Fraud verdict is a 'sideshow' distracting 'hope peddlers' from Trump's real crime: writer

In the wake of civil judgments against him totaling almost half a billion dollars, Donald Trump will need to raise much more money from his followers to pay off the fines, columnist Chauncey DeVega wrote Tuesday — adding that a recent fundraising email sent out by Trump conflates his being punished for his behavior with an attack on his followers.

"The unfortunate reality is that Friday’s $355 million judgment against Donald Trump (and the E. Jean Carroll verdict for more than 80 million dollars before that), as well as his still upcoming criminal and civil trials, will only serve to fuel his followers’ fantasies of persecution — which means they will further embrace even more political violence, terrorism, and thuggery as necessary means of self-preservation," DeVega writes in Salon.

The columnist wrote that he found the tone of the celebrations of Friday's judgment against Trump to be troubling, saying it reflects "a much larger pattern of premature exuberance among the professional centrists, institutionalists, and too many liberals and assorted hope peddlers who have long proclaimed that 'the walls have been closing in' on Trump."

Also read: Trump warned that outbursts and lawyer games will be 'shut down' at hush money trial

As examples of anti-Trump efforts that have underdelivered, DeVega cites the Mueller investigation and the infamous unveiling of the ex-president's tax returns on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show that unintentionally debunked Democrats' claims that Trump wasn't paying his taxes.

Nevertheless, DeVega contends that Friday's $355 million judgment is the first step in a long process of going after his finances, but he admits that he's "deeply worried" that the civil cases, coupled with criminal trials over classified documents and hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, "are sideshows and distractions from what should be the main focus: putting him and his confederates on trial for the crimes of Jan. 6 and the larger plot to end democracy."

The former president is scheduled to stand trial starting March 25 in Manhattan on 34 counts of fraud, falsifying business records and intent to conceal another crime, including state and federal election laws, as part of his hush money payoff to adult movie actress Stormy Daniels.

And a trio of legal experts recently wrote for the New York Times he will be on a much shorter leash this time.

"[Manhattan District Attorney Alvin] Bragg and his team will be confronted with the challenge of working with Judge [Juan] Merchan to prevent Mr. Trump from acting out in front of the jury, and thereby disrupting the case or introducing irrelevant information to try to prejudice the outcome," wrote legal experts Norman Eisen, Joshua Kolb and Barbara McQuade.

"We all saw the spectacle that Mr. Trump created in the New York State civil fraud trial. But we also saw Mr. Trump reined in by federal Judge Lewis Kaplan in the E. Jean Carroll case, which, unlike the civil fraud one, featured a jury watching every move."

Trump will face a jury in this case, as well, and the rules are different in criminal court in comparison to a civil trial.

Read DeVega's full op-ed over at Salon.