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Donald Trump has been huddling with advisers to game out his options if he's indicted in Manhattan.
The former president can choose to show up in court in New York City or force authorities to haul him out of Mar-a-Lago, and the reality TV veteran is weighing which option would generate the most drama.
However, a source close to Trump told The Daily Beast he'll most likely present himself voluntarily to avoid being handcuffed.
“Being in handcuffs isn’t something Trump would want to do,” the Trump source said.
Legal experts say the ex-president probably doesn't need to worry about a perp walk.
READ MORE: Mike Pence's 'fundamental miscalculation' about Trump is blowing up in his face: reporter
“I don’t think you handcuff him, and I don’t think you have two burly guys on either side of him -- you’ll have Secret Service agents,” said Andrew Bernstein, a former public defender who now represents corporations and wealthy clients accused of crimes.
“It’s a logistical nightmare and there can be violence," Bernstein added. "It would be inequitable to put a lot of strain on the clerks and court officers trying to get out on time to deal with this dog and pony show. These guys have families. They just want to get from 8:00 to 4:00 unharmed. It would be foolish to handcuff him like the potential nutjobs. It’s unfair to court officers to make this a gasoline-on-the-fire situation.”
Some of Trump's supporters have called for protests or other actions against his indictment, sometimes using inflammatory language.
“Any cop who betrays the people for politicians is a traitor and will be dealt with at a later date accordingly,” said "Stop the Steal" organizer Ali Alexander on Twitter. “Do not add your name to the fake news who are enemies of the people.”
Other right-wing allies hope Trump forces law enforcement to take him into custody at Mar-a-Lago to inflame his base.
"[That] helps from a political standpoint, absolutely,” said Jackson Lahmeyer, founder of Pastors for Trump. “That image, if they come and they do basic Third World-country tactics, if they do that — and that video footage becomes something that circulates — it totally backfires.”
“It’s one thing to talk about it, but if you see it," Lahmeyer added, "it will stir a different passion inside of you that will prompt you to action."
However, legal experts caution that Trump's interests would be best served by showing up in court when he's summoned.
“I can understand why he might think forcing New York to have him extradited from Florida might be in his political interest, because it makes it even more of a circus and enable him to spin things as even more of a witch hunt. I get that,” said Case Western Reserve University law professor Jonathan H. Adler.
“But anything he does to attenuate this makes it harder for the legal process to work through the case the way it should… let’s say the DA overcharges, let’s say Bragg is really stretching to make a felony charge and is doing so for political reasons," Adler added. "The outcome you want is for the legal process to reach that conclusion in the ordinary course. What you don’t want is for things to become such a circus that people lose confidence in the legal system’s ability to reach a fair outcome.”
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Mike Pence's 'fundamental miscalculation' about Trump is blowing up in his face: reporter
March 22, 2023
Atlantic reporter McKay Coppins appeared on CNN Wednesday to discuss his recent reporting on Republican voters' views of Mike Pence, and he said it was becoming clear that the former vice president has no constituency within the GOP.
Coppins said that Trump supporters loathed Pence for not throwing out certified presidential election results, while more Trump-skeptical Republicans resent Pence for being so slavishly loyal to Trump for so long.
"I think this was the fundamental miscalculation that Mike Pence made," he said. "He thought that by being incredibly loyal, incredibly willing to cover for Trump to defend Trump to offer fawning praise of Trump throughout his presidency, he would win goodwill with the Trump base."
In reality, argued Coppins, Pence came off to Republican voters of all stripes as an opportunist rather than as someone who could be counted on to do the right thing.
IN OTHER NEWS: Trump reeling after Murdoch media makes 'coordinated effort' to ridicule him: Morning Joe panel
"Voters just don't like that," he said. "They want a candidate who they think is following his gut and doing what he thinks is right and they don't see that when they look at Mike Pence."
Pence has not officially announced a run for the 2024 GOP nomination but he has repeatedly teased an intention to do so.
Watch the video below or at this link.
Mike Pence's 'fundamental miscalculation' about Trump is blowing up in his face www.youtube.com
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Republican Sen. Steve Daines of Montana garnered applause from a room full of bankers on Tuesday after he dismissed calls for tougher regulations following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.
"There are a lot of talking heads out there who are saying that the solution is more regulation, and I strongly disagree," Daines said in remarks to the American Bankers Association's Washington Summit, an annual gathering of bank CEOs and other top executives.
The Montana Republican went on to defend a 2018 law that progressive lawmakers and experts have said is at least partly responsible for the recent bank failures. That measure, known as S.2155, weakened post-financial crisis regulations for banks with between $50 billion and $250 billion in assets, subjecting firms such as SVB—which lobbied for the changes—to less stringent oversight and paving the way for more risk-taking and industry consolidation.
Daines, a member of the Senate Banking Committee and a major recipient of securities industry donations, called the stricter liquidity requirements and other rules gutted by the 2018 law "overreaching regulations" and claimed that efforts to revive the safeguards are creating "more worry" in the banking sector.
"This was not the cause of this failure," Daines said of S.2155, which former President Donald Trump signed into law after it passed with bipartisan support.
Watch the senator's remarks, which begin at the 1:32:04 mark:
It's unsurprising that Daines' defense of S.2155 was received favorably by a gathering of the American Bankers Association, which was one of many industry groups that lobbied aggressively for the measure.
"The lobbyists were everywhere. You couldn't throw an elbow without running into one," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who vocally opposed S.2155, told reporters last week.
Warren and Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) have introduced legislation that would repeal a critical section of the 2018 law.
The Associated Pressreported Tuesday that in the hours before Congress approved the measure, Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.)—one of the legislation's top Democratic supporters—"huddled with executives from Bank of America, Citigroup, Discover, and Wells Fargo, who were there on behalf of the American Bankers Association."
"The American Bankers Association, which helped lead the push, later paid $125,000 for an ad campaign thanking Tester for his role in the bill's passage," the Associated Press noted.
The banking group's PAC spent more than $2.6 million on campaign contributions during the 2018 election cycle, with more than 76% of the donations going to Republicans, according to OpenSecrets.
Daines, who won reelection in 2020, received $10,000 from the American Bankers Association PAC during that year's campaign.
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