This will only work against Donald Trump
Back in the early days of our indoctrination into the emerging world where hard news became entertainment, OJ Simpson wrote a book from his jail cell called “I Want to Tell You.” It was the year 1995, and at that point Simpson wasn’t a convict. Yet.
To be sure, he would become a convict sometime later. He would serve nine years in prison for armed robbery in the hazy years after the coming millennium. But at that moment, in 1995, he was on trial for a double murder, two murders for which he would later — outrageously — be acquitted. But at the time he was in jail for one of the most extraordinary guilty-person’s flights from justice ever witnessed, the infamous “slow speed Bronco chase.” For that bizarro display of existential mea culpa, OJ Simpson was remanded into custody pending the outcome of the trial.
As I say, the Bronco chase was exactly the sort of thing a guilty person would do. Put another way, no sane innocent man, after learning that his ex-wife had been brutally murdered, would climb into the backseat of a white Ford Bronco driven by a friend, bring with him a cheap disguise, his passport, a handgun and about ten grand in cash, all to give the police a merry chase. It positively screamed “I AM GUILTY AF!” Stupid people across the nation climbed all over each other to insist otherwise.
Anyway, a stupid prosecution was unable to discharge its burden of proof in front of a stupid jury because one of the most stupid, clown shoes defence ensembles in the history of jurisprudence, laughably referred to as “the Dream Team,” decided to put the LAPD on trial instead of the actual murderer, because the actual murderer was a big celebrity, and the stupidest judge ever to flap around penguin-like in a black robe actually let them. It’s all true. Word of honour.
Anyway, back to Simpson’s book, “I Want to Kill You.” I’m sorry, I meant to write, “I Want to TELL You.” Anyway, the book was ostensibly intended to be a public response to all the cards and letters Simpson had received in jail. Its actual purpose was public relations, to prove what a nice, reasonable guy OJ Simpson was, to illustrate how very much he loved his ex-wife and how he’d never murder her, and all that crap. And so on. It was a cringeworthy tour-de-force in horse pucky.
The real point to the book was something else altogether, known by the technical term as “jury nullification.” Jury nullification is when a jury in a criminal trial is, through nefarious means, convinced to render a not guilty verdict regardless of whether they believe a defendant has broken the law or not. Since Simpson was guilty of the two murders it would have been dangerous for him to personally testify about what a great guy he was in court, because of inconvenient stuff like cross-examination and the like. So instead he wrote that book, through which he could vicariously testify without being cross-examined.
Simpson hoped that the book’s central message, that OJ Simpson is a really, really great guy, just like you and me, would get through to the jury. He hoped, in short, that the central message in the book would osmosis-like seep into the collective subconscious minds of the jurors and they would acquit him despite the demonstrable fact that he was obviously guilty.
So what does all this have to do with Donald Trump? I’m glad I asked me that. It’s Donald Trump’s plan to present the world with his own version of “I Want to Lie to You,” I’m sorry, I meant to write, “I Want to Tell You.” Only instead of writing a book, for which there’s no time and for which he’s too dumb to write and it’s too late to hire another ghost writer, and his idolaters are too dumb to read anyhow, he’s going to hold a press conference. He’s going to hold it on Monday.
Trump is billing it as “A Large, Complex, Detailed but Irrefutable REPORT on the Presidential Election Fraud.” He says it’s going to take place at “11:00 A.M. on Monday of next week in Bedminster, New Jersey.” Trump said all this in a post on “Truth” Social.
Well, I was born in the morning, but I wasn’t born THIS morning. I am not puzzled by the nature of his game. It’s not difficult to surmise what’s going to be in this “REPORT.” Whataboutisms, innuendos, rumours about things Trump claims “people are saying,” slanders and lies. What won’t be in it will be documentation, recordings, testimonies of witnesses under oath and so on. In other words, no actual real evidence, of course.
If Trump goes through with this exercise in absurdity there can be little doubt that it will be demolished by all honest observers. But that won’t matter to him, of course. What will matter to him is the reaction of the MAGA crowd, who live in a Trump bubble and believe everything Trump says. They believe he is a man of wealth and taste, and they will therefore believe every word of what he says on Monday. And some of that crap, Trump is hoping, will trickle down into the prospective jury pools being formed by events even now. And that is finally the point.
But here’s the actual thing: it’s a spectacularly stupid, stupid idea. It will actually work against Trump. Declaring his defence in advance, without an opportunity to examine all of the prosecution’s discovery material, without the intervening months to prepare a defence, is legal suicide. He will commit himself to a narrative that will become very inconvenient during the trial. He will poison his chances with the very jury he’s desperately trying to influence. But he’s going to do it anyway because he’s a very immature, very stupid man.
And I’m glad. I hope he goes through with it. Monday just might be Trump’s final nail in a coffin he’s been fashioning for decades. Nothing less than this public suicide could be a more fitting end for this rapist, this traitor, this liar, this thief. I have no sympathy for this devil, and nothing he can say will ever change that. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.