What we’re really in for today in Manhattan
The Manhattan DA can’t publicly talk definitively about Trump being indicted until the grand jury goes through the formality of voting. If there are no more surprise witnesses, the indictment will happen sometime on Wednesday, and presumably be announced on Wednesday as well.
There is no reason – none – zero – to expect that the grand jury will refuse to indict. The bar is very low. To indict, they merely have to believe there’s enough evidence for a trial to be held. Based just on what little is publicly known about what’s been presented to the grand jury, the DA has far surpassed that threshold.
But if you’re wondering why the DA hasn’t publicly said anything definitive about the indictment, and apparently hasn’t given Trump a timetable to surrender himself yet, that can’t happen until the grand jury holds its vote. He’d be seen as stomping on the jurors’ autonomy.
We don’t know if Bragg will hold a press conference to announce the indictment or if he’ll just put it out there and let it speak for itself. We don’t know what surrender deadline he’ll give Trump, or how that’ll be communicated to Trump.
However Trump’s arrest is handled, the outrage addicts on our side will spend the entire time angrily ranting about how it should have been handled more harshly. And the doomsday hysteria types on our side will spend the entire time insisting that he’s fleeing the country or something.
But none of this will be relevant to the actual process. Trump will be given a surrender date. He will either (likely) show up, or (less likely) stage a brief standoff for publicity, then surrender before the Feds can bust his door in.
The question is whether Trump is sober enough to understand that his life is now all about convincing the judge to let him stay out on bail. If there’s even a whiff of refusing to surrender, his odds of bail will drop. He can play that losing game if he wants.
But if Trump doesn’t do anything stupid, he’ll likely get released on bail or recognizance, because these are nonviolent charges and he has no criminal record. But the outrage addicts will still insist he’s getting special treatment, and the defeatists will insist it means he’s won.
The (entire) media will frame Trump’s arrest in terms of how much it’ll help his 2024 nomination prospects. And then it’ll cherry pick any new polls that support this notion, while ignoring any new polls that say Trump’s arrest has hurt his 2024 nomination prospects.
Oh, and if there’s no wide scale or organized violence surrounding Trump’s arrest, the media will hope you’ll just forget that it spent all week obsessively talking about how there would definitely be violence to try to scare you into staying tuned in.
But nothing anyone says about Trump’s indictment and arrest will matter, because it’ll play out how it’ll play out, and it’ll have the impact it’ll have. Most of the spin you’ll hear will prove wildly wrong, because at a time like this, no one’s really trying to get it right, they’re just trying to get you to stay tuned in every minute of the day while it’s playing out. 95% of the dramatic predictions that you’ll hear this week will end up looking ridiculous in hindsight. And the story will still remain that Donald Trump has been criminally indicted and arrested – a monumental step forward in restoring this nation to justice.
