Now that he’s toast, here comes Donald Trump’s phony 2024 campaign

| 9:09 am EDT July 2, 2022
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For a year and a half, Donald Trump has acted like he was running a 2024 presidential campaign, without actually running. This has allowed him to raise money from his remaining supporters, and then just pocket the money, because it’s not subject to campaign finance scrutiny, because he’s not running for anything. If Trump were to actually launch a campaign, any fundraising from that point on would be subject to regulatory scrutiny, and it would be more difficult for him to just pocket it.

But when Cassidy Hutchinson gave public testimony this week that made clear for all to see that Trump is likely to be criminally indicted and convicted, it changed the game. And when multiple Secret Service agents confirmed Hutchinson’s story to CNN on Friday evening, it just about sealed the fact that Trump is toast.

So it’s not particularly surprising that just a couple hours after that news broke, Trump mouthpiece Maggie Haberman reported that Trump is now considering launching an actual 2024 campaign “soon.” Haberman’s article even goes so far as to specifically state that Trump is considering doing this to try to shield himself from criminal prosecution.

But let’s be clear about a number of things. First, Trump announcing a 2024 campaign will absolutely not protect him from criminal indictment, trial, or conviction – not in the slightest. That’s not within a million miles of how anything works, and the notion that Trump would even try such a thing means that he’s either completely clueless about how anything works, or he’s so desperate he’s at the point of trying magic wand ideas that even he knows have literally zero chance of saving him.

Second, this is not the first time that Trump has leaked to the media that he’s on the verge of launching a 2024 campaign. In fact, he seems to leak this same story each time he finds himself in greater legal trouble in relation to January 6th, and then he never actually launches a campaign. That’s probably because he keeps leaking this threat to the media out of desperation, and then his handlers have to remind him that if he actually launches a campaign, it’ll become harder for him to grift the money.

For all we know, Trump could end up actually launching a 2024 campaign this time. After all, he is at the end of his rope. He knows he’s getting indicted over this, everyone knows he’s getting indicted over this, and some prominent right wing voices are even throwing their weight behind other potential 2024 Republican candidates.

So with Donald Trump being finished in this lifetime, he may feel that he has nothing left to lose, and could recklessly launch a 2024 campaign that if anything might only end up accelerating his downfall. After all, while there’s realistically no chance that Trump will still be a part of the 2024 conversation by 2024, not everyone knows that. There are plenty of people, including witnesses to his crimes, who could well decide to testify against him in response to the launch of his phony 2024 campaign.

Let’s be real about what we’re facing here. If Trump launches a “2024 campaign” this month, it’s not going to be a real campaign. It’s going to be an empty announcement aimed at giving a complicit mainstream media the opportunity to begin setting its hair on fire about the doomsday prospect of Trump somehow magically becoming President again.

But by now it’s abundantly clear that Attorney General Merrick Garland doesn’t care about appearances or sideshow stuff. If he did, he’d be out there trying to control the messaging when it comes to the DOJ’s criminal probe into Trump. Instead Garland has said very little, and doesn’t care that the media has just made things up about him as a result. Garland is the last guy who’s going to flinch in response to Trump launching a campaign. If Garland is going to indict Trump – and at this point it seems almost impossible that he won’t – then Garland is going to do it whether Trump has launched a phony stunt candidacy or not.