Opinion: Trump's Legal Mess And American Democracy

These are surreal times in the US. Even as the political system is gearing up for next year's Presidential elections, the legal drama being played out in various courtrooms is shaping the political dynamic more potently than political debates. In fact, politics has been subsumed by the legal issues surrounding key political actors, most importantly, former US President Donald Trump. He will be turning himself in to police in the state of Georgia, where he is likely to be booked at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta before being arraigned at the courthouse. Along with 18 others, Trump was indicted earlier this week for alleged attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.

While this is only the latest one, Trump has been criminally indicted in three other cases, including in a federal investigation into efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election, his alleged mishandling of classified material after he left the White House, and paying hush-money to the adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. In any other time and for any other politician, any of this would have been the end of the political road. But such are vagaries of American politics today that Trump seems to using these as badges of honour. In his usual acerbic style, Trump has decided to hold a "major news conference" next week to present an "irrefutable report" on voter fraud from three years ago.

And this is not the only drama in town. US President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden's shenanigans in the courtroom have not been any less riveting. He has been under federal investigation since 2019 and recently, after a plea deal on tax and gun charges against him collapsed, a special counsel was appointed by the Justice Department to look into his case, with a jury trial looking imminent. Where President Biden has predictably stood by his son, the Republicans have gone after Hunter Biden, focusing on his business interests in China and Ukraine. In fact, only after it emerged that then President Trump had pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Hunter's dealings with the Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma Holdings (where Hunter served on the board) did the entire process of Trump's first impeachment start in 2019 for soliciting foreign interference in the 2020 presidential election.