here doing my job,” she justified.

Over the days, Trump’s trial became a miniature version of the Republican National Convention, where elites and aspirants meet; established careers and deserving enthusiasts who aspire to earn their favor and, perhaps, a position in a hypothetical Republican Administration under a reelected Trump. An organic circus of attachments, interests and ambitions, with the occasional calculation of probabilities.

Senators and governors

It took Republican Senator Rick Scott a little more than a week to respond to Trump’s public complaints about his lack of public support, and he did so, according to many analysts, seeing the opportunity the trial represented for his re-election campaign. Scott was followed by a flurry of names who also sound — or aspire to — like vice presidential candidates: Ohio Senator JD Vance (the author of the best-selling Hillbilly, a rural elegy), former candidate Ramaswamy, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and Representative Byron Donalds of Florida. The high point of that Republican embassy in the courthouse was marked by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, the highest-ranking Republican in a federal position who supports Trump, clearly challenging the criminal justice system with his rally at the door of the court. Also playing a prominent role in Trump’s defense was the presence of a dozen representatives of the most ultra faction of the party, with Matt Gaetz at the helm.

In the six weeks of the trial, more than 30 illustrious Republicans have surrounded their leader in the dark and cold courtroom on the 15th floor of 100 Center Street, in lower Manhattan, in a rehearsal for the coronation in the Milwaukee national convention: having your portrait taken in New York can add points for the Republican convention. Among applicants for his favors and recalcitrant loyalists, some of his closest circle for years, Trump’s adult children – except Ivanka, who did not attend any hearings – and such characters also gathered on the hard wooden benches of the court. unspeakable like Chuck Zito, former leader of a New York motorcycle gang who spent six years in prison for drug trafficking. In the early 1980s, Zito helped found the New York chapter of a Californian club, the Hells Angels, described by the Department of Justice as a criminal enterprise. The section led by Zito was linked by Justice to a well-known New York mafia family.

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