A premature exclamation by the very strange ex president isn't very satisfying, not even to a box of Kleenex

Lots of people got overexcited Saturday morning. From the NYTimes:

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With a Manhattan grand jury indictment likely but its timing unclear, Donald J. Trump sought to rally supporters to his side, declaring that he would be arrested on Tuesday and calling for protests.

Mr. Trump made the declaration on his site, Truth Social, at 7:26 a.m. on Saturday in a post that ended with, “THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE AND FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”

Two hours later, a spokesman issued a statement saying that Mr. Trump had not written his post with direct knowledge of the timing of any arrest, adding, “President Trump is rightfully highlighting his innocence and the weaponization of our injustice system.”

But Mr. Trump’s social media post had immediate impact: Within hours, Speaker Kevin McCarthy, one of the most powerful people in federal government and who partly owes his position to Mr. Trump, posted on Twitter that he was calling for investigations into whether federal funds were being used for “politically motivated prosecutions,” a thinly veiled threat to Manhattan’s district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg.

A spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office declined to comment.

Prosecutors working for Mr. Bragg have signaled that an indictment of Mr. Trump could be imminent. But they have not told Mr. Trump’s lawyers when the charges — expected to stem from a 2016 hush money payment to a porn star — would be sought or an arrest made, people with knowledge of the matter said. At least one more witness is expected to testify in front of the grand jury, which could delay an indictment, the people said.

One of the people said that even if the grand jury were to vote to indict the former president on Monday, a Tuesday surrender was unlikely, given the need to arrange timing, travel and other logistics.

The statement from Mr. Trump’s spokesman did not explain how he had landed on Tuesday as an arrest date. One person with knowledge of the matter said that Mr. Trump’s advisers had guessed that it could happen around then, and that someone might have relayed that to the former president.

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It fits his past pattern of seeing or hearing something from his staff or an internet source (some known to be from a non-credible source) then acting impulsively before getting the whole story or determining the accuracy.

So somebody guessed ‘Tuesday’ and he went with that.

Yes, the Manhattan prosecutor recently offered him the option to testify before the NY grand jury. And legal experts indicated he was unlikely to accept the offer, but it meant the grand jury was close to completing its work. But with one witness being called to testify Monday and a grand jury decision afterward, nobody yet knows how that jury will vote.

None should be surprised that he jumped the gun with his post. And none should be surprised that he’s urging his supporters to rally in his behalf. But what does he mean when he says “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” ?

Back to where? Back to the concept that no one in the country is above the law? Is it weaponizing the justice system to have it perform as it should, by weighing the evidence and determining if an indictment and prosecution is called for or a DA decides the likelihood exists of successfully gaining a conviction?

Or does he want the country taken back to the place where an insurrection was incited on January 6, 2021 or in the South Carolina legislature on December 20,1860?

Reason must prevail.

A grand jury vote on Monday or Tuesday would be followed by discussions by the Manhattan DA with other prosecutors. Together they’d decide whether enough evidence exists to secure a prosecution. They're not likely to succeed if their chief witness is Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, as he’s a felon for his actions already. His credibility can be shredded on that basis since ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ is the standard in a criminal case. So a decision on an indictment could be a week or two away. And the DA could still decide not to prosecute, in spite of the grand jury recommendation.

Anyone old enough to recall the multiple investigations done on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (using an improper email server, Benghazi and Whitewater) or on President Bill Clinton (which began with Whitewater but took 4 years overall), there’s nothing in that history to indicate that the DOJ has been suddenly ‘weaponized’. DOJ investigations always feature claims that politics are involved but they move at their own typically slow pace and are overly thorough.

There’s no evidence that these state and local investigations are driven by Obama or Biden or are made up out of thin air. They’re driven by ordinary DAs and AGs doing the jobs they were hired to do.

Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, both Bushes, Bill Clinton and Trump have had to contend with FBI investigations. Obama is the only president in the past 40 years without such an FBI investigation, along with Biden. And all the others were exonerated of criminal actions except Nixon (Watergate & more) and Bill Clinton (perjury for denying a sexual relationship).

In Trump’s case the most serious investigation - of the insurrection related crimes - has been underway for 26 months or the same time it took from the Watergate break-in till Nixon was forced to resign. Patience is required along with the understanding that prosecutors require lots of time to build cases that are complicated without critical errors that defense attorneys can easily undo.

Trump’s been under political fire from the majority for a number of potential crimes because of his actual words and actions. That’s what makes this unusual: he acts very, very strange, without any precedent by former presidents. The current DOJ and FBI actions are consistent with many previous DOJs.

Trump has repeatedly failed to demonstrate his innocence with his claims that he’s been unduly harrassed by anyone. Court actions by his multiple lawyers have failed to demonstrate any of his claims about anything. That’s on him and his legal teams.

His effort yesterday to call his supporters to protest any pending trial is also unlikely to yield what he’s after - freedom from consequence for his illegal actions. Hundreds of them have been jailed, sued, disbarred or otherwise been harmed by responding to his previous pleas. He pardoned a handful but has done nothing useful to protect the others. So they have plenty of reason to be skeptical of his plea to them now.

Fool me once, shame on you…. is the adage that applies here.

Furthermore, Trump and others continue to overestimate how large his base of support is. He’s never won a popular vote at any level of government and as my Thursday newsletter noted, his current base of support is less than 15% of all current adult US citizens. That’s substantial - nearly 39 million people - but it means 220 million adults don’t support him. And even when he was at his peak influence over extremist adults, only a couple of thousand showed up to march on the US Capitol. It’s doubtful that holiday passes will be granted to the hundreds now in prison cells so he can’t even match that coupla grand.

And he also can’t count on his former support from hired Russian internet trolls as Vladimir Putin has drafted so many and sent them to the front lines in his dirty illegal war. So Trump’s pleas are falling on many skeptical, deaf and dead ears.

One noteworthy defender of the South - who doesn’t defend Trump - is the video commentator Trae Crowder (aka: the Liberal Redneck) and I’d say he summarized the expected response to Trump’s current plea perfectly.

Trae Crowder @traecrowder

ON TRUMP PREDICTING HIS INDICTMENT AND CALLING FOR TROUBLE #TrumpIndictment

Myself, I consider the Manhattan case to be the exhibition game and instead of demonstrating anything like courage, grace, humility or leadership, we’re stuck with a leaky box of cheap table whine.